 |
|
|
|
by Vera Brozzoni Vera Brozzoni examines the ‘Pied Piper Syndrome’ in three upcoming blockbusters… Take a look at recent film releases – Superheroes! Romcoms! Cartoons! As summercomes our way, cinema is awoken from hibernation and sports its most vivid colours. But there is a stain in this idyllic scenery, a small stain that started to spread last year with the release of the two thrillers The Forgotten by Joseph Ruben and Flightplan by Robert Schwentke. Albeit different in style and quality, the first being way more confused and patched up than the latter, both films had a common theme: a missing child.
In The Forgotten the character of Sam is erased twice from the picture: right from the start of the film, the kid has already died in a plane crash a few years before. But the action kicks off with Sam’s second vanishing, as he is stolen from the most inaccessible cliff: the collective memory of his family and friends. It’s up to his mother Telly (Julianne Moore) to rescue his remembrance from the evil plans of the villain. In a similar way, Flightplan protagonist Kyle (Jodie Foster) loses her daughter in an apparently impossible situation – on a plane, during a flight from Berlin to NY - then must face the fact that nobody on that plane remembers having ever seen the little girl. In recent months the rank of missing children was rapidly, worryingly enriched by the likes of Freedomland by Joe Roth (former producer of The Forgotten – it can’t be coincidence), Silent Hill by Christophe Gans, adapted from a videogame, and The Dark by John Fawcett. The three stories are closely alike: deep down in the USA, Brenda (the same poor wretched Julianne Moore) has her son vanished, probably kidnapped, in a place ironically called Freedomland. Meanwhile, Rose (Radha Mitchell) stumbles into the cursed village of Silent Hill while driving with her sick daughter, who disappears from her mum’s car after a minor accident. Back in Europe, in The Dark, Adele’s (Maria Bello) daughter drowns in the waves of Northern England, but a ghost of a little girl claims she’s not dead and is waiting to be rescued.
Now, why are screenwriters and directors suddenly featuring the same theme? This is not the usual “child-in-danger cliche” - as I will explain later, this is the state of the art “mother-in-charge cliche”. Surely this mirrors a hidden, irrational, hopefully unjustified fear. At first glance, it’s easy to analyse: families aren’t safe anymore, love and protection have no power against an Evil that creeps in to steal the weakest elements of society. We know that. Centuries of fairy-tales and mythological monsters taught us. But at this point, losing our kids is not longer a mere private family matter – when it becomes such a common obsession, it means that it hurts deeper. It symbolises the fear of losing our future. Is it the terrorist menace? Is it the increasing difficulty of building up emotional ties in our alienated society? Is it some other old hackneyed story? Whatever the reason, these films address an audience that seems to live in what can be called the “Pied Piper Syndrome”. It’s akin to the mix of despair and fear that haunted the inhabitants of the little Canadian community in The Sweet Hereafter by Atom Egoyan, after a schoolbus accident bereaved them of all their kids. It’s the proof that our society isn’t able to provide a solid place to raise kids. Our future is as transient and volatile as our past. It’s curiously remarkable that Joseph Ruben (The Forgotten) in 1993 had helmed The Good Son, starring Macaulay Culkin as a psychopath young boy that hides his nature under an angel face. John Fawcett (The Dark), on the other side, in 2000 directed Ginger Snaps, a teenage girls/werewolves horror flick. In both cases, their stories of problematic youngsters have turned into stories of missing youngsters – in any case, the new generations are a serious concern. But whereas in the past adults were scared by them, now they have simply disappeared. And they demand the adults to find them, save them, take them back to the normal world. Take a look at the taglines to the three new films: Freedomland – “Every road leads to Freedomland”. Silent Hill – “In this world, once you enter there is no turning back”. The Dark – “How far would you go to cheat death?” Apart from being traditionally mysterious, thrilling slogans, all three of them bring up the idea of movement – the hero must go somewhere and save the day. Who is the hero, then? Is it a flamboyant knight on a wild-eyed horse? Is it Prince Charmant? No. It’s a brand new hero called Mummy.
Remember Poltergeist: the whole Freeling family gathered around the cursed TV screen to save little Carol-Anne. Remember The Exorcist: Mrs McNeil had to call Father Merrin in order to exorcise her daughter Regan. But by the late 1990s the role of women within the family has dramatically changed and cinema has carefully witnessed it. The number of single mothers has rapidly increased, whereas men’s strong identity as husbands and fathers has been weakened. That’s what made it possible to create films like The Ring and The Ring 2: in both features, the solution of the mess – oops, of the mystery - weighs on Rachel’s (Naomi Watts) shoulders alone. Her male helpers are actually good for nothing and die horribly without affecting the scripts. Similarly, in the three films analysed here, mothers and women in general are the real heroes. When Brenda loses her son in Freedomland, detective Lorenzo (Samuel L. Jackson) finds himself powerless and must accept the aid of two sort-of clairvoyant women (Edie Falco and Awnjanue Ellis). Rose of Silent Hill runs up and down to find her kid with the help of cop Cybil (Laurie Holden). Adele in The Dark struggles to find out the truth about her drowned daughter through the hints of a ghost girl, while ex-husband James (Sean Bean) stands there and does nothing useful. The case of Silent Hill is unusual: as scriptwriter Roger Avary testifies, director Christophe Gans wanted “to make a movie with no men and have sexy women everywhere”. Yet this is not enough to justify the huge responsibility that female characters must face all by themselves. The coded message sounds: the safety of the future depends on Mothers. Fathers are kindly asked to move aside – in fact they already did. It’s perhaps too early to understand what change in society is signified by this message. Is it a praise to motherly instinct and the power of motherly love? Is it pseudo-feminism? Or a return to traditionalism in disguise? After all, in this context women are more than ever seen as Defenders of the Family – not exactly a modern idea. For sure, since men abdicated their strong role a substitute must be immediately found, and the only choice is handing the baton to women. But in my opinion it’s still unclear how this shift of power can really do good to the balance of sexes or can entrap women in a new scheme they have only in part chosen. Future will tell. Films will tell.
|
See Also:
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
