The Witch

Started by jenkins, August 19, 2015, 03:16:39 PM

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jenkins

the last horror fantasy movie i saw with this tonal ambition was The Skin I Live In, which movie is basically unrelated to a conversation about The VVitch. i think the beginning is very, very at least subconsciously influenced by TWBB, i kept whispering The White Ribbon in my head, and this movie makes me want to mention movies. i think he fucking slamdunks. it's absurd, really, i mean, more than enterprise happened here. A24 as the Golden State Warriors, Robert Eggers is Stephen Curry. i think he nailed the dialect three-pointers. and the entire movie is worth the witch flying into the moon alone. the end of this movie might be worth ten other movies. it's the best witch movie ending since The Craft. and it took some "direction" to get everyone moving into this movie feeling as it did, Eggers did it, he wrote it, the whole team delivered, and it's by far the most serious and respectable horror fantasy movie i've seen in a fucking blue moon and a half, which is exactly when they tend to come. i forgot to mention some things. i remember something: you couldn't put it all on paper. this one's only for the screen, and it took all the gears grinding together to put it up there. and i keep wanting to say "represent."

wilder


jenkins

saw it again so maybe i wouldn't buy the blu-ray but that's not even going to work because the movie's so good seriously.

imdb's quote section for this movie sure could spice itself up. the opening scene is top shelf. about his conscience and being glad to leave. then there's like crystal cinema for the next fifteen minutes. pure and beautiful stuff. then there's a flawless conversation about only God deciding who's good and who's bad. then there's the kids skipping around singing about Black Phillip. Black Phillip, what a hoot. then some other things including that great onamonapia from the kid in that sequence when the other kid says she's a witch, but she's being sassy.

that's my example of how i enjoy remembering the movie and would watch it again again. because i like how it composes itself.

Alexandro

KIND OF SPOILERS

I am in awe of this movie. The acting of all the kids left me shaking my head and thinking "how? how did they do it?" The tension throughout, and the uneasiness which can only be achieved not by jump scares and shocking images, but by all the things unsaid which you can feel are looking at you from the screen: the sexual implications, the hypocrisy, the ambivalence inside the main character's spirit, which is never laid out fully but then EXPLODES by the end.

I dont think there is one bad shot or moment in the whole film, nothing gratituos. And once it's over it stops being a horror film and becomes a fascinating illustration of sexual awakening, liberation and acceptance. And it's so beautiful to look at and experience that you want to see it again and inmerse in it. It's that kind of film, where the colors and the sounds are so enjoyable, even if what's being shown is horrific, that you can see it again and bathe in it.

jenkins

Quote from: Alexandro on April 19, 2016, 09:16:30 AM
And once it's over it stops being a horror film and becomes a fascinating illustration of sexual awakening, liberation and acceptance.

this quote is a keeper

Jeremy Blackman

I would actually compare The Witch to Under the Skin. This was mostly a misfire for me, and in almost exactly the same way. It has these very beautiful, transcendent, cinematic moments of supernatural horror... which fail to resonate into the rest of the movie. I found myself sort of patiently waiting for another one, watching this other story play out, attentively decoding their period syntax. The film tries to use the colonial realism to make those moments especially startling, but this method backfires. The otherworldly scenes feel all the more alien, dreamlike, and incongruous.

Which is to say, crucially, the atmosphere didn't work. Dread decidedly did not permeate my experience. This is no Antichrist. (Although boy does it want to be.)

I'm sure there are biases at play. I have trouble being scared by things I have 0% belief in, like demons or evil spirits. To the extent that I enjoy horror movies, I need something else. Blair Witch worked for me, and actually scared me (in the theater), because it was about being lost in the woods. When I saw the witch in this movie, it was more like, okay there's a magic thing. And it could basically do anything to any character, because no rules are being established.

I agree that the subtext is smart and worthwhile. But like Under the Skin, the film certainly spends a lot of its time on other things.

jenkins

so, i'm building a sturdy track record in this regard: i support you not liking the movie jb. specifically, from the perspective of a movie being between the screen and the person. it's not about facts, it's not about meaning, it's not about imagination or reality, it's about the feeling the movie gives you. and frankly i've had and heard the feels at least enough to know that an inclusive, expansive movie conversation runs the normal human spectrum, across our condition, the beast of art our condition's nature, and i adore this from a multitudinous perspective. also both times i've seen The Witch i've dozed off toward the middle-end of the second act, and i fully support both Under the Skin and Antichrist in the same way, meaning i'm actually chill on both, but i have fond memories of them, and a future mystery of what feelings i have and allow the movies to access within me the next time i watch them.

diggler

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on May 12, 2016, 12:17:56 AM
When I saw the witch in this movie, it was more like, okay there's a magic thing. And it could basically do anything to any character, because no rules are being established.

I enjoyed the movie quite a bit but this is one thing that worked against it. The mystery of what happens in the woods is scary enough and would've been enough to grab me without those scenes.
I'm not racist, I'm just slutty