By Molly Haskell
Translator: issac
Proofreading: Easy two three
Source: Movie Review (October 12, 2021)
The time was 1925, and the Burbank brothers were on a cattle ranch in Montana. One of them, Benedict Cumberbatch, dressed in black and wearing boots, walked into a manor house full of polished mahogany, and with thunderous steps he ascended the steps and began barking at his faceless brother. He obviously has a problem, but what is the problem? Could this be a toxic form of masculinity? Considering this is a Jane Campion movie, that's a safe guess.
The Power of Dogs (2021)
This arrogant guy is Phil, who cruelly mocks his gay brother lying in the bathtub. That's George (Jesse Plemont), who is an amiable man. What happens next is not so much a plot as the unfolding of subtext, a one-sided struggle over the gender temperament of the family.
Will George turn it into a hospitable, civilized home (especially after he marries the widow played by Kerstin Dunst), or will Phil use it as a bastion of masculinity—Phil has been proudly refusing to bathe in order to refuse visitors—a temple that pays homage to past gods like Blanco Henry through horns and antlers sticking out of every wall? Rose's son Peter (Curtie Smit-McPhee) is the catalyst that ultimately fuels hostility.
Peter is a pale-skinned, weak boy who wants to protect his mother after his father recently committed suicide. Peter's lack of masculinity and grace was an insult to Phil: when the farmers gathered at Rose's inn for dinner, Peter's paper-flower decoration and servility as a waiter made Phil furious and scream in fear.
From the rich personal and unique feminism of films such as "Piano Lessons", "Sweet Sister" and "Angels at the Table with Me", Campion's films over the past 20 years have moved to a more acute stage. The silent and determined Ada in Piano Lessons is the director's genius, with instinctive affection for the fierce and secretive personality of wayward women.
We watched the girls turn into women before our eyes, clinging to the hidden power and never giving up on everything. Campion's preference tells us to focus on women in an unusual way and accept them in their own way(often in a way that is difficult to explain). Aptly speaking, the film itself is about viewing, gazing, and gazing, usually from an obscured or incomplete perspective.
Piano Lessons (1993) Piano Lessons (1993)
At the beginning of Piano Lessons, Ida, a mute woman played by Holly Hunt, describes her condition through her "voice of the heart" as she gazes through the mysteriously shaking red fingers—the pianist swapping keys for her body to retrieve her lost instrument, her jealous daughter peeking into her and Harvey Keitel through a hole, and the pianist losing a key because of her daughter's heart.
In Sweet Sister, the two sisters look up at the wildly swinging branches and experience a shiver of fear together before they part. In Angels At My Table, young Janet Fromm gazes at a strangely deformed man through her guardian's hand covering her face while traveling on the train. In these films, the picture becomes a ghostly being, embedded in the imagination, like a supernatural creature that determines the fate of man.
Angels At My Table (1990)
In The Power of the Dog, this concern for what is visible to some and invisible to others is cut through mountains with meaning in shape—for Phil and Peter, it's the shape of a devouring dog, and to others, there's no clear shape.
However, this western landscape feels more unnatural and mundane than the setting of Campion's earlier films (and not just because it was actually filmed in New Zealand). In these entrenched stories, the characters and their conflict seem to have grown up in the environment. In this film, Westworld appears to have been borrowed from literature. (In fact, the film is based on Thomas Savage's novel of the same name.) Savage is a western novelist who is quite sought after. ）
The early film reviews were simply rhapsody, and I hoped and expected to enjoy the film, but for me, it reminded me that Campion didn't do particularly well when it came to adapting other people's works. Check out her already problematic "Right in the Middle" with Suzanne Moore, and a less feminist adaptation than Henry James's Portrait of a Lady. Campion's latest Western, doesn't create a sense of mystery, but seems to echo the early films, and filmmakers from John Ford to Seljo Leone. When we hear a man whistling, we expect a harmonica-playing Charles Bronson to appear on the horizon.
Johnny Greenwood's aggressive soundtrack maintains the film's ominous, boiling character, which almost becomes a comical ominous omen. Cumberbatch was a talented actor who almost turned into a nasty, exaggerated character. His hips cocked as he walked, his voice sounded digitally processed—hollow, as if in an echo chamber—and he stood to the side, like a terrifying robot.
He didn't like women, and wasn't exactly "one of the men": he didn't seem to be more comfortable with partying or riding horses with his ranchmates than the high society George introduced. After pursuing and marrying Rose, George took her and Peter to their house.
The atmosphere was already hostile, and George's giving Rose a fancy piano was even worse. Meanwhile, Peter, who is learning to become a doctor like his late father, methodically kills a rabbit in his bedroom for an autopsy. He wasn't exactly the gentle-looking boy.
Next, the war between Rose and Phil was over before it even began. George was shy and reticent, too weak to resist his brother. (In fact, neither brother was good at words, so we were surprised to learn that Phil was studying classical literature at Yale.) Dunst is pale and puzzling, and plays Rose, a thankless character who goes from fear and anxiety to an alcoholic, hiding bottles everywhere in the house.
It reminds me of vigo Mortensen's wife, who she played in Outlaw in the Mediterranean, a film adaptation of Patricia Haysmith's novel, where all the strong emotions come from Mortensen and Oscar Isaac, while Dunst helplessly follows the two men.
Outlaws in the Mediterranean (2014)
It reminds me how similar Canine Force is to Haysmith in terms of evil and cruel immoral temptations, often embodied in gay male relationships and made beautiful through them. Like the bond between Phil and Bronco Henry, as we understand it, it is rarely a physical union, but often expressed through innuendo.
It's better not to think of the film as the realistic treatment of forbidden love in Brokeback Mountain, but rather as an Old Western fable about stories that have never been told, desires that have never been acknowledged, and loners bound by this tenacious character identity. For now, however, the film may be too sleek.
As for who owns this child, this is a victory that is not worth the loss. Phil, under the pretext of wanting Peter to be a man, separated him from Rose, and he taught Peter to ride horses, to make ropes, to be his mentor—and gradually, there were many more things—and the respectable Bronco Henry was for him. Peter learned that Rose disappeared, and there was a hazy encounter in the barn where someone dared to be "naked."
The shocking ending, when it came, was so quiet and indirect that it seemed to be whispered by passers-by. Did it really happen? The really brilliant shot is Phil's self-exposure while bathing in a forest lake (finally!). It's a good thing to look like, but even here, Piano Lessons wins.
One of the most shocking erotic scenes ever filmed isn't Horley Hunt and Harvey Keitel having sex, but peeping at the naked Keitel wiping the piano. This moment, partly exciting, partly mysterious— a seemingly rude person transformed by a twin of art and sexuality.
The Power of the Dog takes a different approach, more pantheistic, perhaps as a tribute to the Greek gods. Phil's body was carefully crafted and cleverly photographed, and his nudity was more like a way of communicating with himself—being naked alone in the lake was the only way this strange man could feel comfortable.