[movie review] regarding Sucker Punch
I feel like I should do a whole review of it, but it was like ... Charlie's Angels meets Inception meets Kill Bill meets anime/fantasy/zombies/cyberpunk meets [body] horror.
I'm not sure how I felt about this movie thematically. Taking place in some kind of ill-defined time period - maybe the 50's? - Baby Doll's stepfather murders her little sister in a rage and then blames it on Baby Doll, so she gets sent to an insane asylum, where five days later she's going to be lobotomized (which enables the stepfather to gain control of the deceased mother's inheritance, natch). Scene switch and now the mental asylum is a brothel, Baby Doll is an orphan, and she's about to be sold to the High Roller for sex. In order to escape her fate, she must find a way to escape the brothel with the help of four other girls. Fortunately, Baby Doll's dancing is so intensely hypnotic that anybody who's watching it forgets the outside world, which provides the perfect distraction for stealing the things Baby Doll and the others need to escape.
We never see Baby Doll dance; to her, dance is a battle. During her dances we go into her mind, where the entire performance is a fantasy sequence of her and her allies fighting samurai armor, Nazi zombies, orcs and dragons, and cyperpunk robots.
So I find this movie slightly disturbing tonally. The brothel setting is a typical demonizing of the sex industry while at the same time catering to the trope(s) of it - the girls are unwilling but cope, Baby Doll is dressed in a sexualized Catholic schoolgirl's uniform, etc. Additionally, while there was an Asian chick and a Hispanic/Indian (I'm sorry, I'm not entirely certain of her ethnicity) girl on the 'hero' team, neither of them were ever developed beyond being brave enough to try to escape the brothel, which was glaring given Sweet Pea and Rocket's further characterization. Blondie (the darker-skinned girl) was the one who accidentally gave the game away; the Asian girl was the first one intentionally killed, and it was brutal. There's also the sexual violence done to women, which never goes too far and is condemned but was uncomfortable to watch. I wonder: if any of them had been willing participants in their sexual practice, would unwanted approaches have still been demonized? Also, while I loved the man giving advice in Baby Doll's head, the feminist part of me thought 'why does it have to be a guy giving the advice'? Although it's interesting that to Baby Doll, a comforting, guiding figure is a grandpa-like character.
That being said, there was some really interesting deconstruction/subversion going on on the sexualization front. This movie isn't about GRRL POWER (which I thought from the posters), but despite being set in a brothel with a bunch of victimized chicks, the fantasy sequences - which are taking place while Baby Doll is doing a titillating dance - is violence done entirely by women on fantasy objects which are, in a generalized sense, men (Nazi German zombie soldiers, cyperpunk robots with masculine structures, Orcs, which are all male, and samurai armor). It's an interesting case of a woman owning her sexuality, using it to her own purposes. Without spoiling the end of the movie, the woman who has been compliant with all of the 'evil' going on while being a victim herself is the one that puts the final nail in the coffin of the bad guy, which was deeply satisfying.
There's a great twist at the end which I appreciated, mostly because it was brilliantly hinted at at the beginning of the movie, and the ending is emotionally satisfying even if I totally did not get the opening and closing monologues. There's a bit of body horror, but despite an overall theme of sexual victimization the violence, both sexual and physical, is mostly cartoony. Overall, it was visually interesting and had me thinking a lot about women.
Okay, so I did have a lot to say about it. But more importantly:
I wanna dress up as this chick.
I'm not sure how I felt about this movie thematically. Taking place in some kind of ill-defined time period - maybe the 50's? - Baby Doll's stepfather murders her little sister in a rage and then blames it on Baby Doll, so she gets sent to an insane asylum, where five days later she's going to be lobotomized (which enables the stepfather to gain control of the deceased mother's inheritance, natch). Scene switch and now the mental asylum is a brothel, Baby Doll is an orphan, and she's about to be sold to the High Roller for sex. In order to escape her fate, she must find a way to escape the brothel with the help of four other girls. Fortunately, Baby Doll's dancing is so intensely hypnotic that anybody who's watching it forgets the outside world, which provides the perfect distraction for stealing the things Baby Doll and the others need to escape.
We never see Baby Doll dance; to her, dance is a battle. During her dances we go into her mind, where the entire performance is a fantasy sequence of her and her allies fighting samurai armor, Nazi zombies, orcs and dragons, and cyperpunk robots.
So I find this movie slightly disturbing tonally. The brothel setting is a typical demonizing of the sex industry while at the same time catering to the trope(s) of it - the girls are unwilling but cope, Baby Doll is dressed in a sexualized Catholic schoolgirl's uniform, etc. Additionally, while there was an Asian chick and a Hispanic/Indian (I'm sorry, I'm not entirely certain of her ethnicity) girl on the 'hero' team, neither of them were ever developed beyond being brave enough to try to escape the brothel, which was glaring given Sweet Pea and Rocket's further characterization. Blondie (the darker-skinned girl) was the one who accidentally gave the game away; the Asian girl was the first one intentionally killed, and it was brutal. There's also the sexual violence done to women, which never goes too far and is condemned but was uncomfortable to watch. I wonder: if any of them had been willing participants in their sexual practice, would unwanted approaches have still been demonized? Also, while I loved the man giving advice in Baby Doll's head, the feminist part of me thought 'why does it have to be a guy giving the advice'? Although it's interesting that to Baby Doll, a comforting, guiding figure is a grandpa-like character.
That being said, there was some really interesting deconstruction/subversion going on on the sexualization front. This movie isn't about GRRL POWER (which I thought from the posters), but despite being set in a brothel with a bunch of victimized chicks, the fantasy sequences - which are taking place while Baby Doll is doing a titillating dance - is violence done entirely by women on fantasy objects which are, in a generalized sense, men (Nazi German zombie soldiers, cyperpunk robots with masculine structures, Orcs, which are all male, and samurai armor). It's an interesting case of a woman owning her sexuality, using it to her own purposes. Without spoiling the end of the movie, the woman who has been compliant with all of the 'evil' going on while being a victim herself is the one that puts the final nail in the coffin of the bad guy, which was deeply satisfying.
There's a great twist at the end which I appreciated, mostly because it was brilliantly hinted at at the beginning of the movie, and the ending is emotionally satisfying even if I totally did not get the opening and closing monologues. There's a bit of body horror, but despite an overall theme of sexual victimization the violence, both sexual and physical, is mostly cartoony. Overall, it was visually interesting and had me thinking a lot about women.
Okay, so I did have a lot to say about it. But more importantly:
I wanna dress up as this chick.