Garland's biggest risk to date.
70/100
Original Release: 2022
Directed By: Alex Garland
Cast: Jesse Buckley, Rory Kinnear, Paapa Essiedu
Favourite Quote:
“I have decided that you are an expert in carnality. Someone who has explored all the things that they can do, and have done to them. These things now exist in my mind. This is your power. This is the control that you exert.”
Favourite Shot:
Alex Garland’s third film Men has received a vast majority of negative criticism. Reviewers have labeled it too vague, misogynistic, pretentious, unwatchable and too obvious. And these are all valid opinions that can be argued.
Personally I feel as though it has been judged too quickly, and unfairly, by film viewers who seem to have already made up their mind about the film before they went to see it.
I did not love Men by any stretch of the imagination. I thought it was pretentious at times, underwritten and inconsistent in tone and pacing.
But I have seen it twice now and I do believe the film is a passionate piece of filmmaking by a director who was interested in merging many different ideas together to inspire a reaction. Which I believe he successfully accomplishes.
Men is more a film of ideas than a film of story. It begins with our main character, Harper (Jesse Buckley), on her way to a large house out in the countryside. It isn’t long before we realise she is there in an attempt to escape the memories of her husband’s (Paapa Essiedu) suicide.
This first segment is filled with meditative shots of the English countryside, with a focus on nature that we’re used to from Garland. It is very slow.
Men is not without its imperfections, but I believe it has been misunderstood and judged unfairly. The film is an exploration and merging of various related and unrelated ideas that is meant to provoke the audience and it is the biggest risk of Garland’s career to date.
Harper does a lot of walking around, facetiming her friend, playing the piano. It’s not much to get excited about. But something about the way Garland uses the camera makes it very eerie.
At times it seems almost amateurish and it’s as if he is purposefully finding the conventional way of shooting a scene and shooting it oppositely to create this haunting atmosphere.
What also helps is the continued flashbacks to Harper’s memory of her husband falling to his death as she watches from her apartment.
The flashbacks to this moment are a highlight of the film. They are shot with a strange and horrible beauty and feature some great performances and writing.
The first scene where something really happens in the present is when the naked man, or the green man, (Rory Kinnear) shows up at the end of an abandoned train tunnel.
There is a great sequence where Harper sings into the tunnel, listening to the echoes. Before we see the outline of a man seemingly appearing from nowhere.
From here there are various incidents involving Harper and men all played by Rory Kinnear. They are all irritating scenes that make you feel a little disgusting.
A highlight scene is when Harper walks into a pub and there are five men there. They all treat her so differently than they treat each other. As though she is a different species (and having them all played by Kinnear elevates this).
Personally, as a man, I felt it really tried to capture the feeling of loneliness that women can have in a room full of men.
It is a feeling that I have never had surrounded by women and whether this is close at all to the feeling women have when they are surrounded by men I can’t know, but it certainly made me aware of it and provoked thoughts and ideas.
Garland does a great job at just building this unease between Harper and the men around her through these small interactions.
Harper is not a well written character. She is more just a vessel to experience this film through in my opinion. And this could be lazy writing. But in my opinion the film isn’t meant to be a female empowerment film.
It is more just a mirror for men to be able to view their actions with. I can imagine men watching this film and feeling a little awkward when they realise they can relate slightly to some of the behaviour in this film.
I also think that Garland didn’t have a certain point in mind when he was making this film. A lot of reviews I have read seem to think he tried to make a point and failed. But I believe the film is more subtle than people are giving it credit for and there is a lot that he leaves up to interpretation.
There are certainly many issues with the film. Once again Garland doesn’t have any really engaging and complex characters (but I can look past this because it is more of a film about ideas).
It has a lot of his textbook cringey dialogue, which is most definitely on the nose at times (the scene with the vicar and Harper in the bathroom is a huge highlight though).
The various scenes of Harper talking through FaceTime with her best friend feel out of place. And the weird unexplained connection issues she has with her phone just don’t need to be there.
The film also gets increasingly surreal toward the end which I enjoy, but I feel as if he could’ve grounded it a little more as it disrupts the tone and pacing.
The ending is gory, intense, unexpected, original and has entered my shower thoughts on many occasions. The images are viceral, horrific and thought provoking.
Could it be about the cycle of bad men creating more bad men? Or about the horror that women inflict upon their bodies to birth men? Or is it simply an image that Garland wanted to create because it produced a reaction inside him?
I believe it’s all these things and more.
Men is not without its imperfections, but I believe it has been misunderstood and judged unfairly. The film is an exploration and merging of various related and unrelated ideas that is meant to provoke the audience and it is the biggest risk of Garland’s career to date.
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