The Holy Girl

                This movie had very minimalistic camera movement. About halfway through this movie I noticed that I could count the times the camera moved from its initial shot angle or direction on one hand. This allows the viewer to feel almost as if they are watching through a security camera of sorts. This makes the story feel more real to the audience. This movie addresses the side of a story that is rarely seen or talked about. Here we have a young girl who is approached and inappropriately touched by an older man. The girl, instead of seeing this as a scarring moment in her life, sees it as an opportunity to save this man. The girl is currently in catholic lessons in which they are addressing the topic of vocations and how and when someone is called to their vocation. This girl sees the man who molested her as someone who is broken and needs fixing. Also, being a young teenager she is just learning about her own sexuality which makes her curious. But her idea of saving him is not right. She attempts to make more advances on this man, encouraging him to take further steps with her. She is curious about sexuality and thinks it is her calling to become involved with this man. Fortunately, Dr. Jano sees his wrong doing and does not give into her advances towards him. He removes himself from temptation. Amelia goes from being the victim, to being the victimizer. This is a story that is rarely seen in film. Young Amelia takes pity upon the man who attempted to molest her. She confides in her friend, but assures her that she does not want Dr. Jano to get in trouble. She must take it upon herself to save him from himself. In most stories and even in life, the molested wants to seek revenge upon their molester so that they can know the pain they were put through. Instead Amelia wants to help the very man who victimized her.

Babadook

I felt like there was definitely a strong correlation between horror and gender in the first half of this movie. I felt that once the mother became possessed by Babadook the movie lost the correlation between gender and horror and became almost funny to me at times. But I felt the beginning of the movie was very effective for multiple reasons. Because the mother is a single mother of a young boy there is a feeling of helplessness that makes the future terrors in the movie seem inevitable. When a father passes away, the role of "man of the family" usually falls to the eldest son. This person takes on the responsibility of provider and protector of the family. Unfortunately for the mother, her eldest and only son is a young helpless boy. Instead of providing comfort and safety, the boy seems as more of a burden for the mother. Also, women are stereotypically seen as the weaker sex, and therefore in need of protection from the stronger sex, males. So here is this single mother, defenseless, unable to protect herself. This provides the viewer with a feeling off helplessness and an inability to control and or change the undesirable path that you are headed down. The young boy attempts to help protect the mother through his own inventions, a crossbow that shoots a dart, firecrackers (not his own invention), and a catapult that launches a softball. All these "weapons" prove to merely be a hindrance to the danger he is faced with later in the film, once again proving that a young little boy is unable to protect his mother or even himself for that matter. The mother is essentially presented as a "damsel in distress" who has no prince charming coming to save her on his big white horse in his shiny silver armor. She is up shit creek without a paddle.

Dogtooth

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.