A24: The Religious Experience
It's no secret that A24 Films is single-handedly saving the entire film industry. In a world where the casual action-hero Blockbuster has grossly evolved into a plethora of non-stop comic book movies; a day and age where the cinema is being plagued with an abhorrence of CGI, childish comedy, and formulaic plot, A24 is bringing back the defining essence as to why indie films; any films, when they work, are the breaths of fresh air we moviegoers need in an age of the shitty Blockbuster (though to be fair, the shitty Blockbuster has been around for a while). A24's entire production is making an example of what GOOD content in film looks like. They understand how cinema is supposed to live and breathe among the qualities that allow us to endlessly fall in love with the craft of film; relatable characters; miraculous stories; cognitive depth. In simple, A24 just puts out original content.
Even with the trash they put out (they are responsible for hosting Tusk; yeah, that Kevin Smith walrus movie), A24 is good for at least giving audiences the type of film that's unlike most of what mainstream movies have to offer.
Take a film like Under The Skin for example; a polarizing sci-fi horror-thriller.
Even branding a film so experimentally mesmerizing as Skin under ANY genre just feels wrong. There's just something foreign about bottling a film like that under a title. The film is too weird; too far out. It also transcends those multiple genres allowing it to truly stand out, which is also why it's notable for A24; There's no boundaries in limiting genre anymore.
I mean, look at Swiss Army Man; Daniel Radcliffe plays a farting corpse.
Of course it's an absolute comedy first but it's also a sort of melancholic scope of what it means to be alive in every sense. A24 is breaking down the barriers of defining genre which is why they're so selective about the projects they pick up. There's just a special something about seeing that swooping, vibrant logo that appears before every film; you know you're in for something special.
It's an exciting time for cinema snobs because the production company is giving filmgoers a reason to get excited to go to the movies again. In an age where loud Blockbusters are breaking the box office (and they always will), experimental indie flicks are coming out and they're more eventful than ever before. And unlike many indie flicks which audiences often need to dig through buried reviews and festival selections to discover, A24's films are creating their own franchise simply by flashing their logo. They've made such a strong name for themselves over the last three years alone that they'll get an audience no matter what. They've developed their own cinematic universe and not one with roaring Hulks or cartoonish villains, but with truly developed characters we can connect with (although to be fair, The Hulk has had some good character development in the past).
Even when the content reaches outrageous heights, we walk away with something different; something that sticks, even if we didn't love the final product. I recently delved into the notion of film being like food; the empty calories being easily shit out, the quality content taking time to digest. A24 consumes this entire notion, to the point where folks can't even immediately provide a review or an opinion on the film they just watched, rather than describe their feelings on it. When a film takes more than 24 hours to resonate with moviegoers that film has accomplished its goal, and with films like Ex Machina and The Witch, we don't just walk away saying "That was good," or "That was bad," because there's a complexity to those movies that breaks down the barriers of pigeonholing in film genre. A24 is almost an entire rebellion against the typical genre.
Look at all the backlash against It Comes At Night; a movie that tricked audiences into thinking they were watching a cabin-in-the-woods horror movie, when it was essentially a deeply rooted, human vs. human, paranoia-thriller (while Joel Edgerton implied a lot of spooky things were happening in the woods). Fans were pissed but A24 clearly doesn't care because they're rolling with their own punches no matter how they're criticized.
A24 Films is The Last Jedi of production companies. They show the audience a trailer which feels like one kind of movie, but the final product will turn all audience expectations on their own head. That's why SO many folks are split on both First Reformed, and more so Hereditary, the latest two releases from the behemoth studio. Ironically, those two films are perhaps some of the ballsiest, genre-bulldozing pictures the studio has ever released, making them landmarks for this defining company.
*FULL SPOILERS FOR BOTH FIRST REFORMED AND HEREDITARY AHEAD*
First Reformed and Hereditary would perhaps make for one of the most enticing and emotionally overwhelming double features in recent memory. At first glance one wouldn't think there would be much connection between either of these films at all. One is a talky drama about a priest who's slowly losing his mind; the other about a family that's slowly (and literally) being ripped apart. And yet the connection between these two twisted stories is that religion is an outward basis for the characters who slowly descend into madness.
In fact, one could argue that these two films are the ying-yang to spiritual completion in a human's life journey.
On the one hand, with Reformed, we have Ethan Hawke as the broken Reverend Ernst Toller; a soldier of God; a symbol of hope for a broken world being destroyed by humans. On the other hand, with Hereditary, we have Toni Collette's Annie Graham as the fractured mother of a family which hosts a demonic bloodline; a vessel for a literal agent of hell to break through the world and enslave humanity. Both films explore the humanistic struggle between these two protagonists and their very human notion of fighting against evil, whether one party calls that evil original sin, or the other party declares that evil as Paimon, a demonic king from hell. The link is that both Toller and Annie share grief, whether for a child or for the world, and express pure anguish in fighting the evil that plagues their lives as a result from that grief, both ending up more or less giving into said evil.
What makes both Reformed and Hereditary as exponentially special as they are is that they're disguised as pictures that delve into the supernatural; they explore the depths of heaven and hell and yet they're entirely human pictures; Any of the terror is mere icing on the cake. These films are honest fables about broken people first and that's why they're interesting. What makes them unique is that they're realistic stories with raw emotion that evolve into these semi-psychotic pictures of unspeakable horror; That's what makes them memorable. It's when folks mistake these movies to be what they present themselves as on the surface that begins to split crowds.
Take a look at what's happening with responses to Hereditary. Critics are loving it, audiences are hating it, and everyone's on a quest to discover why that is. In the age of literally living on the internet, there's a lot of immediate ignorance being tossed around in regards to the split controversy of it all. Many folks who love Wan-style jump scares are simply writing off Hereditary as "boring" due to its slow pace and lack of outwardly frightening moments, while the fans who adore the movie's slow-burn terror are quick to call those judgmental fans thick-headed and unable to understand the film's brilliance (though to be fair, I do love James Wan). The reality is that all criticisms aside, this is a film that's got people talking. There are so many layers as to what's going on underneath that even just dubbing the film as "horror" isn't enough. People are branding this as a "psychological thriller" while others see it as a complex family drama which mutates into a horror movie in the last twenty minutes. Like Under The Skin, this is a picture that just wouldn't be appropriate to lump the film's complexities under a singular genre (albeit it very much so is horror first and foremost). And yes, Hereditary is horror but it's not horror in the post-modern way of expectation with cheap jump scares and cued loud noises. If anything at all Hereditary is a purely traditional horror movie in vain of Rosemary's Baby; one that basks in a slow-burn oven, broiling its terror within the audience as it crawls under their skin and creates an uneasy tension that lasts long after the film is over. The film toys with audience expectation and misleads their feelings into a dark crevice; a black hole of disturbing imagery and sickening madness. What's brilliant about these after effects is that so much of the movie explores its human family complexities first, the beginning of all the terror brooding from the moment young Charlie is killed.
One of the most polarizing and surprising aspects to A24's pictures is the misleading marketing. Folks could have picked apart the Hereditary trailer frame by frame and yet NO ONE expected that first-act twist when little Charlie is beheaded during that freak car accident. The promos for the film very specifically painted this child to be odd, creepy and shrouded in mystery, leaving audiences to believe that she would be a central piece of the story, so once her demise happens it's not only unexpected but completely shocking and above else utterly terrifying. In a film that glorifies sacrificial beheading as a symbolism the most genuinely unnerving pieces are the ones that wallow in the family's horrific grief. Save for the fact that the car-accident scene is brilliantly directed and acted as Charlie's older brother Peter stares ahead in horror, unable to turn around to gaze upon his headless sister, it's the dinner table scene which culminates this slow brewing, resentful relationship between Peter and his mother Annie. Hell, even the scene when Annie confesses to her son she wished he was never born received MORE gasps than any actual "horror" moment which says something for the film: It's raw; it's human. What makes the human notions even more horrific is when the audience is dwelling upon this idea that Annie tried to abort Peter as a baby, not because she didn't want him but because she wanted to protect him from her mother; the seemingly second-in-command to Lucifer's will. Sure it all gets literally demonic but the human feelings are real and therefore far more genuinely terrifying than any pagan apparitions or folks beheading themselves.
These films exist in a realm of secrecy, indecency, inner turmoil and the struggle to make sense of the world's pain. In simple, it's all about good people fighting the urge to do bad things. Again, take a look at Rev. Toller in Reformed. Hawke plays a middle-aged man coming to terms with inevitable change in the world he once knew. Toller is a man of tradition in every sense of the word, and his commitment to tradition is ultimately the very result of his demise. Toller's self destruction exists entirely in the notion that he never lets anyone in and therefore never lets his inner demons out. Cedric the Entertainer's Pastor Kyles, owner of a mega church, attempts to pry open Toller; his line "Even a pastor needs a pastor" resonates so profoundly with the explicit reality that everyone is human and can't fight their human battles alone. Hawke's Toller is entirely bottled up and as a result is almost the polar opposite of Hereditary's Annie. Where Collette's character tragically seeks an outlet from literally anyone in order to gain answers to life's horrifying mysteries, Toller literally keeps all of his emotional honesty; all of his demons to himself. The link between these two tragic characters is that they are both desperate for guidance but completely shattered; their worlds impacted by means of the spiritual realm.
One of the most fascinating connection between these films is that very religious world that they exist in; a spiritual realm that swings in two polar opposite directions, one light one dark, while being mitigated by a middle ground that is again entirely human. On the one hand we have Toller, a traditional priest who wants nothing but to inevitably run from religion; a man who narrates and documents journals only to himself in order to settle with his inner-demons. He's a character the broken people look to for answers when in reality he's struggling simply with just being a man of his own original sin. On the other hand, there's Annie, a grief-stricken family woman who's just lost both her mother and her young daughter; a fractured being who is so emotionally lost that she'll trust anyone who will talk her into any form of healing, even if it means opening up the spiritual realm and inviting spirits into her life. Even once her family is plagued with demonic forces, she struggles with just trying to make sense of what's happening in the world.
Look at Rev. Toller's relationship with Mary, the recently widowed Amanda Seyfried. Here's a young, beautiful, innocent woman who's just lost her husband; a man who was all about saving the environment but was also secretly keeping explosives in his garage. Once Toller lets Mary into his life, he forms an undeniable human attraction to her that inevitably takes favor over his spiritual life. Albeit their relationship is the crux of the entire film, it's also the result of Toller going full Travis Bickle and strapping on Mary's dead husband's bomb-vest with a mission to blow up a church full of Godly people.
These are human characters betrayed by human characters. Granted, Mary doesn't outright betray Toller but her mere existence challenges him to betray himself if not the existence of God or anything good and just in the world.
All of these developments point our characters to their tragic endings. We have Rev. Toller who's spent an entire journey documenting his every thought and feeling to both his journal and the audience as he struggles with lust, alcoholism, and the denouncement of God; all of his inner demons. We then have Annie who has gone through emotional turmoil trying to cope with unspeakable loss. She reaches out to anyone for answers and invites anything into her life that will help; her outer demons. These are folks we've grown to connect with entirely on a human scale that by the time religion plays into any part of it all, we're enthralled no matter what happens.
Which is exactly WHY it's so satisfying that both of these films have flat-out stupendous endings.
Toller literally has a bomb-vest strapped on, ready to blow up the church when he peeks out the window to see Mary walk in, although he explicitly tells her not to come. In a moment of pure turmoil, Toller dumps vodka out of his glass and fills it with gasoline. He wraps himself in barbed wire (a close thorned-crown analogy) and prepares to drink the deadly fluid. In walks Mary. Toller drops the glass. The two passionately kiss - CUT TO BLACK (Yeah, a lot of folks won't take to it).
In a literal sense, both films have their characters lose their battles.
On the one hand, Toller, a deemed spiritual man who is about to commit unspeakable horrors; to commit an ungodly act as he has given up on humanity and faith in itself, is ceased by an innocent woman who he makes physical contact with for the first time. At this very moment this is the only thing that matters in his world, so in a sense he gets what he wants but the ending is also ambiguous enough to suggest that their shared kiss never even happened. Did he actually drink the gasoline and the kiss is his dying hallucination? If the kiss was real what happens to them after? What does Toller actually gain? It doesn't matter. The entire film builds to that singular moment so once it takes place the story is over.
On the other hand, Annie loses her entire family and her own life in favor of the return of a literal demon from hell. Her entire existence is part of a spiritual launchpad for evil. She is but a mere doll in Satan's dollhouse (METAPHOR CONFIRMED) Even with the way the entire film results, it can be argued that the cult of Paimon's followers planted every single seed and event in order for this spiritual transfer to take place. Grandma's evil plan worked. Evil literally wins.
But while these pictures are ultimately about self destruction, both films are positively warning signs. Reformed is a piece about trusting human instinct; letting people in, otherwise with only a singular train of negative thought, even the notion of God alone can't save your soul. Hereditary is a dark fable about grief; how to cope with it, and how to resist against the comforts you think you know, even if it's your own family. In a sense, the film is an entire analogy about how destructive family can be, and how important it is to break off and create independence with your own family. Both films are tragic and use religious aspects as a vehicle for very human emotions.
In a sense, A24 Films is perhaps one of the most humanistic film companies to ever exist, at least in the modern day and age, even if it's exploiting religion as a means to tell a coherent story with grounded characters. These are films that we hold on to because they're ballsy; they're dark; they're unafraid to break the plethora of audience expectation. With each film, good or bad, A24 is taking a major risk. They excel what we think we know about genuine story telling and they present purely original content, even if the bone structure of the plots or characters feel familiar. In the realm of just these latest two films, there's a brooding sense of horror in both First Reformed and Hereditary; one horror is just more human, the other in the realm of the fantastic. But as we've said, strip the horror away and we're left with raw characters we relate to. These are films that speak to the soul because they contain layers of human depth. So if you walk into Reformed thinking you're getting a typical priest drama; if you enter Hereditary expecting a gonzo jump-scare fun-house move, you're going to come out severely disappointed.
For everyone else who's ready to be baptized by the holy spirit of A24, there's a little room for religion in all of us.
Thank you, all.
Good night.
HAIL PAIMON!!!
