Safe

For some reason I have been thing about that Todd Haynes movie, Safe. For many years I thought that movie was pretty much flawless. It's such a subtle movie and Julianne Moore the perfect subtle actress to deliver the performance of a hysterical middle class woman. The plot moves so slow, like the Charles Ray still life, Tabletop, it's almost imperceptible. Yet, at the same time, it is tricky. We are pushed along until the end of the film, when the housewife, Carol, as played by Julianne Moore, has completely removed herself from society, her family, and all the expected responsibilities of being a mom, a wife, and having an upper class pedigree.



One of my favorite scenes is in the beginning. She has this expansive white living room and has just ordered couches. But when the couches are delivered they come in stark black instead of white. It's the first sign that something is about to crack in her comfortable life. At first, when she becomes ill from all the environmental toxins around her: the couch, the cleaners, the hair products, the pollution, one empathizes with her. Yes, our lives are so full of bad shit over which we have little control; this can't be healthy for us! But then she becomes more fragile to the elements, more extreme in protecting herself from modernity, and eventually bows out completely. She cannot partake of modern civilization without becoming ill and to remove herself completely from those poisons, she must basically seal herself in a bubble. Which, in many ways was where she started in the beginning: safely ensconced in her suburban middle class life.

When I watch it, I just think how perfectly executed it is. There is even one of those Shining moments when the camera is dollying out on the character and zooming in at the same time. It's a super long take of Carol and once again, you can barely tell it's happening. But it successfully conveys that warbly feeling. The whole film is like a long unraveling and you have no idea where Haynes is taking you. I studied that film over and over in film school and always saw something new in it. Which reminds me there are a few more recent Todd Haynes' films I haven't even seen yet.