Review: Sucker Punch
Apr. 10th, 2011 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
4thofelevenWhat to make of a film like this?
What to make of a film that ends up so buried in its own fantasy that the audience, rather than being immersed, ends up feeling locked out?
What to make of a movie where the majority of the characters are so vaguely defined, one can almost miss that there’s no evidence they really exist at all?
What to make of a film that, early on, has a character break the fourth wall to mock the fetish fuel elements, only to then do nothing but wallow in them for the next hour and a half?
Viewed straight, it’s a mess. An occasionally entertaining mess, but a mess nonetheless. The framing plot feels just as, if not even more artificial, than the fantasy sequences. The structure ends up too convoluted for its own good; fantasy within fantasy, most of which seem to have little relevance to even the lower levels of fantasy, let alone ‘reality’ – assuming such a thing is even meant to exist here. In general, my feeling was that they had not just wasted a perfectly good plot, they wasted a dozen perfectly good plots. The asylum framing plot seems to exist purely to provide a grim ending, while the action sequences are both too short to be entertaining sub-stories in their own, while dragging on too long for brief diversions. In general, the film feels less like a coherent story, and more an excuse to throw random ideas at a wall, logic and consistency be damned.
Well, alright, maybe it’s not meant to be viewed straight. Zack Snyder claims it’s a satire, so maybe it’s meant to be an incoherent mess. Maybe there’s something more here. If nothing else, that would explain the title…
So, Snyder claims the film is “a critique on geek culture’s sexism… The girls are in a brothel performing for men in the dark. In the fantasy sequences, the men in the dark are us.” Let’s see how well that works.
Well, actually, that’s interesting, that almost works. The brothel fantasy is just putting a pleasant gloss of paint over the nastiness of the underlying asylum reality. When Babydoll dances, the brothel audience is entranced – and we immediately cut to an action sequence, spectacle entertainment to entrance the cinema audience. The plots of these sequences grow increasingly meaningless, more and more obviously just an excuse to give the audience hot girls in skimpy outfits in ridiculous fight sequences. The fantasy sequences don’t make any sense as part of the imagination of a 1950s teenager, they only work as the fantasies of a twenty-first century film audience.
And there’s other details that work nicely here – the fantasy sequences all begin with the girls being briefed by a male character, an unnamed mentor character. The women are literally just following the orders of a male superior, there’s nothing of their own personality or desires here. And in following these orders, in becoming part of the male fantasies, Babydoll ends up with no choice but to sacrifice herself, to allow herself to be lobotomised – reduced to a character with no agency in the most literal fashion.
Well, that’s fine, that’s clever, that’s an interesting metaphor – that under the spectacle of modern geek entertainment, there’s still the layers and layers of sexism and misogyny. The sucker punch is the audience, expecting a male-gaze friendly action movie with hot chicks, instead gets a film where the underlying reality is lobotomies and abuse of women.
Well, it’s a clever metaphor on paper. In the film, I’m not convinced it comes across in the film. The problems? Well, two main ones. The first comes fairly early in the movie – Sweet Pea, talking about Babydoll’s ‘dance’, says that it’s just empty titillation, it doesn’t say anything about her as a person. It’s all but spelling out the satire – except it ends up breaking the satire. Because Sweet Pea cannot be the voice of female agency. Sweet Pea, who is in the end the only survivor, is also the most passive character in the film – the one who argues repeatedly against Babydoll’s escape plans, who only survives because Babydoll sacrifices herself, who, at the end of the movie seems still dependant on the male mentor figure to survive. If Babydoll’s fate is meant to represent that female agency cannot be achieved through the context of male fantasy, then Sweet Pea cannot represent anything but survival through utter passivity.
The second major problem is various aspects of the ending, which seem designed to undercut most of the film’s bite. We have the main villain gloating over a lobotomised Babydoll, telling her she hasn’t escaped to fantasy, that she’s really still trapped with him – only to have him be dragged away by police a few moments later. Are we meant to then take it that, no, he’s wrong, her escape into fantasy really has had some value? That it was not all in vain after all?
For that matter, what, in the context of Snyder’s claims of satire, is it supposed to mean that the female psychologist, the only female authority character, is one the one hand portrayed as legitimately trying to help the girls, while at the same time helpless to prevent Babydoll’s lobotomy? Why is the male doctor who finally puts the pieces together and uncovers the forged signatures? If female empowerment is a trap within the fantasy and female authority is useless in reality, what on earth is this film trying to say? Is the asylum reality meant to be just as ironic as the fantasies? But then, what on earth is it satirising anymore?
And, of course, there’s the final problem in trying to pull off a satire like this, in trying to bring the cinema audience into your film – what’s the role of the writer in this? Snyder is quite happy to paint the cinema audience as equivalent to the brothel audience in the fantasy, eager to see scantily clad young women dance for our amusement. What’s his role in creating this as entertainment? He’s the one who put the women on stage, who selected their costumes – he’s the one who assumed his audience was there for that and that alone. Can he really hope to satirise entertainment directed purely at the male gaze while still assuming his audience will consist purely of those receptive to such entertainment? And can he really claim the result is anything but another exploitation movie, no matter how ironically it tries to use those tropes?
(I’m reminded slightly of Inglorious Bastards - the German propaganda film scene. The difference is that Tarantino, to his credit, is willing to condemn himself as much as the audience. If the film audience are Nazis, then he’s, at best, Goebbels…)
So, in sum, no matter how you look at it, still an incoherent mess. If there’s a sucker punch here, it’s directed against the audience – but it’s one that’s poorly aimed, and I feel that Snyder ends up doing more collateral damage than he planned due to his clumsiness.
What to make of a film that ends up so buried in its own fantasy that the audience, rather than being immersed, ends up feeling locked out?
What to make of a movie where the majority of the characters are so vaguely defined, one can almost miss that there’s no evidence they really exist at all?
What to make of a film that, early on, has a character break the fourth wall to mock the fetish fuel elements, only to then do nothing but wallow in them for the next hour and a half?
Viewed straight, it’s a mess. An occasionally entertaining mess, but a mess nonetheless. The framing plot feels just as, if not even more artificial, than the fantasy sequences. The structure ends up too convoluted for its own good; fantasy within fantasy, most of which seem to have little relevance to even the lower levels of fantasy, let alone ‘reality’ – assuming such a thing is even meant to exist here. In general, my feeling was that they had not just wasted a perfectly good plot, they wasted a dozen perfectly good plots. The asylum framing plot seems to exist purely to provide a grim ending, while the action sequences are both too short to be entertaining sub-stories in their own, while dragging on too long for brief diversions. In general, the film feels less like a coherent story, and more an excuse to throw random ideas at a wall, logic and consistency be damned.
Well, alright, maybe it’s not meant to be viewed straight. Zack Snyder claims it’s a satire, so maybe it’s meant to be an incoherent mess. Maybe there’s something more here. If nothing else, that would explain the title…
So, Snyder claims the film is “a critique on geek culture’s sexism… The girls are in a brothel performing for men in the dark. In the fantasy sequences, the men in the dark are us.” Let’s see how well that works.
Well, actually, that’s interesting, that almost works. The brothel fantasy is just putting a pleasant gloss of paint over the nastiness of the underlying asylum reality. When Babydoll dances, the brothel audience is entranced – and we immediately cut to an action sequence, spectacle entertainment to entrance the cinema audience. The plots of these sequences grow increasingly meaningless, more and more obviously just an excuse to give the audience hot girls in skimpy outfits in ridiculous fight sequences. The fantasy sequences don’t make any sense as part of the imagination of a 1950s teenager, they only work as the fantasies of a twenty-first century film audience.
And there’s other details that work nicely here – the fantasy sequences all begin with the girls being briefed by a male character, an unnamed mentor character. The women are literally just following the orders of a male superior, there’s nothing of their own personality or desires here. And in following these orders, in becoming part of the male fantasies, Babydoll ends up with no choice but to sacrifice herself, to allow herself to be lobotomised – reduced to a character with no agency in the most literal fashion.
Well, that’s fine, that’s clever, that’s an interesting metaphor – that under the spectacle of modern geek entertainment, there’s still the layers and layers of sexism and misogyny. The sucker punch is the audience, expecting a male-gaze friendly action movie with hot chicks, instead gets a film where the underlying reality is lobotomies and abuse of women.
Well, it’s a clever metaphor on paper. In the film, I’m not convinced it comes across in the film. The problems? Well, two main ones. The first comes fairly early in the movie – Sweet Pea, talking about Babydoll’s ‘dance’, says that it’s just empty titillation, it doesn’t say anything about her as a person. It’s all but spelling out the satire – except it ends up breaking the satire. Because Sweet Pea cannot be the voice of female agency. Sweet Pea, who is in the end the only survivor, is also the most passive character in the film – the one who argues repeatedly against Babydoll’s escape plans, who only survives because Babydoll sacrifices herself, who, at the end of the movie seems still dependant on the male mentor figure to survive. If Babydoll’s fate is meant to represent that female agency cannot be achieved through the context of male fantasy, then Sweet Pea cannot represent anything but survival through utter passivity.
The second major problem is various aspects of the ending, which seem designed to undercut most of the film’s bite. We have the main villain gloating over a lobotomised Babydoll, telling her she hasn’t escaped to fantasy, that she’s really still trapped with him – only to have him be dragged away by police a few moments later. Are we meant to then take it that, no, he’s wrong, her escape into fantasy really has had some value? That it was not all in vain after all?
For that matter, what, in the context of Snyder’s claims of satire, is it supposed to mean that the female psychologist, the only female authority character, is one the one hand portrayed as legitimately trying to help the girls, while at the same time helpless to prevent Babydoll’s lobotomy? Why is the male doctor who finally puts the pieces together and uncovers the forged signatures? If female empowerment is a trap within the fantasy and female authority is useless in reality, what on earth is this film trying to say? Is the asylum reality meant to be just as ironic as the fantasies? But then, what on earth is it satirising anymore?
And, of course, there’s the final problem in trying to pull off a satire like this, in trying to bring the cinema audience into your film – what’s the role of the writer in this? Snyder is quite happy to paint the cinema audience as equivalent to the brothel audience in the fantasy, eager to see scantily clad young women dance for our amusement. What’s his role in creating this as entertainment? He’s the one who put the women on stage, who selected their costumes – he’s the one who assumed his audience was there for that and that alone. Can he really hope to satirise entertainment directed purely at the male gaze while still assuming his audience will consist purely of those receptive to such entertainment? And can he really claim the result is anything but another exploitation movie, no matter how ironically it tries to use those tropes?
(I’m reminded slightly of Inglorious Bastards - the German propaganda film scene. The difference is that Tarantino, to his credit, is willing to condemn himself as much as the audience. If the film audience are Nazis, then he’s, at best, Goebbels…)
So, in sum, no matter how you look at it, still an incoherent mess. If there’s a sucker punch here, it’s directed against the audience – but it’s one that’s poorly aimed, and I feel that Snyder ends up doing more collateral damage than he planned due to his clumsiness.