Author: phil

     Henry was definitely not the first serial killer movie.  For that, you need to go back to Fritz Lang’s M (1930), maybe further.  But it came out early in the most recent cycle of these films; after Manhunter, (based on the novel  Red Dragon, later re-made as
Red Dragon) but before Silence of the Lambs.  Are you with me so far?  Recently, the TV show Criminal Minds has been a big success, with its serial killer of the week, and  large numbers of reruns shown.

It’s a good show.  You can feel the agony of the good guys, members of the FBI’s BAU team, as they try to feel inside the minds of the murderers they track down.
Yet, good as the show is, watching serial killers hunted over and over on TV does take some of the newness, the shock, away.  Watching this movie, I wished for a time machine to take me back to the pre-Criminal Minds days.

Henry is not the most violent or scariest of these movies (although it is right up near the top). But the movie tells its story with great power. You watch the killers, feeling constant tension, wondering when they will snap and start the violence again.

Because so much of the time, they are on the
edge…walking time bombs.

Yet still you feel empathy for Henry, hearing him
matter-of-factly describe his brutal childhood.  His mother
was a prostitute who forced Henry to watch her have sex, making
him wear a dress while he watched.  And he was likely sexually abused himself.  Not much else you need to know.

Even more, you find yourself rooting for Henry; for him to find love (as we all want to) and to find some way to stop killing.  Do you feel guilty for this?
Of course.  Anyone in their right mind would.  Yet you hear him recount his childhood memories, and watch his tentative moves at kindness and you stop feeling as guilty as  before.

The plot is fairly simple.  Henry and Otis, who met in prison, are both on parole now, sharing a grimy apartment in Chicago.  Henry is quiet and respectful most of the time, but at random moments will suddenly kill, with no remorse.  Then Becky, Otis’ sister, comes north to stay with them, find work and save up some money.  She misses her little girl, but is glad to get away from her
abusive husband.

She likes Henry right away, and he is flattered by her kindness.  Her feelings seem to bring out the best in him.  Meanwhile, Otis’ fury, repressed up till then by drinking and crude, mean humor, begins to break the surface.  Otis dreams of finding the nerve to kill for pleasure.

Henry actually encourages him.  For awhile, they are ideal partners, killing together with great satisfaction, including one devastating home invasion. But Becky’s feelings for Henry make the situation more difficult.  For the first time, you feel serious tension between Henry and Otis.

What gives Henry its power, besides the gore, and the two men’s blindness to the lives they snuff out so easily?  First, the empathy for Henry the movie generates.

Thomas Harris, novelist, and creator of Hannibal Lecter, does make you understand Lecter’s motivations, and those of Francis Dolarhyde (Red Dragon).  You taste the horrors that made them who they are.

For example, the novel Red Dragon shows you Dolarhyde’s doomed struggle to take another road.  A blind woman at his job comes on to him, and is more than satisfied by his first experience making love.  Dolarhyde is obsessed with a piece of art by
the great engraver/poet William Blake, titled  The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed in Sun.
The dragon becomes a lifeforce of sorts for him; it has brought
Dolarhyde his first-ever sense of personal fulfillment, personal
strength.  But it is an insanely jealous, furious totem, one that inspires him to multiple killings.  Dolarhyde has found a cautious sense of happiness with Reba, a woman who feels something comforting in him.  Something he had never guessed
about himself.

Dolarhyde starts to cover the dragon’s image in his house.  He tries to steal an original Blake print from a museum.  When he succeeds, he eats the entire print.  One agent chasing the serial killer figures this. could be the same man.

The agent’s comment is devastatingly simple. “Maybe he’s trying to stop.”

Why am I telling this?  The point is, neither movie version of Red Dragon was able to translate this part of the killer’s struggle.  Both show the sex, but how it changes Dolarhyde is never made clear. Possibly the directors worried about the time this would
have required.

Maybe Henry’s life is less complicated, his conflicts easier to read.  As a result, the scenes with him and Becky have great power, even though you have already seen him kill many times.  Becky, much damaged herself (sexually abused  by her father and by Otis) gives Henry a different view of a woman.  A woman harder to distance himself from, not a blank unknown he looks at behind car windows.

Becky—unexpected innocence despite an abusive past

You may see Becky as hopelessly naïve, even stupid. I see her in another light.

Maybe I’m naïve, but Becky seems to me an individual who has suffered abuse, yet has survived it partially intact.
People can argue that her taste in men is horrible. That is
hard to argue.  Her husband is in jail, charged with murder She tells Henry she loves him.  Enough.

Yet Becky somehow has held onto her faith in
people, though the movie never explains how.  Maybe she had
childhood friends who were good to her, and she spent enough time in their homes to get an idea how healthier families function.
Possibly a minister or schoolteacher cared about her.

Whatever happened, Becky held onto her faith in people.  For a painfully short time, she can reach Henry. You get a glimpse at what Henry could have been, had he gotten any love, years before.  Those few seconds when Becky is ready to
make love…you can read many possibilities in Henry’s eyes.

One is pure fear—he’s never associated sex before with anything but pain.  Second: him not understanding; he’s trying to get the faintest idea what it’s like to be intimate with a woman….one who’s never been unkind, never hurt him.  Third, saddest, a glimmer of hope that he might experience closeness without getting hurt.

Seeing Henry’s vulnerability might make you care about him more than Dolarhyde or Lecter (and no knock on the great actors who played them–Brian Cox, Ralph fiennes, Anthony Hopkins).

Michael Rooker  (Henry), was an unknown then, except to people who had seen him onstage in Chicago.
He has done excellent work ever since (Sea of Love, Rosewood, Music Box, many others) but his performance here
equals any of those.

Michael Rooker as Henry

A scene much earlier hints too that Henry is more than just pure killing machine.  You can’t tell for sure what it proves.  But it may cause you to pray for Henry’s redemption.

In Silence, FBI agent Starling describes the killer this way:  ”

…he’s getting areal taste for it.”  This could describe Otis as well. All he needs is a few small pushes from Henry to join him in killing.

Otis (Tom Towles)—a mean, sleazy outer shell…masking even
worse

Henry is happy to explain how he has avoided being caught.  He takes for granted that Otis shares his value for human life—just slightly more than zero.

The two men break into a comfortable suburban home.  A husband and wife present; they tie the husband up, leaving him lying on the floor; he can’t look away.

Henry has usually done his killings quickly.
Now he watches as Otis, in no hurry, roughs up the wife, tearing off her blouse and bra…enjoying it.  Their son comes home, interrupting them for a second before Henry simply snaps the boy’s neck.  Another quick, cold kill.  The husband manages to
kick Henry; Henry stabs him repeatedly.

You know for sure, Otis wants to rape the wife.   Henry makes it clear to Otis, absolutely not. Otis is not about to confront him.

This scene may remind you of a similar one in
A Clockwork Orange. The film styles look incredibly different…no
big surprise.  What the scenes have in common are home
invaders with no sense of human life…these families are no more than fleas to them.  You don’t want to watch what Otis willl do to this woman.  You knew it would be ugly.

Some therapists who work with hardened criminals say they look for a point where the criminals draw a line.  Some say they will not molest a child, for example, or kill an elderly person.  An attitude like this may indicate that they can eventually  reach this person, hard as that may be.

Maybe this is why you may cling to hope for Henry, even as you call yourself a fool for feeling that way.  Rape is probably something he suffered himself. Knowing this makes his actions that much more powerful.

You don’t want to remind yourself it’s already too late for Henry.  He has taken so many lives already.

For the record, I would never want a real
Henry out walking the streets.  He is simply existing in
another place from most of us—Killing is a non-issue.

Still.  Perhaps this is why we find ourselves praying for him, even while we feel self-contempt for our prayers. The more we search for signs of good in Henry, the more we do it for ourselves.

     Audition begins as a quiet, thoughtful character study.  You may be reminded of Ordinary People, the under-rated late-60’s drama Rachel, Rachel, even a serious variation on  Sleepless in Seattle.  Each with its story of someone trying to make a connection.

It ends with the worst violence most of us ever experienced.  At several premieres, much of the audience walked out on this scene.  It would be a shame if people experienced Audition only as a schlocky exploitation movie.  Or if it angered viewers, unable to accept this much violence—calling it “unjustified,” for
example.  In condemning the movie they would be missing
the many powerful themes that Audition explores.  Less violent themes but equally  ainful.  Only the lonely know.

The day after I watched Audition, a suburban man shot and killed three women in a health club.  His blog was on the Internet by suppertime; full of loneliness, loneliness fermenting to intense
pain; pain and hatred.   Anyone with any imagination can free-associate; think of movies, novels, news stories, songs, even episodes of TV shows sharing these same themes.

The excellent recent drama Little Children; The quiet horror of
child-molester Ronnie’s disastrous blind date. Taxi Driver.  Play Misty for Me.  Eleanor Rigby with its unanswered question; “All the lonely people/Where do they all come from?”

Okay.  What are these major themes overshadowed by the violence to come?  First of all:  When two needy people do find each other, how will they cope with the baggage the other one carries?

What has this new person been doing till now to survive their loneliness?  For many, it’s a scary question.  We want to ask, but desperately fear the answer.  To me, this question of baggage is such a universal one that it continues to fascinate us; intrigue us,
mystify us, frighten us.

A basic plot summary is overdue.  Okay. The story seems straightforward enough…at least at first. You watch Aoyama lose his young wife to illness.  Clearly the marriage was happy, and the couple had been good parents to their young son, Shikehiko.

Seven years pass.  Shikehiko is now a teenager, shy, good- hearted, making the adjustment.  Watching his son grow increasingly independent, Aoyama focuses on his own loneliness. He tells Yoshikawa, his buddy at work, that he feels too old to re-enter the dating scene.

Yoshikawa’s plan is simple but ingenious.  The two men can stage an audition for a TV-movie; both are executives for a major TV network.  Later on they’ll tell the women about financial problems; that the movie probably will never be produced.  But Aoyama will get an “accidental” opportunity to meet an attractive, talented young woman.

Aoyama feels guilty about the deception.  But loneliness can make you do things you don’t feel right about.  His first job; narrow down several dozen resumes to 30.

This scene reveals much more than it appears.  I may be examining it under a microscope, but I feel this is warranted.  One resume makes a deep impression.  The woman’s name is Asami.  Her resume reveals sadness, a willingness to experience disappointment and still make a new start, much vulnerability, sensitivity, and a strong hint of something else which attracts him: neediness.

But be fair.   He is not searching so much for someone in need of him as someone able to identify with the pain he has experienced.  Later on, he will understand more about the power he holds by simply being a man and a TV producer.   For the moment, he is swept up in the possibility of his first romance in years.

In Asami, he senses a woman able to see past money, power and status.  Someone with a life shaped by dreams and deep disappointment; the way he sees himself.  He respects Asami’s awareness and courage.

Is his view of Asami more his own projection than the person she really is?  Probably.  One way the movie hooks us; its use of sad, beautiful music as Aoyama finds Asami’s resume and devours it.  Like Aoyama, we want his projection to be true.

The women who come are poised, attractive, confident,  but ooze a superficial quality, almost emptiness.  By the time Asami shows up, Aoyama is seeing what he wants to see.

Asami waiting her turn

Two themes.  First, Aoyama is moving ahead too fast. Second, he is missing some warning signs, some small, some real creepy.

Many of us know how he feels.  You avoid making The Ten Worst First Date Turn-offs; things go according to plan.  Aoyama phones Asami, identifying himself as “Producer Aoyama.”  (To avoid being too informal, or to underline his status?)  Whichever, he makes a date and is delighted.

Moments later, Yoshikawa calls, telling him that none of Asami’s references check out.  We tell ourselves that Yoshikawa is a cynic, perhaps jealous.  But we get a glimpse of something that Aoyama doesn’t.

Asami’s apartment.  A telephone lies on the floor; it appears to dominate the room.  She looks like she is camped out next to her phone, sleeping near it, like a lost hiker in sub-zero weather, whose only lifeline is a tiny campfire she must protect at all costs.

A large cloth sack lies close by, on the floor.  When the phone rings (not a state-of-the-art buzz or tacky melody, but a loud, old-fashioned ring)…we watch the bag jump.

Secrets Aoyama does not know

And yet the dates go the way we hoped. Asami has a brief, fairly convincing explanation about her (dead end) references—she never stammers, or freezes.  The music changes again; it actually may remind you of the romantic 60’s movie A Man and a Woman.  When Aoyama tells her the movie has been put on hold, Asami takes the news in stride; no signs of irrational anger.  She says she is still glad they met.

Aoyama’s personal tragedy helps him to sympathize with the
disappointments in Asami’s life.

Although Aoyama’s plan to propose marriage to Asami seems too scripted, not spontaneous enough, we don’t fault him much—we may be more like him than we admit.  He takes her to a seaside resort, cold, formal, yet beautiful too.

Nothing comes without a price.  Love, one of life’s treasures, comes with an especially high price. Aoyama abruptly finds his scripting won’t change reality.

Asami takes off all her clothes, gets into bed, asks him to look at her.   One of her thighs has deep scars; she tells him they are from serious burns she got in childhood. Quietly, she says to him, “Love me, only.  Only me.”  In an indirect way, she refers to “others” who failed to keep promises to her.

You may remember the old thriller Play Misty for Me.   How the insane Evelyn (Jessica Walter) twists an interpretation in a line of poetry from Edgar Allan Poe’s beautiful Annabelle Lee

“And this maiden/she lived with no other thought/than to love, and be loved by me.”

into a death threat.

The same themes…what kind of baggage she carries, what has it done to her. The injury that ended her dreams of dancing, possible physical abuse, emotional abuse…who knows what else. All part of her.  Can she  look at the man who loves her now, and not see all the faces of those who’ve hurt her? Aoyama is ready to take the whole risk.  He gets into bed; they make love.

It’s here that Audition leaves Ordinary People territory and heads into horror-movie land.  Aoyama begins to leave his conventional world behind, forced into wilderness better left to Bruce Willis or Tom Cruise.  Dazed, he wakes to a phone call telling him Asami has checked out.  He realizes he has never even known
her address.

Already he knows that most of her resume only yields dead ends.  But other names she mentioned lead him to strange
places.  A ballet academy, now shut down, lights turned off.  A man plays the piano, his smile mean, borderline-sinister.  Suggestions that he was the one who scarred Asami.  He tells Aoyama, “Go home.”

Shaken, Aoyama returns to the safety of his house, and seeks refuge in whiskey.   His past, secure world has suddenly vaporized.  He re-lives that first date with Asami.

He had asked about her family…and had gotten bland,
reassuring answers.  This time, her words are danger signs:
her parents divorced, forcing her to live with an uncle and aunt
who abused her physically. Ballet became her only salvation.

A weird sex fantasy.  But more terrifying—Aoyama finds himself on the floor of Asami’s apartment…next to the sack.  You need to see this for yourself.

Worse is to come. Aoyama on his apartment floor, paralyzed.  In the hallway, his dog lies dead. Asami comes in, dressed in black leather.  She tells Aoyama he is paralyzed but fully able to feel pain.  She begin to torture him.  Never have we seen her face so alive.

In the midst of all this, we might be asking, “But why him?  He’s been such a nice guy.”  The obvious answer (not that there aren’t more)—we want to believe we are like Aoyama.

Of course, there are people who frankly admit, “I’m just looking for pussy (or cock).”

But those people are the exceptions.  We want to think we’re good, decent people, and  seeing Aoyama  get tortured, it hits us that much harder.

Again, many walked out on this scene. Worse, Asami hints that she knows Aoyama’s son will be home soon—and he’s next.

Aoyama is already badly injured when he suddenly wakes—back in the hotel bed with Asami.  She sleeps peacefully, her face beautiful.  Aoyama first looks to see if his injuries are real.  He sees none…but still un-nerved, stumbles into the bathroom to splash his face.

Suddenly Asami stands behind him, asking if he is all right. A subtle difference, an Asami you haven’t seen before.  Not the monster in black leather, not the rather fragile woman he dated.  But a real adult, with real feelings.

She tells him she will answer his proposal; “I accept.”  He’s so devastated he literally doesn’t know what she’s talking about (marriage).

“It’s like a dream.  I’m so happy,” she says.  But possibly, something in him has abruptly changed.  A wall between them.

Back to the torture scene.  (The movie never explains these transitions.) Aoyama’s son walks in; Asami does her best to cripple him.  He runs.  I won’t ruin the ending.

One viewer’s bizarre, yet strangely convincing take on Audition:

Except for the scene where Aoyama wakes up with Asami and looks in panic to see if he’s injured; everything else following the sex scene was his dream, including all the torture.  In other words, the scenes where he wakes up and walks into the bathroom were the exceptions, the only scenes not part of his dream.  Try to splice that together in your mind.

But in the larger picture, exactly what(and when) is a dream is not what counts.   What counts is what we all know…that people got hurt in the past, and may hurt someone else, in proportion to that hurt.   And we may not see far enough into someone we think we love.

Think of the Elton John song, Someone Saved My life Tonight; that bleak snapshot of living with the “princess perched on her electric chair.”  No one wants to be the heartless one, the one who
abandons someone who loves them.  But how painful will it be
to stay?

Audition crystallizes that ultimate nightmare, the absolute worst outcome.  We sit devastated, asking ourselves who the real Asami was.  The subdued, mysterious woman during the dates?  The grinning serial killer in black leather?  Or perhaps the woman with the kind voice and face who asks Aoyama if he is all right, as he stares in the mirror trying to forget his nightmare?  We just don’t know.

The real Asami…or possibly only a bad dream

     

    Audition’s incredible power lies in what we do know; that so many traumatized children grow up, eventually find someone to love them.

Only the one who loves them may find they can’t be fixed.  Some will find a path out of the pain that cut them so deeply.  Plenty will not.  You say to yourself, my heart is a good heart…like Aoyama’s.

But who have you given your heart to?

That is the question that terrifies.  Forget the question of what is a dream, and what was not.  The real terror, either way, is looking deep into someone else’s heart.

     You watch, helpless, as a woman transforms into a mass murderer. You can read her thoughts…it doesn’t take a
mind reader: People are going to grind you into the dirt, .They have done it; they will keep on doing it…unless you
bite back the way they bit you.

If this sounds like a vision of pure Hell, you are pretty close to the mark. Isolated communities sometimes turn more extreme, less stabilized by outside forces. On this Korean island, the woman feels it…every waking moment. Those normalizing forces have disappeared, at least faded into the distance. Not that her family lives in poverty–they have enough of the basics. But her husband’s rage–and abuse…is steadily growing worse. And his family all backs him up, unconditionally.

This woman Bok-nam, continues to dream of someone rescuing her..But none of the occasional visitors to the island offers any help. That leaves one old friend, Hae-won, she is still confident might help her.When Hae-won comes to visit, after years of being away, Bok-nam’s hopes go sky-high.

A WRONG IMPRESSION; BOK-NAM BELIEVES HAE-WON IS BACK TO RESCUE HER

But Hae-won was never really a friend, anyone’s friend. Bok-nam has resisted this truth, painted a rosy-colored picture over it. When Hae-won turns out to be the selfish, passive woman she always was, Bok-nam begins to give in to the darkest, savage parts of herself. Not only are her prayers unanswered,they were mocked. Life not only remained the same; it turned far worse. God, or the Universe, or karma, has turned her life to pure misery–and she will no longer be silent and accept it.

HAE-WON WITH YEON-HEE

People who go to movies for blood-spattered floors and faces will
love this movie…but that doesn’t make it garbage. These characters are not teenagers, talking about high school bullshit, Internet gossip and clothes, till some psychopath begins murdering them. Not even close. Even though you don’t know these actors, you probably will feel you know these characters, the dreams they have given up, the dreams they still hold on to.

You even empathize with Hae-won, when you first meet her–unwilling to take the chance of testifying against some gangsters from her neighborhood. The low-level gangsters make it clear–you talk, we will find ways to hurt you. They are deadly serious, you can see it in their faces. It is simple to watch the movie, tell yourself, What a coward. But in real life, it is easy to rationalize when it is you having to pick them out of a line-up. Of course, the police tell her, We’ll take good care of you…

But they don’t inspire any faith. The huge capitol city of Seoul has such a feeling of desperation you can taste it…like New York City in the late 70’s.

Burn-out, at a high pressure job, and with Seoul in general, is why Hae-won visits the island (she spent time there as a girl.) Seeing Bok-nam never figured into her decision.

Realizing this is a major factor in Bok-nam turning to violence. Many of us might re-wind a story line in our memory–going backwards from where a character kills for the first time. It can be heartbreaking to realize how different their life could have been…if they had made other decisions.

To give one example, watch Aileen Wuornos (Charlize Theron–brilliant) in Monster. Aileen is unmistakably angry and bitter; she would need a lot of time to describe all the abuse she suffered till now. Yet she still has not written off everyone as her enemy. You sense the dreams she held onto: a loving one-to-one relationship, a job that pays the rent, a home to share with a special someone.

The scene where she believes she has taken her first step towards that, in her friendship with Selby (Christina Ricci) is both unexpected and devastating. They make out, blissful, oblivious to the un-romantic ambience outside a bowling alley.  The Journey song Don’t Stop Believing blasts out its beacon of escaping two ugly lives for a new one… fulfillment…of finding our destiny.
Before and after, these realistic scenes show clearly, how unlikely Aileen’s dreams are. But that love scene is realistic too…you won’t forget it, even while you watch her life turn to shit.

Bok-nam held on to some dreams too, for years. The island never had many people; now, less than a dozen remain. Bok-nam’s husband, Man-Jong, believes he was kind and self-sacrificing to marry her. She had a daughter from a previous relationship, yet he took both of them in. In addition, he feels she has always been cold to him…ungrateful…for her, sex is a chore at best. All he asked of her was to work as hard as was realistic in this situation–four other women on the island, all of them old. How could he expect any less?

Man-jong is not someone to let people get the better of him, especially not a worthless wife. That need to stay top dog is probably the main cause of Bok-nam’s next horror. She realizes that Man-jong is molesting her daughter. Her husband’s response–what if I am, bitch? You have nothing to say about that.

MAN AND CHILD

Bok-nam’s response is a testament to her character. She tells Hae-won; if you can’t get me off this island, at least let my daughter go. The movie begins in the brutal world of the city–plunging you into Hae-won’s life first. One advantage in this– you meet Bok-nam for the first time after Hae-won reaches the island, not before. You experience Bok-nam; her humanity surviving her life’s brutality. She doesn’t have to tell you, you can see it. Her happiness in being with her old friend, in showing her around the island, introducing Hae-won to her daughter, Yeon-hee, in taking her to places they knew as girls.

At one of those places, they lie soaked, serene a brief moment in a tiny spring hidden in forest. Bok-nam gently reaches out and touches Hae-won’s breast.  Hae-won, surprised, but not furious, tells her to stop.

Is Bok-nam a lesbian? No reason to think not, but I saw this scene differently. I think Bok-nam is overcome by how much she missed their childhood, and in imagining the freedom in her future—away from this stifling place. Of discovering her own sexuality—whatever that might be. She knows so little about the big city she feels that anything there is possible.

Hae-won barely gives one word of encouragement about Bok-nam leaving with her. But Man-jong is threatened nevertheless by the change in his wife–ready to show he is still in charge. A hooker arrives by boat; Man-jong has sex with her in the house.

Another time, you watch him have sex with Bok-nam…hardly different from rape. He plays a cruel joke on his wife while she is getting honey from a beehive. She is stung several times. His response: put some bean paste on those stings; we need more honey for the guy on the boat tomorrow.

BOK-NAM TAKES THE IMPACT OF MAN-JONG TRYING TO SHOW HIS DOMINANCE

And the four old women, always watching, always ready to back him up in any argument, period. The brutality in Man-jong trickles directly down to them. The toughest, known as Auntie, is always around, with something to say to Bok-nam. Everything is Bok-nam’s fault. She walks up to Bok-nam when the hooker is inside her house, asks her simply, “How can you sit here, listening to her sucking your husband’s cock?”

No empathy intended.  Only this-–get out of here; make yourself useful. Another time, Auntie finds Hae-won talking to Bok-nam’s daughter. She tells her to get off this island, that Yeon-hee is not Man-jong’s biological daughter. In other words: so what’s your problem, bitch?

AUNTIE

The real tragedy begins when Bok-nam tries to escape with her daughter on the next boat out. She has made no plans with Hae-won; she has already lost faith in her. Man-jong is there–no way he will let them leave  And the surest way to convince them–to save face with Hae-won and the old ladies watching–is violence.

I don’t want to give away too much more of the story.  Leave it at this: the escape plan falls apart and Yeon-hee dies.  Bok-nam’s life is changed suddenly, irrevocably.  She has no reason to continue as she was.

NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE.

Incredibly, worse violence is still to come. No major spoilers. You realize–she has crossed the whole spectrum…from the ecstatic woman so full of hope, to now.

Yet after kicking the shit out of you, the movie leaves you with grains of hope. Back home in Seoul again, Hae-won gets a last chance to testify against the same gangsters. Risking her life, she decides to do the right thing.

She finally has learned the price you pay for staying silent. She can never forget the violence she witnessed…but at last, witnessing it has made a difference, changed her.

The horror she experienced has broken through the barrier she built around herself. She realizes now she was never safe–none of us can achieve that, whatever gated community we take ourselves to. We may improve our odds of avoiding violence, true, but “staying out of it, not getting involved” guarantees us nothing.

     Most of the movies I write about, that move me– tend to be unique. But even among those, Peeping Tom is a singular experience…one that will leave you with nagging questions. It also will leave you feeling slimy… and that is no accident.

   Peeping Tom came out at the wrong time and place—England, 1959. Its screenwriter Leo Marks and director Michael Powell realized that making it was a gamble. They paid a heavy price, especially Powell. His directing career in England (long and distinguished) was all but finished. Movie critics in England were highly offended—one actually walked up to Marks after the disastrous premiere and warned him never to do anything like this again. Clearly, critics felt that material like this has no place in
film.

Movies about killers will cut deeper if they make you empathize with the psycho character. Peeping Tom does this well…maybe too well. Another major reason critics attacked it so viciously.

Abuse in your family begets more abuse. That’s clearly a theme in Peeping Tom. The abuse Mark (the title peeping tom) got from his father has turned him into a killer. Only a tiny part of Mark can express his need to be loved.You see again and again that he never learned how to love. Abuse is another story—Mark could write a book about it.

.

Mark’s secret life–before Helen

Another theme you see clearly—identifying with the oppressor. Mark is carrying on his father’s abuse. Mark’s father was a scientist; his field of interest the reaction to fear. He wrote several books on the subject; knew it intimately. Hard as it is to believe, his research centered on Mark. His father taking notes, making
observations, recording Mark’s terror on film.

Now Mark is grown up, his father dead. But he is still obsessed with people’s reaction to fear—any sort of fear. His ultimate compulsion–photograph women experiencing the most frightening moment of their lives—then dying.

That compulsion led him to build his murder weapon. A tripod for an older 16 millimeter movie camera (ironically, a gift from his father) with one leg like a switchblade. A leg that can snap straight out, with razor-sharp metal at its far end. Mark lives for the moments he can film women—as they see the danger first, then understand they are about to die.

You realize right away that Mark is a killer. But Peeping Tom would be creepy even if he had never killed—he has the classic behaviors that get you sent to prison. Staring into people’s windows, stopping to watch couples embrace, listening to conversations in rooms wired for sound. Mark has done all of that. I think many of us have felt similar urges during periods of depression, periods of low self-esteem.

Today, people hear a lot of psychology on TV, radio, the internet. The 1950’s were a different story. That is one reason this movie felt so offensive when it came out. Most of us then did not have those insights. We felt Peeping Tom accused us of perversions, of vile desires at least. That was just what Powell and Marks wanted.

Early in Peeping Tom, Mark goes into work. A respectable-looking tobacco and newspaper shop. The owner dressed conservatively, like a banker or stockbroker. An older gentleman comes in, asking for two traditional daily papers. Then hesitantly, he asks for “views”—British slang for dirty pictures. Carefully, the owner shows him what he has. The man is thrilled; he even forgets his newspapers.

Not only does the owner make a subtle but sleazy remark: “Well he won’t be doing the crossword tonight,” but Powell cast a familiar, sympathetic actor as the customer. A man British audiences felt comfortable with.

You have already seen Mark murder a hooker the night before. Those scenes may make you feel creepy yourself, as much disgusted as you feel scared.

The street is quiet at night. An older whore, her glamorous days behind her. Few dreams left. “It’ll be two quid,” she tells Mark with no expression. He doesn’t say a word, but no surprise on her part. The last things she expects are emotion, sentiment. She starts to undress like she has every other time. Same shit different day.  But she sees something that frightens her, something more frightening as Mark gets closer… Cut to a projector, film rolling.

A story like this can have an added sting if it includes a truly goodhearted character, able to see something good in the monster. Helen Stephens (Anna Massey) is that character. We hope for a miracle; that she can transform Mark.

But you know it is already too late. I don’t know if they used the term “serial killer” then but Mark is already through that door. Sadder still, Helen senses something kind in Mark– not all her imagination. When you first meet her, she seems shallow, good manners and no more. But Helen is more perceptive than she appears. You realize that fast. She wants something better for Mark.

She has lived in the same building as Mark for years, barely exchanging a word. People have warned her that he stares into her window. She bumps into him the night of her birthday and offers him a slice of cake. He is unwilling to join her party but she comes up to his apartment with the cake. To our surprise, he invites her in. He tells Helen his father had owned this building once; he is dead now.

Helen has a naïve side, but she has surprising
self-confidence; a strong sense of who she is. Without an
invitation she enters his darkroom—never dreaming this is the home of Mark’s secret life. She is impressed that Mark is in the film business. Everywhere she looks she sees movie film but Mark says he doesn’t know what to show her. (Ironic. As the old cliché goes, ‘that’s the understatement of the year.’) She tells Mark to show her whatever he was watching before.

Old movie footage. A young boy sleeping, then
woken suddenly by bright lights in his face. Mark tells her the
boy is him. His father shot the film. Helen actually jumps at what
she sees next; a large lizard dropped directly onto the boy’s
blanket, only inches from his face. Not a huge species but
terrifying from the boy’s point of view—so sudden, so close.

Most of us know a few kids–either gifted athletes or just used to springing into action at a moment’s notice. Who could flick the blanket like lightning and send the lizard to the floor. But kids like that are the exceptions; young Mark lies paralyzed with terror.

Radically different reactions to the same film; Helen feels
disgust and anger; Mark–much more complicated

You see a lot happening at once. Helen watches with horror and disgust. Meanwhile Mark has his camera out and begins filming her face. No doubt he is turned on by her expression. It’s too good not to record. He shines bright light into her face too, though she barely notices.

Helen is angry but not at Mark, angry about the film. The child abuse and Mark’s lack of emotion. She speaks for us; you got abused. (She never realizes how turned-on he is, as many of us might not, given the impact of the film.) A strange moment. She may be naïve, but she is totally on target. What the boy experienced is every bit as bad as she thinks.

Meanwhile Mark caresses his camera—he looks like he’s about to come; so excited, so out of breath he can barely speak. “What was he trying to do to you?” Helen asks. The old film goes on; Mark at his mother’s deathbed, then watching an attractive woman stepping onto a beach—a woman his father married soon afterward.

An intense turn-on that only Mark understands

Finally Helen says, let’s get out of here. Mark doesn’t scare her;
it is this film that he shows her so casually.Mark’s reaction is strange. It’s not that he shares Helen’s anger but keeps denying it. Anger simply doesn’t seem part of his make-up. Even when he says he never knew a moment’s privacy as a child, you don’t hear much emotion. He doesn’t try to convince her that his father was a great man…or an abusive man. Just somebody who did what he did.

Mark does say that his father’s research probably helped a lot of people. But that barely registers with him; you realize how cut off he is from the world of psychology. If you don’t know it already, you realize later how absolutely cold Mark’s father was.

Mark is equally cold; a stranger from normal relationships; addicted to his obsessions. The rest of his life an empty shell. Not that what he films is better than sex; it is a no-contest. He felt his father had the upper hand while he was alive. Now, shooting his murders is the only time he has the upper hand. Now I get to be (the all-powerful) daddy.If you know the show Criminal Minds,
you probably remember episodes where the BAU people mention a killer’s growing confidence. Mark has reached that stage. Besides his work in porn, Mark has a technical job at a major studio, working in feature movies. Vivian is an actress with a small part in the movie he is working on.

She is no longer a kid, but still dreams about getting her big break, especially in musicals. Mark seems to be someone who could help her out. Their plan is to use the studio set after everyone else goes home. Then Mark can shoot some footage of Vivian; perhaps she can use it to help her career.

You don’t get to know Vivian enough to care
that much about her. Yet these scenes pull you in—in several
different ways. First, you know Mark is taking a huge chance;
killing where he works. He is breaking the old rule, “Don’t shit
where you eat.” And all his other victims were strangers; if
anything happened to Vivian, Mark is a sure suspect.

Mark is also making a huge jump from the down-and-out women he has killed before. Vivian may have a small role in the movie but she projects confidence and self-assurance. She moves around like she’s saying: here I am, world, just watch me.  Mark is determined to show her (and himself) that he is running the show. Before Vivian ever sees him, he snaps floodlights on, straight into her face, one after the other, blinding her. Finally he reveals himself—on a platform, looking down on her.

For a long while, Vivian believes he is flirting—that this is about, “well let’s see what you’ve got…if you’ve got it, leave it all out there.” A playful game of one-ups-man ship. She has no clue that each time Mark woke in terror, it started with bright light in his face. Now Mark needs his own bright lights to give him the feeling of power necessary to kill.

Powell’s casting of ballerina Moira Shearer (The Red Shoes) adds to the impact. Shearer plays the role like someone ready to put everything she has out there. Someone willing to listen to all Mark’s ideas—to say to him in effect—tell me your wildest ideas, I’m up for it.

Vivian’s confidence in herself actually makes her more
vulnerable–never suspecting what Mark is feeling

She doesn’t know she is heading straight into his trap. That it means nothing to him how she dances, what music she dances to. Mark is miles ahead, adapting his familiar rituals to this new location. Getting set for the inevitable moment he longs for. When he says, show me the most intense emotion you can… and make that emotion fear.

Casting this otherworldly, almost angelic woman, then having her die this way probably infuriated critics even more. But perhaps Powell suspected (correctly I think) that seeing someone with this near-magic aura die this way would jolt you. To put it simply, it would feel wrong to his audiences. It definitely struck me that way; like watching Janet Leigh stabbed to death in Psycho, or hearing that JFK just had his head blown off.

When Vivian’s body is discovered on the film set, Mark can no longer fly under the radar. He knows he is on borrowed time.

   Peeping Tom had the bad luck to come out about the time of some of Hammer Films’ nastiest releases, The Revenge of Frankenstein, The Stranglers of Bombay, for example. Even worse, it was released by the same company which had just produced two entertaining but trashy features, Horrors of the Black Museum and Circus of Horrors.

We all know that movies can be used as escape. To give just one example, you watch Clint Eastwood tell someone exactly where to go…then back it up with his fists or his Magnum 44. Such movies are like a drug.

Perhaps people watching Peeping Tom then, felt this way. That it told them, this time, don’t be The Man With no Name or Dirty Harry
Callahan (Eastwood roles). Be Mark instead. Live inside him for an
hour and forty minutes.

Their reaction: What kind of sick invitation is that? He’s a pervert, for Christ’s sake.    Then worst of all, you saw and remembered Mark’s kind side, that lets him spare Helen from harm, as he promised he would. You want to tell yourself he’s still a sociopath. But you know he is much more than that.