Venice Review: Mia Goth in Ti West’s ‘Pearl’

What will happen to Pearl? Many things, as explained in Ti West’s delightfully sweet postscript for her spring debut. xAn elderly farmer and his wife are brutally attacked while filming porn in their barn by a film crew in the 1970s. Unusually for a horror movie, x He has the same actress Mia Goth as the last murder (Pearl, the psychotic farmer’s wife) and the last girl (sex movie star Maxine), and this clever, almost obscenely rushed prequel explains why. .

pearlOut of competition at the Venice Film Festival, this is the rare sequel to a horror series that explores the original creature in new and ingenious ways, keeping in mind audiences’ core expectations from the previous film.

First, rapid deviations in direction. x And T. West movies in general: West has an almost forensic track record of what a period movie should be, a talent that was fully showcased in 2009’s vile video. devil’s houseAnd even more ingeniously in Jim Jones’ creepy 2013 naturalist hidden. However, the West also updates itself by reflecting and thinking. x It does a very effective job of reminding us that the 1970s was a time of splits: the killers in the first wave of movies were often sultry, asexual, and infuriated by the sensuality of the younger generation, a more representative disconnect in reality. more conservative film industry than in real life. moving stars x However, she meets her rival in the sexually predatory pearl, a dark subversion of the vengeful old lady stereotype she has established. Psychopath.

pearlSo it’s an origin story that unfolds with a dark and comic inevitability when the naive wife of a soldier watched in Hollywood tries to escape her miserable life on her family’s farm and only get there. It begins in 1918 amid the Spanish flu epidemic, but it’s Pearl’s style of escapism from the Depression-era of the 1930s, when she dreams of living as a ballerina on the big screen while stranded at home with her strict German mother (Tandie Wright). and the paralyzed father (Matthew Sunderland) who watches events with the icy dread befitting Emile Zola teresa raquin (or Park Chan-wook Thirstfor final reference).

Pearl sings and dances for farm animals named Charlie and Mary after the stars of her favorite United Artist silent films, and sneaks into a movie theater on a trip to the city to buy morphine for her father. mechanic (David Corenswet) opens the door to a new bohemian lifestyle.

These scenes reveal interesting parallels x: A projectionist shows Pearl’s obscene moose films from France, and for a while, Pearl seems to be on the same journey as the naive Maxine. xIt persecutes sexual freedom in Europe. Honestly it’s not a spoiler to say this, as we know from the installation this can’t be happening as it’s not going anywhere.

Yet West’s movie remains focused on Pearl falling in love with a movie star, making it impossible for that to happen (a seemingly random alligator x Emphasize it again in the crucial, juicy moments), but Pearl said to her mother, “You don’t know what I’m capable of!” It does, though, and it might actually be the scariest scene in the entire movie.

There really isn’t much of a comparison for that. pearlBecause it’s usually a flashback or subtext, but the concept of insanity and a life gone wrong make it an interesting subgenre, especially with the many “hagsploitation” movies that follow. What happened to baby Jane? in 1962.

Pearl’s passion for dance also comes with headwinds What will happen to Elena? (1971), a 1930s camping soap opera starring Debbie Reynolds and Shelley Winters. The movie was directed by Curtis Harrington, a Hollywood anomaly with remarkable career memories. Good guys don’t work in HollywoodName verified by Kenneth Anger, Roger Korman and bottles — We remind you that this intersection of art and Grand Guignol is not new. pearl It reminds us that pornography has existed since the invention of the camera. In fact, film history is always on display, with the seductive colors of Douglas Sirkian, the lush and heartfelt music of Max Steiner, and the old-school arrangements of pans and iris-outs.

But for everything to work pearl He needs a star and his lead performance has Goth, which easily raises the cartoon villain.

It’s hard to explain how he did it, but what started out as golly-gee channels witch of the dayDorothy slowly opens up and culminates with a haunting confession from Pearl’s absent husband, which we see in a magical one-shot close-up. It will be interesting to see where the pearl takes him; Meanwhile, this may be the most determined female performance in a horror comedy since Kathleen Turner. serial momBut one is allowed to go much deeper emotionally. far in the sky slasher