Loleanna

Last night i saw "Lucky Number Slevin". It was just what i was expecting, and just what I was looking for - lots of style and banter with a bit of violence thrown in. Unlike Ebert, I like stylistic dialogue for the sake of stylistic dialogue. I mean, just listen to The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer.

you remind me of the man
what man
the man with the power
what power
the power of voodoo
who do?
you do.
do what?
remind me of the man

Who talks like that? No one, and that's what's enjoyable about it.

Sure, not the Slevin greatest of its genre, but i think it delivered what it promised.

The movie I saw tonight also was a bit writerly. It was a little like Oleanna in its exploration of gender issues and such, just less annoying.

More so, it was a subversion of the horror film subgenre that includes films like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I Spit on Your Grave, High Tension, Wolf Creek, etc. The revenge/torture films.

Only with a twist. I think one day, looking back, this film will be recognised as introducing the Female Gaze. Sure I Spit On Your Grave (a/k/a Day of the Woman) and High Tension were about a woman taking her revenge, but Hard Candy takes it further, and raises the question of is it revenge or is it simply cruelty. It also introduces the Yin aspect of lore, with its Little Red Riding Hood allusions, and the possibility that she is emotion itself, namely the male protaganist's guilt manifest.

The movie does raise a few questions - and then dissappointingly tries to answer a few. I think it would have been a better movie all around had it not tried to offer a couple of the motives it offered, but that would have been against type for the torture/revenge subgenre. In terms of turning the camera around on that style of movie, it was wonderfully consistent.