maybes_smashing

haute tension/high tension/switchblade romance - the second viewing

if you don't want spoilers, don't bother reading this. i have spent the entire day obsessing over this movie and i've finally got it mostly figured out, i think. after two viewings, one of the dubbed/edited american version (in the theater) and one of the uncut french version with subtitles (dvdrip!). it's not the piece of shit that i initially thought it was at all.

i have to say that the dubbing is shitty, especially with cecile de france doing her own part in english with a heavy french accent and then maiwenn's part having been done by a VERY american girl (who also happens to mention something about the way in which her parents speak french). eventually they just give up the dubbing altogether, which makes it even worse. the translations of the subtitles on the dubbed version also americanize the language used (ie., "rednecks" and the line about calling the DA-- i was like, "uh, they have to call the district attorney in france too?"), which takes away from the fucking movie. how geocentric of us. no wonder people are leaving the theater scratching their goddamn heads. outside of that, the uncut version really does nothing more than show you a few extra blood splatters, a shot of alex's dead little brother in the cornfield not shown in the cut version, and the scene with the barbed wire stick (the most amazing weapon i've scene in a movie so far) is extended quite a bit. the latter helps the movie to make a little more sense, just because i think that if some fuck had been terrorizing me the way this guy does marie, i'd beat the bloody hell out of him too.

anyway, here's what i think, and i hope i don't manage to forget anything (but i'm sure i'll edit the fuck out of this entry until i'm happy with it anyway, as i tend to do):

the opening shot is of marie in a mental hospital repeating "i'll never let them come between us again" or something along those lines over and over again. you're shown the wounds on her back, specifically the one made by alex's crowbar in the end of the movie. marie asks if "it's recording" and the scene fades. this is where marie starts recounting what happened as she knows it. and if i'm correct, marie has dissociative identity disorder. marie being the primary personality and the killer (i've seen him referred to as "le tueur," translatered literally as "the murderer," but i don't know if this was something done by the director or just some random moviegoer) being the secondary in a one-way amnesic relationship, meaning marie knows about le tueur's existence, but he does not know about hers.

then you're lead into the beginning dream sequence where she has no wounds on her back, but she is pretty beaten up. this discontinuity in wounds tips you off right away that something's awry. what i mean by this is that if you're paying attention, the twist isn't really a twist at all.

she wakes up and tells alex that she had a dream that she was chasing herself. again, duh. then you're given this entire scene of the two girls in the car, which does nothing more than develop character, but ALL of it's important. i may be just another lesbian, but it was obvious to both kat and i that marie was absolutely in love with alex and alex was absolutely oblivious. i don't even think alex really knew or cared that marie was gay. the way marie looked at alex was key. the comment about how alex still had makeup on was just SO gay. they talk a lot about how alex is a slut and how marie doesn't date men.

somewhere around here you have the scene with the mother and the little boy and simultaneously le tueur is getting a blowjob from a decapitated head. super. in several reviews, the question is raised, "well, how is this possible given the dissociative identity disorder explanation?" easy. if le tueur is one of marie's personalities and marie is the primary personality, then it only makes sense that she would have a knowledge of his history and actions stored somewhere in her mind, whether she was conscious of them or not, which eventually, she will be. she knows this because she IS le tueur in some sense, as tyler durden and jack are same and thus, are both holding the gun. right? right.

you've got the cornfield scene where alex jumps out of the car at night, runs into the field yelling about how she thinks she saw someone, and marie follows muttering about how this isn't funny and she'll get alex back. BING. and she WILL get alex back. my thought on this is that marie's so in love with alex that she's petrified of the thought of losing her and so she'll have to instill extreme terror in alex in order to get her back. it doesn't matter how radical this idea is because there's obviously pathology involved and that's enough of an explanation to make it work.

soon afterwards, we're introduced to the family briefly. we get a nice tour of the house and there's a lot more development of marie's homocrush on alex. at some point during the first viewing, i leaned over to ask kat whether or not they were dating. that's how confused i was. there's talk of how the house used to be an old farmhouse and how there's still some equipment on the lot, which explains the truck's existence (this is shaky, but it still works). there is also mention of how it's like a dollhouse and a lot of corresponding imagery, ie., the wind-up drummer bear and several shots of dolls, one of which had a cracked head (DING!). i've got some ideas about this imagery, but i'm not as sure of it as everything else. i'm thinking it has something to do with the manipulation of these people as if they're dolls, like marie has control over the story and its outcome.

marie then has a cigarette and sees alex in the shower. the camera lingers on alex's body (but not her head or face). she goes upstairs and masturbates to a reggae song ("runaway girl" by u-roy). the lyrics mention something about being "just another girl". again the unrequited love theme is obvious. funny, le tueur's arrival occurs simultaneously with marie's orgasm. significance? who knows?

all of the familial killings happen with marie watching le tueur through a window or from above, etc., but she witnesses every death and there is always something physical separating the two of them, which will play into the film later when the personalities merge.

it should be noted that when le tueur checks the guest room, he checks everything that marie has just covered (ie., making the bed, wiping down the sink, checking the heater) and finds no trace of recent activity with the exception of the faucet. he finds water and doesn't respond, but that shows the audience that there's some subconscious connection between the two of them.

here are the clues that marie's the culprit you catch during the murders: during the mother's death scene, it's obvious that even though marie's hiding in the closet, the mother sees her. when she comes out of the closet, the mother (in the french version) asks her, "why? why?" it should be mentioned that the mother is the only family member that marie is NOT introduced to. right before the little brother dies, marie is in alex's room (and alex is NONE-too-happy to see her) watching from the window. when alex sees this, she starts shaking her head as if to say, "please don't kill my brother."

then you've got marie and alex locked in the van, alex being terrified and not comforted at all by marie, some development of le tueur as a serial killer (which marie is not-- again, with DID, the personalities all have their own histories).

i'm not terribly interested in the gas station sequence, but it's notable for three things: the videotape that ultimately shows us that marie is, in fact, the killer; the gun; and the conversation between le tueur and jimmy that develops marie's view of men more fully. i've not yet covered this, but the idea of le tueur as an incarnation of marie's overall view of men was thrown into the mix, and you've got a lot of talk on marie's part of womanizers, etc., and le tueur is this fat, dirty, pig who kills women and sodomizes their decapitated heads. then you've got that conversation developing jimmy into this guy who "services" rich women, so you've got development of marie as a man-hating lesbian (because marie is le tueur is marie). she eventually gets jimmy to agree to this, which, in her eyes, is justification for killing him. so then there's some death, a tense bathroom sequence, le tueur leaves, marie calls the cops, takes the gun, and starts the chase.

the chase scene is important because this is where the secondary personality acknowledges the existence of the primary (it was hinted at in the gas station scene when le tueur said "what were you looking at. jimmy?"). marie chases le tueur for a while, he disappears and shows up behind her. while he's chasing her she picks up the gun only to find that it isn't loaded. simultaneously, le tueur is dropping the bullets out the window of the truck. again, tyler is jack, who's holding the gun?

car accident, explosion, a little more tension between marie and le tueur. this is where marie has to integrate the two personalities back into one by killing him (integration is the ultimate goal of therapy for someone with this disorder, but it takes years). she does so with that crazy makeshift razor club and there is that. in the french version, marie bashes the shit out of le tueur. i mean, there is no possible way this guy's alive when he tries to strangle her, so there's your final clue before the slap upside the head, which is:

the scene where the videotape reveals that marie is the killer. this is the first time an outside source of narration is thrown in.

DIRECTLY after this is the scene where marie releases alex from the chains and alex is like, "what the fuck, you fucking fucker? you killed my family!" and marie's like, "uh, no, i love you, he's dead, now come do me." and then alex stabs her, which is when marie totally goes nuts. now we're positive that the two personalities have integrated because the scene goes back and forth with the chainsaw thing between marie and le tueur. it's interesting that anything having to do with violence is directly related to le tueur and emotion to marie. they both use the line, "i'll take care of you" in different ways.

then you have your full-circle scene, which references the beginning dream sequence, but changes the outcome. this is the bloodiest scene ever and it's absolutely fabulous. alex escapes the car with a crowbar and le tueur/marie go after her. he makes a comment about "driving a woman crazy" and calls her a slut and then says, "you don't love me, you don't love me". as soon as alex says, "yes i do," le tueur turns into marie and kisses alex, thereby letting her guard down, and alex puts the crowbar right through the bitch. it does seem for a second like alex kisses marie back, but...

the movie closes out with a repeat of the opening mental institution sequence, showing marie rocking and repeating "i'll never let them come between us again," and then pans out to show alex watching her through a one-way mirror. she asks the pdoc if he/she's sure that marie can't see her, at which point marie turns and throws her arms out and smiles in alex's direction, signifying that even though she can't see her, she can feel her, and love is love is love even if you're crazy, the end.

it seems to me to be very well thought out (albeit there are a few holes); however, i hear in the commentary that the director says it's not dissociative identity disorder-- it's nothing more than marie's retelling of the story, which i think is a cop-out and he just didn't want to admit that he hadn't actually done his research (but used what little knowledge of dissociative identity disorder that he could have gleaned from identity, fight club, etc) and didn't want to own up to any mistakes that he'd made if there was any criticism and also, it just doesn't make sense for him to dumb it down that way. maybe he was trying to keep a sense of mystery.