10 films about sects – Weekend – Kommersant
[ad_1]
The film “Waves” by Mikhail Brashinsky, dedicated to a mysterious sect, whose adherents believe in immortality, do not drink coffee and alcohol, and adults live separately from children, was released in a limited release. The sect is headed by the mysterious Guide, communication with which is carried out with the help of plasma placed in the classroom. A man without a past (Vladislav Abashin), who accidentally finds himself in a strange village, plunges into a measured rural life and learns all the new, rather monstrous, rules for the life of the community. Weekend recalls how and why films about sects were made at different times.
“The Seventh Victim”
Mark Robson, 1943
Destructive sects and esoteric secret societies are a frequent motif in horror films. The most frightening thing here, of course, is that, unlike vampires and witches, sects actually exist, and this opens up the possibility for horror based on real events. So the plot of “The Seventh Victim” – originally an ordinary detective story – was remade by screenwriter Devitt Bodin under the impression of getting to know the real society of Satanists. The main character is looking for her missing sister in New York, the search leads her to the Palladist sect (as the Masons who worshiped demons were supposedly called, the term half a century before was invented by the hoax writer Leo Taxil) and then to a sad ending. Despite the somewhat incoherent dramaturgy, The Seventh Victim is part of the canon of inventive low-budget horror films produced by producer Val Lewton at RKO in the 1940s.
“Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood”
Quentin Tarantino, 2019
Roman Polanski, who directed the Satanist-themed classic Rosemary’s Baby, appears as a character in Quentin Tarantino’s latest film to date. Set in 1969, Polanski revels in Hollywood fame and the company of young actress Sharon Tate, while on a farm near Los Angeles, a hippie sect led by Charles Manson collectively goes berserk. Everyone knows what really happened next, but the action of Tarantino’s films does not take place in reality – and a fictional duet of a retired actor and his stuntman friend intervenes in the monstrous story. As with his other stories on historical themes, Tarantino made a movie about cinema, and not about the Manson gang as such. It should be noted that precisely because of the imprint that the “Family” left on the history of Hollywood, more films were made about it than about other real sects: two (Mary Harron’s drama “Charlie Said So” and the horror film “The Ghosts of Sharon Tate” ) came out in the same year as Tarantino’s work.
“The Wicker Man”
Robin Hardy, 1973
While investigating the case of a missing girl, a police sergeant arrives on a Scottish isle and discovers that the local population professes Celtic paganism without exception. Witchcraft rituals and the easy attitude of the islanders to sex horrify a respectable Christian; while his investigation is sabotaged by the locals. The Wicker Man, director Robin Hardy’s only notable work, differed from other examples of British horror of the time by its atmospheric (folk soundtrack plays a big role in this) and the absence of blood. The film has become a classic of the genre. Christopher Lee, who has played almost 300 screen roles, of which several dozen are in horror (he is best known as Saruman in The Lord of the Rings), called the film the best of his career. An annual folk festival in Scotland is named after the Wicker Man; in addition to the comically bad American remake with Nicolas Cage, Ari Astaire’s recent “Solstice” was also filmed under the clear influence of the picture.
“A Short Night of Glass Dolls”
Aldo Lado, 1971
Another horror film on this list is giallo, an Italian variety of the genre characterized by frilly film titles, vibrant colors, picturesque scenery, orchestral soundtracks and an international cast. In A Short Night of the Glass Dolls, Frenchman Jean Sorel and Swedish Ingrid Thulin play journalists in an unnamed Eastern European country, apparently Czechoslovakia (also filmed in Yugoslavia). In the beginning of the film, the hero Sorel is found dead on the street, but in fact his consciousness is alive, and, lying on the table in the morgue, he tries to restore the picture of his own death. It takes place a couple of years after the short-lived Prague Spring, and the political subtext of A Short Night is clear: the hero encounters a secret society of old men who worship demons and kidnap young women to feed on the energy of their youth. This is, in a sense, the history of any elite in any country (the film hardly aims specifically at socialism). A plot about a man trying to solve the mystery of an inhospitable city, a creepy secret society, and a massive sex orgy scene anticipate Eyes Wide Shut by almost 30 years ahead of Kubrick’s film.
“For help!”
Richard Lester, 1965
Like A Hard Day’s Evening a year earlier, Help! – the second picture in the filmography of The Beatles – was directed by Richard Lester, a British follower of the French new wave with a taste for screwball comedy. The film is by no means exhausted by the commercial function of the promo for the Help! album, although, of course, all the songs from the first side of the disc are heard there. This is a witty movie in the tradition of British nonsense, in which the musicians play comedic versions of themselves. According to the plot, Ringo (actually nicknamed so because of his love for rings) becomes the owner of a ring that has an important ritual significance in a certain Hindu cult. This leads to a series of absurd situations in which the adepts attempt to first recover the ring and then sacrifice the drummer (as required by their faith) with the help of poisoned arrows, a live tiger, and battle artillery, among other things. In the same 1965, the Beatles’ passion for India begins – it will not only be reflected in their later albums, but will also lead the musicians to a very real cult under the leadership of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
“Mole”
Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970
No one has captured the era of psychedelics and new age cinema better than Alejandro Jodorowsky, a Chilean director, writer, mime, psychoanalyst and tarologist. It differs from the creators of the other films on this list in that Jodorowsky himself is the founder of the esoteric teaching, although in order to call it “psychomagic” a sect, it lacks organization and dogmatism. One way or another, the plot of his early film The Mole, in which the director himself played the title role, is like the life of some legendary spiritual leader. The desert, through which the hero wanders in search of enlightenment, is not specifically located anywhere, and mythological laws operate in it – but also not of any specific mythology: the Mole can be compared with equal confidence to both Christ and Buddha. What Jodorowsky objects to is organized religion, and in the last part of the picture, his hero comes into conflict with a whole village of fanatics who worship the all-seeing eye.
“Master”
Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012
Immediately after the Second World War, a demobilized sailor with numerous symptoms of PTSD and a fantastic talent for making moonshine cannot find himself in civilian life until he accidentally finds himself on the yacht of a certain Lancaster Dodd. This charming man, without too much modesty calling himself a genius, is surrounded by a crowd of admirers in love with him – followers of Dodd’s teachings. It is not difficult to recognize in the character the founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard, who himself served in the Navy. However, director Paul Thomas Anderson did not set himself the goal of making a satire, and the film does not dive deep into the details of the teaching. Rather, the focus here is on the relationship of two men (the outstanding roles of Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman in the image of the leader of the sect), the psychological mechanisms of manipulation and submission: the English word “master” also means “master” or “master”. Perhaps it is because Anderson does not directly attack Hubbard and his followers that the usually aggressive Church of Scientology chose not to react to the film. Tom Cruise – Anderson’s friend and Scientologist – watched The Masters at the director’s personal invitation and also refrained from commenting.
“About war”
Bertrand Bonello, 2008
In perhaps the most mysterious film by one of the most mysterious French authors, Bonello’s alter ego is at the center of the plot – a film director named Bertrand in a creative crisis. After the hero Mathieu Amalric, by coincidence, is forced to spend the night in a coffin, he, at the invitation of a casual acquaintance, goes to the “Kingdom” – a country mansion where a sect lives under the leadership of the heroine Asia Argento. Enemies of civilization and progress, cult members have declared war on the modern world, which, however, is waged with the help of joint rituals, without attacking anyone. It is impossible to say with complete certainty “what” this movie is about, although the title, referring to Clausewitz’s treatise, seems to answer this question. But Bonello’s films are difficult to define and are paradoxical in content: here (as in the later Nocturama) the desire to destroy the modern world is depicted as a natural continuation of his own logic.
“The Art of Self Defense”
Riley Stearns, 2019
Fight Club in the Age of Feminism: Jesse Eisenberg, in his usual role as a jerk, plays an accountant who, after an encounter with bullies, decides to learn karate and finds himself in a school where a charismatic Sensei preaches aggression and teaches his novices “toxic masculinity.” It differs from Chuck Palahniuk’s book and David Fincher’s famous film adaptation of The Art of Self-Defense in that the plot is told in the genre of silly comedy of the absurd. The laws of the male world are depicted satirically: for example, the main character, at the insistence of Sensei, refuses his favorite pop ballads in favor of heavy metal and watches porn at work in order to comply with boyish concepts. “Fight Club” could also be on this list, but in “The Art of Self-Defense” it is the sectarian plot that is more distinct, reminding us that traditional masculinity is also a kind of irrational cult.
“Clouds over Borsk”
Vasily Ordynsky, 1960
One of several Soviet films released as part of a short anti-religious campaign under Khrushchev (other examples are Armageddon, I Love You, Life, and A Flower on a Stone, filmed with Sergei Parajanov). The story is about a schoolgirl from a provincial town who ends up in a local Protestant community (meaning, most likely, Pentecostals). The film is meant to be propaganda, but from today’s perspective, it doesn’t seem like it’s doing its job well. No matter how dense the “sextants” (as one of the characters calls them) are depicted here, in many ways they look prettier than the headmaster, who shames the heroine in front of the class for falling in love with a classmate, or than a young man who is ready at the call of his heart report on secret meetings of believers. Apparently, realizing this, the scriptwriters added a grotesque ending to the plot, focusing criticism not on the essence of religious dogmas, but on exotic ritual practices. Nevertheless, “Clouds over Borsk” remains an interesting document of the era when the Soviet government did not want to endure competition in the struggle for minds and souls.
Subscribe to Weekend channel in Telegram
[ad_2]
Source link
