Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh, 2011)

Julia Leigh's directorial debut became one of my favorite films of 2011 as soon as the credits began rolling yet for some reason audiences and critics alike completely dismissed the film. Here's a couple of excerpts from reviews:

"Many may hail Sleeping Beauty as a voyeuristic masterpiece when in fact it's an empty provocation verging on the ludicrous. Audiences deserve a much bigger payoff in return for being lulled into numbness." Laura Kern (Film Comment)

"We're implicitly asked to play the rest of these scenes out in our head, which seems less like a challenge than a narrative dead end, with ambiguity becoming unintelligibility." Melissa Anderson (Village Voice)

"Instead we’re left expectant for further elaboration about a character who remains oddly unexamined throughout." Kristi Mitsuda (Reverse Shot)

The main reasoning behind these dismissals (as with Shame, just look at Kern's side-by-side column here) is that it's empty provocation. Or simply that its (their) reliance on ambiguity is without purpose (Ignatiy Vishnevetsky's Shame review being the best example).

I've always championed ambiguity in films, as watching The Seven Year Itch (particularly the ending) last night at the cinema reminded me of/cemented this admiration. I'm sure these critics don't appreciate the film simply because of its ambiguities but because they believe it to serve no purpose. Ambiguity for ambiguity's sake. I can't help but disagree with them. The vagueness in Sleeping Beauty clearly serves a purpose. Ambiguity is meant to ignite thought; what's not explicitly told to be contemplated by the viewer. In this film ambiguity does just that as well as working as a mesmerizing technique, keeping the viewer alert and completely captivated (as the camera movements). Guiding the viewer to think about Lucy's actions. Her need for money, college life, her relationships, etc. All of this is explicitly shown in the film providing plot points and insight into Lucy's psyche and world (and diminishing this badge of vagueness critics have seemed to pin on the film). Consumerism, addiction, society, patriarchy, aging, etc being the main driving forces behind Lucy's actions. First-world problems that plague, and destroy, privileged humans.

The ambiguity also serves a second purpose: to create a puzzle to be interpreted by each viewer. The burning of the money, the acquaintance at the funeral, Birdmann's addiction, the roommates/the new flat, all the meta references (Lucy is seen multiple times throughout the film through cameras, see captures at the bottom), the prostitution, the medical tests all pieces to be put together by the audience (who arrive at independent conclusions due to their subjectivity).

As if this ambiguous puzzle and societal critique wasn't rewarding enough, it still isn't the most rewarding aspect of this debut. The visual compositions and cinematography (by Geoffrey Simpson) take that prize. Leigh's visual language is immaculate. Perfect symmetrical compositions and tracking shots create a pictureshow of contemporary Western lifestyle. In her compositions, thought out like a painter's, every miniscule detail serves its purpose whether didactic or purely aesthetic.

Julia Leigh's debut proves that she is an incredible new progressive director dealing with contemporary concerns and a deep understanding of cinematic language. Her background as a novelist couldn't be less obvious considering this film's reliance on visual storytelling.





Dan Sallit's defense of the film published in MUBI's Notebook here, excerpts:

"[after giving examples of Lucy's psychological framework as presented by the film] Perhaps Lucy seems opaque to many viewers, despite the great volume of psychologically revealing detail that Leigh provides, because Leigh doesn’t invoke the familiar mythologies surrounding prostitution...

Leigh’s emphasis on the routine, rigid aspects of social institutions within a Kubrickian mise-en-scène puts Sleeping Beauty in the realm of the horror film, just as all Kubrick films are effectively horror films (or are effective when they become horror films). Leigh’s precise visual style—she often leaves a scene immediately after its payload has been delivered, favoring formal self-awareness over narrative smoothness—conveys a chill, a distance, a nameless threat. Her pans are slow and methodical; her framing generally too distant for the image to be expressive of the characters’ feelings...

In the film’s most dazzling quiet-loud style assertion, Lucy announces her symbolic suicide by unexpectedly raising over her head a restaurant chair, then slamming it at full force into a table—upon which impact Leigh replaces the stable image with a slow-motion, pixilated depiction of Lucy’s wild night...

If I were to name the film that Sleeping Beauty most resembles, I would choose Angel Face, another horror film in the guise of a social and behavioral study. Like Preminger, Leigh depicts horror by maintaining the icy composure of her style even as the narrative is setting off alarms. The organizing image of the film, unconscious Lucy awaiting her predators in a luxurious bed, is photographed from such a distance and with such symmetry that her body suggests nothing other than a corpse laid out for viewing...

... it’s difficult to imagine how a sense of fulfillment could do this film justice."

Update, April 16

A.O. Scott (article here) on the ending:

"At a certain point Lucy wants to find out what happens while she is under the spell of Clara’s potion, and she buys a small video camera for the purpose. We already know, of course, but the gap between our perception and Lucy’s emphasizes the film’s deeper secret — or perhaps its most effective tease — which is what goes on in her mind."