#harrow? like jesus talk about violence and a power structure

[wizardemotions]

i'm getting the sense that marauders fans by and large are intensely antisnape and potentially moralistic about it... i think that they should consume non-hp media with more deeply fucked up and also deeply enjoyable characters for some perspective. they might benefit from the locked tomb perhaps. go take a gander at, like, ianthe and then get back to me

[movieswithkevin27]

Jackie

"Sometimes he would walk into the desert, alone, just to let himself be tempted by the devil."

"That night, and every night since... I’ve prayed to die."

"God, in his infinite wisdom, has made sure...it is just enough for us." -Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy

Nobody will ever understand Jackie Kennedy and the pain she went through after the death of her husband. While we all have lost loved ones, few have lost a spouse. Even fewer have lost that spouse while the First Lady of the United States and none of those women were alive to be there for Jackie. She was isolated and all alone. Nobody could comprehend her grief and nobody, thankfully, can today. Sitting next to her husband driving through a parade, he is shot and his mangled head rests on her lap and she sits there with his blood splashing on her body. In this eternally lasting image, few have sat down to truly examine what that day and the succeeding few days were in the mind of Jackie Kennedy. However, in director Pablo Larrain's intimate look at her mind and grief in those days, he finds beauty, pain, and agony. But, above all, he finds a woman with so much strength, so much grace, and so much power, it is chill inducing. Punctuated by a powerful and articulate performance by Natalie Portman, the film leaves you in emotional ruins repeatedly and is an entirely beautiful, moving, and stirring portrayal of the strongest and hardest week of Jackie Kennedy's life.

Upon its release, Jackie gained notoriety for its unique structure. It is not a biopic at all. Shot with grainy documentary style footage, the film is an inside look at both Jackie's life after her husband's death and the descent into madness experienced by the country afterwards. However, that is not what makes it unique. Rather, the film is lyrical and poetic. Its dialogue is overwrought, begging to be quoted. It feels too prim. Too precise. Too detached from reality. Yet, that is entirely the point. This is no biopic about Jackie Kennedy. It is an album composed of "songs" about her life and key defining moments: the death of her husband, the televised tour of the White House, planning for the funeral, and talking to a priest. Complemented by interludes courtesy of an the famed interview with Life Magazine, the film takes on a poetic approach to telling its story and this is incredibly irregular for the genre. As a regular of the poetry of the storytelling, it is nonlinear and it shows scenes from those aforementioned moments before and after the assassination in varied order.

This structure truly lends itself to the way in which the film is quotable, but overwrought. Its dialogue is aching to be recognized as powerful. As timeless. As stirring. Yet, it is all of those things. He may feel a tad forced in this regard, but it works. Matching the hypnotic, dream-like, and thoroughly lyrical nature of the storytelling, the dialogue feels mystical, other worldy, and unattainable. Jackie's words are so well chosen, as are those of her counterparts. In this, the dialogue catches the class, the grace, and the power with which women in her position are expected to act and speak. Her words are well chosen for fear of portraying herself and her husband negatively. In her interview with the journalist (Billy Crudup), she unleashes at times and becomes less formal, but never allows him to print these words. In these moments, she becomes wordier. With those she acts entirely formal around, her words are limited and more carefully selected. While I say the film is overwrought, it is not to detract from the film. Rather, it is perfectly elaborate in its limited words and prim/proper dialogue. Each word and each line feels quotable and verbose.

This verbosity is certainly what led the Kennedy's and others in power to seem unattainable. In particular, their life was a fairy tale. It was spectacular, overwhelming, and extravagant. Their wealth was obscene and otherworldly. It embodied regality and the belief that this was the royal family of the United States, if there ever were to be one. Larrain, a Chilean-born filmmaker, has managed to eloquently and brilliantly captures this cult of personality surrounding the Kennedy family and captures it so well, in fact, that the film has been criticized for the same reasons Jackie was criticized in her life. It is too cold. Too distant. Too reserved. Yet, it is for these elements that the film is so brilliant. Not only is it poetic and gorgeously crafted narratively, but its feeling and emotions as a film keep the audience at a distance. It never hopes to understand Jackie and her mindset after her husband's death, as that is an impossible enterprise to undertake. It is simply something that could never be accomplished. As such, instead, Larrain's film reduces intimacy. He uses grainy documentary style footage, old school television footage, and has a cold and carefully orchestrated Portman in the lead role. She embodies Jackie Kennedy to the very last detail both in her manner of speaking, walking, and body language. It is a film that is cold and dead behind the eyes, shutting out the world from every hoping to understand the pain its main character underwent and preventing us from fully grasping who she was.

This may be a fault to some, but there is beauty in this approach. Not only is it authentic, but it forces the audience to focus on the small details. The look on her face and the way she speaks. It feels like she herself is forcing herself to get through this for those that look to her as an icon and the First Lady. For them and her children, she must honor her husband and his legacy. Nothing can get in the way, not even her own emotion. Thus, she locks it up inside and puts on a strong face. However, her face is never quite as strong as she believes. Portman's face looks cold and detached. It is in this look that we see her pain. She refuses to let herself seem frazzled as she freshens up right before the swearing in of Lyndon B. Johnson in Texas, still dressed in the iconic pink Chanel suit that is covered in JFK's blood. She is composed, but she aches internally. Her purpose, her life, and her status is all in upheaval. She is forced out of her home and wants nothing more than to match the elegance and importance of the role her husband occupied to be represented in his funeral. A key portion of the film, this funeral shows how she is redirecting her grief. In order cope, she wants to celebrate. As the secret service is worried about a procession walking through the streets, she defies orders and defiantly states, "I will march with Jack, alone if necessary." A powerful, strong, and immense quote (honestly, just writing it out gives me chills), it also highlights the way in which she directs her grief towards embodying the grace demanded of her position. She wants an extravagant funeral in spite of recommendations not just for her own vanity, but for the world to recognize the cost of their violence. She is alone, left to suffer alone. Her children are now fatherless. It is a powerful image and one the world has yet to heed. Instead, it is still filled with animosity and prejudice. While Kennedy left little legacy as a President, a fear of Jackie's in this film, the funeral and this powerful image after his assassination is still one that permeates our culture and national psyche.

One of the greatest pieces of this film is its portrayal of grief. Manchester by the Sea, a fellow 2016 film, did this eloquently with a story of pure fiction. Jackie accomplishes this with a true story, a far more impressive feat as it manages to feel entirely organic and natural. Often times, real stories can feel too manicured and manufactured. However, here, Larrain finds the human soul within Jackie and shows it to the world. Her grief is encapsulated in a few images in the film and in a few moments. Most viscerally, it is seen as she wipes blood of her herself and when we actually see John F. Kennedy get shot. The look on her face of pure agony, fear, and pain is the one time she truly breaks visually. It is not a moment that gets lost on the audience as she recounts it to the priest. It is visceral and is a punch to the stomach of the audience. Yet, it is not the most harrowing and terrifying portrayal of the grief in the film. Rather, the denial. One of the hardest things to get over is the denial. The belief that you will walk around the house and see them pop up around the corner is powerful. My grandfather died over two years ago and I still feel this way. It feels surreal every time I see my still-grieving grandmother that he is not around anymore. This is a hurdle to still get over and one that Jackie is forced to cope with as she has memories of her time with Jack and the fun they shared. However, as she again tells the Priest, these are mixed with the bag. She knows Jack was a bit of a playboy and let himself be led into temptation too often. These memories cloud the positive ones of pure joy and bliss they experienced together. Her mind is incapable of coping with these and with his loss, as she is still lost as to whether she should hate her husband or love him and the legacy she left behind. In many ways, the funeral is the embodiment of this as well. She hopes for the latter. She wants to celebrate him and mourn his loss like a normal widow. But, these bad memories cloud her mind and she hopes that by throwing an extravagant funeral procession for him in the capital, she will be able to drown out these memories and focus on the good. This is incredibly powerful and truly where Larrain's film finds much of its veracity and strength.

"Let me share with you a parable. Jesus once passed a blind beggar on the road, and his disciples asked --‘Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he should be born blind?’ Jesus answered - ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned. He was made blind so that the works of God could be revealed in him.’ And with that, he placed mud on the man’s eyes and told him to wash in the Pool of Siloam.’ The man did, and he came back seeing. Right now you are blind. Not because you’ve sinned. But because you’ve been chosen -- so that the works of God may be revealed in you." -John Hurt as The Priest

In the aforementioned conversation with the priest, Jackie also explains why she did the procession: to be put out of her misery and killed. Praying every day to be killed or just die, she cannot cope. She puts on a brave face and never lets her enemies see her cry, instead opting to use herself and her children's suffering as a dagger that she thrusts into the abdomens of her enemies, twisting the knife with every proud and strong step. However, she must move on. The priest tells her as much in his discussions regarding God and life. Not only does he confide in her that he too wonders if this is all there is to the world, he equally stands firm in the belief that God is in everything - even death - and that he has given us as much as we need. Along the same lines, he never gives us something we cannot handle. However, as the quote above alludes to, she is merely an instrument of God's power. This answer does not move her or quell her aching heart, but it does shed light on the importance of his advice to keep waking up, making coffee, and living her life. The death of a loved one can be paralyzing, but she cannot shrivel up and die. You must continue to breathe and put one foot in front of the other. Lying die and waiting to die is not the answer. Jackie herself is certainly portrayed as religious in the film, thus she must find peace in God. Humbly asking for healing and strength will make her like the blind man in the parable. It will give her sight and allow her to see the light at the end of the tunnel in her suffering. It will allow the sun to rise without the accompanying feelings of pain, agony, and depression.

Aside from the dialogue of the film, there is also beauty in the score. Nominated for an Oscar with good reason, the score is brilliant. Yet, one noteworthy scene sticks in my head more than any. As she walks through the White House in a black dress, the music briefly takes on a more haunting tone and feels like something out of The Shining. It instills fear and truly captures the essence of this story. It is a tale of blood, gore, pain, and agony. It is elegance and luxury meeting brutality and the underbelly of society and humanity. The mixing of these worlds creates this seemingly elegant sequence with brilliant cinematography using that grainy look to capture the 1960s and the elegance and extravagance of Jackie's wardrobe, juxtaposed by unsettling musical notes. It is a nightmare disguised as a fairy tale, yet people only see the fairy tale and refuse to recognize it is a nightmare, as to do so would be the recognize Jackie as human, not just some cold, lifeless, and unfeeling person.

While one can never dream of understanding Jackie's pain in the aftermath of her husband's assassination, Pablo Larrain comes very close. Dressing it up as merely a Kennedy fairy tale set in Camelot, it is instead a lyrical, poetic, and verbose look at the pain, agony, and denial that accompanies grief. This harrowing exercise is ultimately more akin to a nightmare than anything else, accompanied by a brilliant descent into the self and detachment from the rest of the world and even one's own emotions. Brilliantly brought to life by Natalie Portman and a very game cast, Pablo Larrain's inventive and uniquely structured film is poetic, powerful, and painstakingly brilliant.