i did not understand Men (2022)
also btw for those curious about it, serious content warnings on that one, ny’all
it’s probably good i just wish i’d understood what it’s doing
there’s some fucking excellent body horror in this one
also there is a very self-indulgent pun on wasps that i have no idea why it was there but i appreciated
my first guess is that all the men in this film are meant to be understood as different aspects of the way her guilt* over her husband’s suicide is haunting her; at the end they are gradually morphed together into one, and then take the shape of her husband as he looked when he looked himself. so i mean.
* undeserved, but it is not exactly the case that trauma is rational
i will leave you the option of not reading this attempted analysis because there is some fun stuff here that i want to leave you the option of not spoiling for yourself
twin thinks the very long mpreg birthing sequence is meant to depict the way toxic masculinity constantly keeps reproducing itself, creating hurt people who go on to hurt others; he read something to the effect of empathy in the way Harper looked at her husband at the end
btw all the men in this movie who are not her husband are played by the same actor so this film is REALLY inviting reading them as parts of some whole
@aescling Annihilation was interesting
we were sidetracked by some of the racial dynamics of it, unfortunately, so it's hard for us to talk about it meaningfully
- 🎒
anyway i’m rewatching the folding ideas video on annihilation again because i learned, after watching men, that it has the same writer-director
btw i should probably watch annihilation sometime