Hellboy II
Jul. 17th, 2008 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zalenaOkay, so I suppose everyone is expecting an entry about Hellboy II, so I'll try to cough up some analysis. This movie is, oddly, the critics darling. But seeing as everyone also loved Wall-E, it's a weird year for critics. (This also makes me wonder if I'll hate Batman. Then again I am just about the only person I know who loved The Golden Compass, more on that later.) I think the key is something I read in Roger Ebert's review of Joe vs the Volcano... one of the reasons he liked it is that he 'hadn't seen this movie before.' I think on a purely visual level, both Wall-E and Hellboy offer something a little out of the ordinary visually. And for someone who watches movies for a living, that can be one heck of a whiff of fresh air.
I used to work on the film studies list at Cambridge before it was shut down and one of my boss' repetitive complaints was that film studies really lost out when literature departments, rather than art departments, got a hold of it. She saw films as a visual medium and thought it was to their detriment that they were held to the narrative standards of literature.
Visually Hellboy II is very fresh. Even if there is more than a hint of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, and as someone mentioned in their review (Ebert, again?) something of the aliens from Star Wars. I was just relieved from the break from Tim Burton. (I'd never thought I'd say it but del Toro's world makes Burton's look both sanitized and flat.)
Flat out the most astounding scene is a battle between Hellboy and a forest elemental who grows from a tiny seed into a giant beanstalk monster. Not only was the design very nice on the monster (says someone who has been watching an awful lot of things grow this year) when the monster is killed and it spills green gore all over everything, that everything turns into carpets of grass and flowers. Seeds float through the air and this thing that was laying waste to the city suddenly becomes something gorgeous.
Before Hellboy kills it the bad prince asks if he is really going to destroy something so wonderous and terrible. "It's the last of it's kind, like you," he says. At the heart of this scene were two things that should have been of prime importance in the film: 1. Hellboy's conflict of being a creature from the Otherworld trapped in our world and the torn loyalties that might create. 2. Things of wonder and beauty are often horrific. Or as the prince says earlier in the movie when he releases a swarm of calcium eating 'fairies,' "Remind them [humans] of why they were once afraid of the dark."
To me, this 'afraid of the darkness' is the entire appeal of del Toro's films. We want to go see monsters and be a little shivery and think about that underworld sublimnity. Unfortunately, Hellboy is also a creature of pop, as his lair filled with televisions all playing different monster movies, attests. And the Otherness identity crisis is traded in for an adolescents narcissitic need for fame and fortune. And while the secondary plot about a once-waged war between Other & human in which the now broken truce is hinted at; the actual points of conflict are largely between Other & Other. The faerie world vs Hellboy's outfit. As far as the human world knows, neither exist. And this is where the real narrative tragedy occurs, because what things that go bump in the night need most is the wonder and stories and fear of humans to sustain them.
Instead, the faerie realm is largely forgotten and inhabited of creatures that all appear to be the last of their kind, maimed, and aged. Lost civilizations are something to be bought at an auction, things to be posessed and caged, artifacts are all that's left of something once powerful and alive.
After the film my brother and I had a discussion about the misfit quality of Hellboy comics. I said that even by comic book standards, the Hellboy outfit is pretty out there. Brother commented that alienation isn't really the point of the comic; Hellboy is more about obscure occult and the hunt for knowledge/treasure. In fact the human world hardly comes into it at all. And it's not particularly soap-opera-y, another reason we both like it. Plus, "He's a demon, but he saves humans, but he's a demon..."*(
Unfortunately, Hellboy II gets totally sidetracked by some hokey love story. There are two couples. One of the couples is played for comic relief then one in the 'comic' pair tragically dies moments before they play the hokey love theme in the credit roll. Are we supposed to think this is funny or moving? Or are we just confused.
And then there's this: If you love them, you can save them, message. But that only works for one pair.
Finally, there is the generative possibility inherent in intimate relationships, which I would argue is elephant in the room for this movie. One of the characters is pregnant; but her questions/feelings about her pregnancy (which are complicated even if one wants to be pregnant and is not having an inter-dimensional relationship) aren't really explored. In fact there are bunch of weird moments involving babies peppered throughout the film that provide a clue to one of the things that is really missing from it: the totally freakin' otherness of the female body and the scary fecundness of the natural world.
1. Pregnant character - other than being pregnant is pretty much left out of the plot. Except for her love power, "You have to live! I'm having your baby!"
2. A scene at the Goblin Market (or whatever they called it). After they finish roughing up a troll for information Hellboy comments, "Cute baby," to the thing that one of the trolls is holding, that has made editorial comments through out the scene in a child voice. "I'm not a baby," it replies, "I'm a tumor."
3. The whole carrying a baby through the beanstalk fight routine. What was the point of that? They didn't use it as a PR stunt or anything except for upping the ante. It's scarier because he's holding a baby while he fights!
The treatment of the actual babies in the film doesn't really touch at the freakin' scariness of it all.
Early in the movie there's a fertility goddess at auction. Then a swarm (fecundity alert!) shortly there after and things that grow enormously from tiny seeds in a matter of seconds spreading green all over Brooklyn.
But what's really spooky are the fighting machines, which reassemble themselves, but seem otherwise to be incapable of destruction or procreation.
I kept thinking as I watched the film that even though the faerie world had faded, the natural world still had this incredibly power. Humans are a part of it. We have spread across and subjugated the earth. And yet, if we disappeared tomorrow, what would be left would not be a desolate wasteland a la the Manhattan-sized landfill aka Wall-E; but something more akin to the Beanstalk monster oozing greenery all over the urban forms. The real mystery about Wall-E is not the appearanc of plants at the end of the movie; but where the hell the plants are at the beginning? Those jelly-bean shaped organ bags of space-humans would need a machete after 700 years, not some cutesy imac incubator!
What we've really lost is not that power, itself, but our fear and awe of it; which descends, again, when we witness fire and flood and tornado. These are forces much bigger than humans, we are at their mercy. And, yes, I would include human reproduction on that list.
Weirdly, in Hellboy the solution to all the world's problems seemed to be guns (how they could shoot a swarm and even be moderately successful is beyond me) and more fighting. Though ultimately, the day is saved by a woman sacrificing herself. Sound like any other del Toro movies you've seen, lately?
Anyway, it's not coherent; but there are my thoughts as they coelesce. I actually enjoyed the movie, though I detested parts of it and resented the whiplash across tonality. I have also discoverd that ectoplasmic superpowers are awesome; and I love, love, loved the monsters (who was that Moira with the eyes in her wings?) all of which evoked in their forms the themes I wanted to see explored more thoroughly in the movie.
Del Toro's world is definitely influenced, (Lord of the Rings! among others, including tons of comic book artists with which I am not familiar with by name) but remains original and refreshing to see on screen. Like Ebert, I can't wait to get a hold of the DVD and find what's hiding in those scenes. I tried to argue the Orientalism inherent in the Goblin Market, but Brother wasn't having any of that, so I'll leave that point for someone else.
Overall recommendation: see it. Try not to pay too much to see it. Worth a matinee price or a trip to the discount theatre.
* Another reason and Brother & I probably like Hellboy, along with the taboo demonic subject matter, is that we both respect the dark... more about this in another entry.
I used to work on the film studies list at Cambridge before it was shut down and one of my boss' repetitive complaints was that film studies really lost out when literature departments, rather than art departments, got a hold of it. She saw films as a visual medium and thought it was to their detriment that they were held to the narrative standards of literature.
Visually Hellboy II is very fresh. Even if there is more than a hint of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, and as someone mentioned in their review (Ebert, again?) something of the aliens from Star Wars. I was just relieved from the break from Tim Burton. (I'd never thought I'd say it but del Toro's world makes Burton's look both sanitized and flat.)
Flat out the most astounding scene is a battle between Hellboy and a forest elemental who grows from a tiny seed into a giant beanstalk monster. Not only was the design very nice on the monster (says someone who has been watching an awful lot of things grow this year) when the monster is killed and it spills green gore all over everything, that everything turns into carpets of grass and flowers. Seeds float through the air and this thing that was laying waste to the city suddenly becomes something gorgeous.
Before Hellboy kills it the bad prince asks if he is really going to destroy something so wonderous and terrible. "It's the last of it's kind, like you," he says. At the heart of this scene were two things that should have been of prime importance in the film: 1. Hellboy's conflict of being a creature from the Otherworld trapped in our world and the torn loyalties that might create. 2. Things of wonder and beauty are often horrific. Or as the prince says earlier in the movie when he releases a swarm of calcium eating 'fairies,' "Remind them [humans] of why they were once afraid of the dark."
To me, this 'afraid of the darkness' is the entire appeal of del Toro's films. We want to go see monsters and be a little shivery and think about that underworld sublimnity. Unfortunately, Hellboy is also a creature of pop, as his lair filled with televisions all playing different monster movies, attests. And the Otherness identity crisis is traded in for an adolescents narcissitic need for fame and fortune. And while the secondary plot about a once-waged war between Other & human in which the now broken truce is hinted at; the actual points of conflict are largely between Other & Other. The faerie world vs Hellboy's outfit. As far as the human world knows, neither exist. And this is where the real narrative tragedy occurs, because what things that go bump in the night need most is the wonder and stories and fear of humans to sustain them.
Instead, the faerie realm is largely forgotten and inhabited of creatures that all appear to be the last of their kind, maimed, and aged. Lost civilizations are something to be bought at an auction, things to be posessed and caged, artifacts are all that's left of something once powerful and alive.
After the film my brother and I had a discussion about the misfit quality of Hellboy comics. I said that even by comic book standards, the Hellboy outfit is pretty out there. Brother commented that alienation isn't really the point of the comic; Hellboy is more about obscure occult and the hunt for knowledge/treasure. In fact the human world hardly comes into it at all. And it's not particularly soap-opera-y, another reason we both like it. Plus, "He's a demon, but he saves humans, but he's a demon..."*(
Unfortunately, Hellboy II gets totally sidetracked by some hokey love story. There are two couples. One of the couples is played for comic relief then one in the 'comic' pair tragically dies moments before they play the hokey love theme in the credit roll. Are we supposed to think this is funny or moving? Or are we just confused.
And then there's this: If you love them, you can save them, message. But that only works for one pair.
Finally, there is the generative possibility inherent in intimate relationships, which I would argue is elephant in the room for this movie. One of the characters is pregnant; but her questions/feelings about her pregnancy (which are complicated even if one wants to be pregnant and is not having an inter-dimensional relationship) aren't really explored. In fact there are bunch of weird moments involving babies peppered throughout the film that provide a clue to one of the things that is really missing from it: the totally freakin' otherness of the female body and the scary fecundness of the natural world.
1. Pregnant character - other than being pregnant is pretty much left out of the plot. Except for her love power, "You have to live! I'm having your baby!"
2. A scene at the Goblin Market (or whatever they called it). After they finish roughing up a troll for information Hellboy comments, "Cute baby," to the thing that one of the trolls is holding, that has made editorial comments through out the scene in a child voice. "I'm not a baby," it replies, "I'm a tumor."
3. The whole carrying a baby through the beanstalk fight routine. What was the point of that? They didn't use it as a PR stunt or anything except for upping the ante. It's scarier because he's holding a baby while he fights!
The treatment of the actual babies in the film doesn't really touch at the freakin' scariness of it all.
Early in the movie there's a fertility goddess at auction. Then a swarm (fecundity alert!) shortly there after and things that grow enormously from tiny seeds in a matter of seconds spreading green all over Brooklyn.
But what's really spooky are the fighting machines, which reassemble themselves, but seem otherwise to be incapable of destruction or procreation.
I kept thinking as I watched the film that even though the faerie world had faded, the natural world still had this incredibly power. Humans are a part of it. We have spread across and subjugated the earth. And yet, if we disappeared tomorrow, what would be left would not be a desolate wasteland a la the Manhattan-sized landfill aka Wall-E; but something more akin to the Beanstalk monster oozing greenery all over the urban forms. The real mystery about Wall-E is not the appearanc of plants at the end of the movie; but where the hell the plants are at the beginning? Those jelly-bean shaped organ bags of space-humans would need a machete after 700 years, not some cutesy imac incubator!
What we've really lost is not that power, itself, but our fear and awe of it; which descends, again, when we witness fire and flood and tornado. These are forces much bigger than humans, we are at their mercy. And, yes, I would include human reproduction on that list.
Weirdly, in Hellboy the solution to all the world's problems seemed to be guns (how they could shoot a swarm and even be moderately successful is beyond me) and more fighting. Though ultimately, the day is saved by a woman sacrificing herself. Sound like any other del Toro movies you've seen, lately?
Anyway, it's not coherent; but there are my thoughts as they coelesce. I actually enjoyed the movie, though I detested parts of it and resented the whiplash across tonality. I have also discoverd that ectoplasmic superpowers are awesome; and I love, love, loved the monsters (who was that Moira with the eyes in her wings?) all of which evoked in their forms the themes I wanted to see explored more thoroughly in the movie.
Del Toro's world is definitely influenced, (Lord of the Rings! among others, including tons of comic book artists with which I am not familiar with by name) but remains original and refreshing to see on screen. Like Ebert, I can't wait to get a hold of the DVD and find what's hiding in those scenes. I tried to argue the Orientalism inherent in the Goblin Market, but Brother wasn't having any of that, so I'll leave that point for someone else.
Overall recommendation: see it. Try not to pay too much to see it. Worth a matinee price or a trip to the discount theatre.
* Another reason and Brother & I probably like Hellboy, along with the taboo demonic subject matter, is that we both respect the dark... more about this in another entry.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-19 04:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 01:28 pm (UTC)Still... I am totally mystified by the critics sudden appreciation of these films, as though they've suddenly started watching them. Next up: critical adulation of martial arts films, and fart-based comedy.
no subject
Date: 2008-12-27 10:14 am (UTC)well you're completely right, this is right up my alley. off to look for TPB on amazon so we can have a proper conversation about it next time we meet.
just to check - my package reach you?...
Book & heart shall never part...
Date: 2008-12-27 04:32 pm (UTC)Yes, I received the book. It is lovely, but not nearly so treasured as the friend who sent it. Thank you for the holiday text, too. You and your sister both sent life-lines during a tricky season. The holiday itself was nice, but I've been posting somewhat sanitized versions of the experience.
I haven't read BPRD in a while, but I remember enjoying it. I'll check with Brother to see if there's anything of special note out lately.
BTW - if you have never looked at the Oz books beyond the Wizard of Oz, they are totally surreal with phenomenal art nouveau illustrations. I can point you in the direction of other steampunkery in children's lit, if you are interested.