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| Eva Green's deeply miserable Eve in White Bird in a Blizzard |
Part of the appeal of all of Gregg Araki's movies is his witty, poignant, and pointed use of soundtrack material. Watching White Bird in a Blizzard, which takes place in 1989-1991 respectively, was like bathing in the luscious sounds of that time (full disclosure, I was a DJ at a "new music" dance club during those years). This Mortal Coil's "Fond Affections," New Order's "Temptation," The Psychedelic Furs' "Heartbreak Beat," Depeche Mode's "Behind the Wheel," Siouxsie and the Banshees' "Dazzle." This particular film focuses on Katrina (Kat) Connor (Shailene Woodley) in the wake of her strange mother Eve's disappearance. While I didn't want to like Woodley (based on her stupid anti-feminist public comments), I found that the film's narrative structure, Araki's candid representation of female heterosexual desire, and her incredible supporting cast (including Eva Green, Christopher Meloni, Thomas Jane, Gabourey Sidibe, Angela Bassett) allowed Woodley's Kat to win me over in the end.
Peppered with magical fantasy and fairy-tale moments, often subjectively arising out of Kat's dream life, White Bird in a Blizzard draws us not only into Kat's world, but her feelings about her family as she struggles to understand both her mother's unhappiness and her own sense of loss. Araki crafts a deeply subjective portrait of Eve, skewed from the perspective of a disaffected teen riddled with burgeoning desire. Told in the present, and through flashbacks, the film never wavers from Kat's view. Kat is simultaneously astute and confused by her mother's behavior, yearning for the playful Mom of her past, but only encountering her empty shell as Eve fights her loneliness, aging, and loss of her sexual power just as her daughter's comes into being. Green brings equal parts elegance, mystery, and despair into Eve, her resentment toward the family that she feels has trapped her boiling over into both passive aggression and vicious snipes. Yet, both Kat and the audience feel deep sympathy toward her plight--the plight of so many women whose senses of self are buried in loveless marriages. Kat's world seems rich in possibilities while Eva's seems devoid of them.
Gregg Araki tends to tell boys' stories, and he does so beautifully (Mysterious Skin, Kaboom), but here he explores a young woman's feelings and experiences with such nuance and power, the film takes your breath away. His wry take on sexuality is always refreshing as well, and Kat's sexual affair with a local police detective is represented with both thoughtfulness and candor.
In some ways, the mystery of what happened to Eve is both the focus of the story and beside the point, for in its telling, through Kat's distinctive point-of-view, one actually learns how incredibly complicated and confusing hetero-femininity can be.
In some ways, the mystery of what happened to Eve is both the focus of the story and beside the point, for in its telling, through Kat's distinctive point-of-view, one actually learns how incredibly complicated and confusing hetero-femininity can be.
