Review: Stake Land

In recent years when someone says the word ‘vampire’ it conjures thoughts of over waxed hair, sparkly skin and soppy teenage romance. Whilst the vampire sub-genre has always contained a strong sexual element there have been a few films that have broken this mould and maximised the monstrousness of the blood sucking creatures. David Slade’s 2007 film 30 Days of Night was one such movie that infused gruesome horror with a small town invasion narrative, usually saved for sci-fi films such as The Faculty and Invasion of the body Snatchers. Jim Mickle, however, has attempted to merge vampire-horror with the ever prolific and popular post-apocalyptic genre in his 2^nd feature film, Stake Land.

Stake Land follows the story of an orphaned boy, Martin (Connor Paolo), and his vamp killing sensei, Mister (Nick Damici), as they embark through an American wasteland on a mission to New Eden, a country formerly known as Canada. Packed with religious rhetoric and critique of Christian fundamentalism, Stake Land strives to make a point that seems to get lost between the carnage and the rubble of its broken American landscape. Like other post-apocalyptic films such as The Road, the cause of society’s destruction is merely just a catalyst to express the limits of humanity and voice primal fears of the evil that men do. Stake Land’s zealot Christians, known rather unoriginally as The Brotherhood, become the face of true evil when juxtaposed with the zombie-like vampires, who can be forgiven for acting upon their unnatural instincts. The Brotherhood plays devil’s advocate with the vampires and welcomes their existence as a form of racial purification; however their extremism is contrasted with the humanity and sympathy of a nun known as Sister (Kelly McGillis) and the subtle themes of hope that Martin finds in Christian artefacts throughout his journey. Stake Land then takes the political middle ground in its religious rhetoric which seems too careful not to alienate an audience in its own critique of Christianity.

What Stake Land offers is a stylish and polished genre piece that successfully meshes themes and conventions of its predecessors into an entertaining 90 minutes of cinema. It’s recognisable and, at times, predictable story is handled well by Mickle’s subtle direction of the two leads. In a script filled with action scenes and the insertion of wayward hitchhikers, who mostly act as filler and cannon-fodder to a story sparse of any real plot, the main characters don’t quite flesh out into the dimensionality we’d hope for, which keeps Damici’s Mister both enigmatic and flat in his lack of back-story and motivation. The performances from Damici and Paolo keep the characters engaging and are at their strongest when communicating away from the dialogue with fleeting glances that add a sense of depth that the script doesn't allow. The true character of Stake Land, however, is the America that has survived the fervent destruction of vampires and mad men. With the aid of Ryan Samul’s cinematography, Mickle creates a landscape of chaos and death that is interwoven with a hope and humanity missing from other post-apocalyptic tales, such as The Road and The Book of Eli. As the characters travel through wastelands and communities they encounter different characters and situations that conjure notions of an America-that-was, adding a sense of realism to the darkness of Stake Land’s fantasy.

Stake Land is, by any means, nothing original but gives fans of the tarnished vampire genre something to get their teeth into in light of the recent Twilight and Vampire Diaries atrocities. The film gives hope that the genre may survive this cycle, albeit, as a reactionary mode that has somewhat lost sight of what vampires once represented and expressed in decades past. Stake Land does lose its way at times as it meanders through middle-American towns and each vampire battle acts as a point of departure from a scarce plot that, however, still manages to entertain and engage under the stylish direction of Mickle who offers a promising glint of good things to come.

review: 127 hours

Danny Boyle’s 2008 Oscar winner Slumdog Millionaire was a frenetic, culture capturing tale of a boy’s life that spanned years and swept through the changing landscape of an impoverished India. So when his most successful and bankable film is such an epic story of love and loss, it begs the question as to why his next film would be about one man trapped in between two rocks for five days? Known for his energy inducing, adrenalin pumping films he infuses electricity into characters and landscapes, and just like lightning, he never strikes in the same place twice. From the drug filled streets of Edinburgh to the paradise-turned-communal-nightmare of a Thai island, Boyle’s films reject any sense of categorisation, spanning genre and geography. That's not to say that there aren’t themes evoked throughout some of Boyle’s films; both The Beach and Sunshine capture people being engulfed by the extremities of nature that question our sense of belonging within it. His latest effort, 127 Hours, takes the same subject matter and simultaneously manages to both magnify and shrink it into the personal story of a man trying to take on nature by himself, and neither quite winning or losing.

From the opening shots of 127 Hours, we are at odds with civilization; through an energy filled sequence we watch Aron Ralston (James Franco) escaping life and the dark confines of a busy city in a high voltage, split-screened scene that never lets the audience orientate themselves until reaching the vast and intense landscape of Moab, Utah. Captured beautifully, with the help of cinematographers Enrique Chediak and Anthony Dod Mantle, Boyle infuses the landscape with a sense of paradise and danger that delves into the heart of an America we are only exposed to through the safety of the discovery channel. The pace doesn’t let-up until the pivotal moment when reality comes crashing down in the form of a boulder inside a deep canyon. Ralston’s world suddenly gets a lot smaller.

What follows is a character study as we bore into the soul of a man who should have been careful what he wished for. Franco gives a performance that offers honesty, passion and the right amount of humour which refuses to engulf the audience in the despair of the mortal situation. As we become intertwined in Ralston’s fear and fantasies Boyle manages to find beauty and affirmation of life in an unforgiving environment that reaches beyond what could have been an all too easy moral story of men-knowing-their-place-in-nature. Whilst the climactic scene is visceral and merciless the visuals are never in excess or superfluous to the requirements of the story. 127 Hours is not about a man amputating his own arm with an ill designed pocket knife, but the story of a man making an exchange with life that borders on a spiritual experience.

Ultimately Boyle takes the small story of one man and magnifies it with all the vivid intensity of Slumdog and The Beach combined. In an inspiring and, at times, uplifting ninety minutes of cinema, 127 Hours refuses to take the easy route and indulge in the grim reality of Ralston’s situation. As Boyle breaks boundaries between fantasy and reality he proves once again that he knows how to turn a character inside-out, cementing him as a forerunner for one of cinema’s great directors.

postmodern crime drama and the decline of the metanarrative

Postmodern theory has proliferated within the cultural consciousness of the West since the 1970s and has caused ambivalence, rejection, and agreement by critics, philosophers, and researchers ranging from fields as vast as the sciences, politics, and the media in regards to the complex paradigm shifts from the era of modernity. The modernity project had made claim for the unity of truth and knowledge in a teleological quest for the progression of Western civilization; but modernity has been superseded by the postmodern state which describes the denial to society of the totalizing ideology that modernity had tried to achieve. The postmodern state is described by Jean-François Lyotard in The Postmodern Condition as an ‘incredulity toward metanarratives’ (1979: xxiv) which describes the demise of the grand narratives that modernity had laid claim to. If, as Stanley Grenz has argued, that a grand narrative ‘exercises a force apart from argumentation and proof and, in fact, it provides the principal means by which every community legitimates itself.’ (1996: 44), then it can be argued that the law, and the politics of law, are considered to be grand narratives of Western society.

With the law being an integral part of society and an institution of Western civilization that affects every individual, it is then fitting that crime drama has become an integral part of cultural production and, therefore, a popular genre in film and television. The British television screen has been a site for the staging of the politics of policing the law since the formative years of early police drama such as Dixon of Dock Green (1955 – 1976) and Z-cars (1962 – 1978). The contemporary screen has reflected the changing politics of British policing and can be read as a genre which shows the paradigmatic shift from modernism to postmodernism. As a historically patriarchal institution the police force has been reflected in crime dramas of the past as male orientated and uncontested in methodologies of policing, but, as this essay will argue, the contemporary crime drama describes the ‘incredulity’ of this grand narrative through the rise of ‘smaller’ narratives that contest overarching themes of white, patriarchal dominance of the West’s institutions, such as feminism and racial civil rights.

This essay argues that contemporary crime dramas can be read as a genre that investigates the decline of grand narratives through the politics of policing as represented on screen. This essay will be analysing critical theories surrounding grand narratives and their decline, with importance placed on the social and political implications of ideologies surrounding modernity’s themes; themes that include patriarchal rule and the subsequent conflict surrounding its demise through the rise of the legitimacy of feminism in the police force. A case study of contemporary police dramas Cracker (1991-1996) and Luther (2010) will highlight the politics of the insertion of females in the police force and the investigation into ’the issue of ‘who-can-police’’ (BRUNDSON in reference to Prime Suspect, 2000: 208) that the contemporary screen is argued to partake in; as well as analysing the characters of these programs in regards to issues of portraying gender. This essay will also analyse the psychological implications on the central characters in these programs as a result of the decline of the grand narratives that anchor their masculine status. Ultimately this essay will aim to investigate the implications of postmodern theory in relation to grand narratives and their decline as represented on the contemporary British screen.

To expand upon the theories surrounding grand narratives and stress the implications of modernity upon Western society one must turn to postmodern critics for a comprehensive understanding of the complex paradigm that the transitional state of the move from modernity to postmodernity implies. If, as Allison Assiter argues, ‘Grand Narratives’ are overarching theories of history which suggest a progressive improvement in the human condition’ (ASSITER: 1996: 3) then it must call into question the assertion of what ‘improvement in the human condition’ can mean, and to whom, in the grand scheme of a totalized and unified society. The decline of these narratives also brings into question the effect on the social and cultural sphere of society that these changes have caused.

Lyotard referred to the decline of metanarratives as a ‘crisis of narratives’ (1979: xxiii), implying a disdain for his postmodern assertion that metanarratives are being ‘dispersed in clouds of narrative language elements’ (LYOTARD, 1979: xxiv), a theory which has caused controversy amongst critics. For writers such as Bill Readings, the postmodern condition has lead us to ‘understand culture as discontinuous and fragmentary; cultural representations are too disparate to permit a universal point of view. Culture is not one field but a series of local or minoritarian representations organised by narratives’ (1991: 65) and John Docker who states that ‘we can no longer see society as a uniform whole’ (1994: 109). The fragmentary view-points of society highlight the issue of the extent of control of the institutions that Western society has instated. This includes institutions such as the police force, and also the ability of the people who enforce the unified laws of such institutions, if coming from such fragmented view points. Stanley J. Grenz highlights the localising of the global truths that grand narratives promote when he states that ‘Postmodern truth is relative to the community in which a person participates. And since there are many human communities, there are necessarily many different truths...The postmodern consciousness, therefore, entails a radical kind of relativism and pluralism’ (GRENZ, 1996: 14). Therefore, if all truth is relative to a framework of communities then this implies that the law cannot represent the truth of all communities. The postmodern condition explores this pluralism that relative truth promotes which has been described by Craig Owens as a ‘crisis of cultural authority, specifically of the authority vested in Western European culture and its institutions’ (1998: 65). This is an assertion that will be investigated further on in this essay in regards to representations on the contemporary screen. We can also translate these sceptical theories of the postmodern condition’s ‘crisis of authority’ as the fear of the loss of power by those who may have been favoured by the West’s grand narratives.

If the truths of metanarratives have in fact lost credibility, we must then assume it is because other narratives have questioned the legitimacy that these grand narratives have held uncontested during the era of modernity. Before the civil rights movements of the 1960s, and the rise of women’s rights, the West was dominated by white, patriarchy in a discourse that was uncontested; if we can consider that patriarchy is a grand narrative then the demise of grand narratives has signalled the rise of equal rights for women and other minority groups. Lyotard’s theory has been criticized by Norman K. Denzin for its inability to ‘provide conditions for the critique of patriarchy and racism in contemporary society’ (Denzin, 1991: 39). One can argue that contemporary British crime drama is a space that can both critique and sustain these narratives in its representations of diverse view-points that illustrate the conflicts of enforcing a unified and totalized schema of laws that do not consider diversity.

Charlotte Brundson makes a claim for the changing representation of the police force in crime dramas of the 1980s and 1990s as being due to the rise of ‘equal opportunities’ within the force spearheaded by the Alison Halford case (BRUNDSON, 2000: 199. See also: JERMYN, 2010). Halford was the highest ranking female police officer in the force and was denied promotion 9 times whilst less qualified male colleagues were chosen instead. Brunsdon claims that ‘the impact of equal opportunities has registered on all manifestations of the police genre in the 1980s and 1990s’ (2000: 199). Jimmy McGovern’s Cracker was one such programme that explored the politics of ‘equal opportunities’ and gender within the police force and the problematic nature of what could be considered conflicting narratives of new feminine practice in a conventionally masculine setting.

Cracker follows the story of Dr. Eddie ‘Fitz’ Fitzgerald (Robbie Coltrane) an alcoholic, gambling addict and genius criminal psychologist who begins working closely with the Manchester Police Force’s Special Crimes Unit. The unit being predominantly male brings focus to the one female, DS Jane Penhaligon (Geraldine Somerville), and the sexual politics of being an attractive female trying to create a career in a masculine environment. Her presence also highlights the new status of masculinity in an environment that is institutionally accepting of females, but not necessarily socially or culturally. As Mark Duguid remarks, ‘a major element of the series was the examination of masculinity in extremis, of men wrestling with their new status in a world where old certainties about traditional masculine ‘strengths’ were being questioned’ (2009: 20). Duguid’s argument highlights the importance of the male characters struggle within a new world of feminine strength. The narrative focus on Fitz and Penhaligon’s professional relationship, as a pair of outsiders who aren’t ‘traditionally masculine’ but are able to solve cases better than the rest of the ‘traditional’ males in the unit, shows a complex critique of masculinity in the series that both highlights the positive nature of the feminine role in the police force and simultaneously disavows it.

If one is to take a binary viewpoint of masculinity and femininity then one can arguably consider the longstanding association of masculinity with rational and logical thinking and femininity with intuitive and emotional response. This is a notion supported in the episode To Say I love You (SE01E02) in which Penhaligon has to justify her crying over the death of a colleague to DCI David Bilborough (Christopher Eccleston) in his questioning of her ability to do her job as he believes her emotions are getting in the way of logical thinking. Duguid argues that ‘Fitz embodies ‘feminine’ traits (emotional expressiveness, articulacy, sensitivity) as well as ‘masculine’ ones (rationality, intellectual competitiveness, aggression, self-destructiveness)’ (2009: 82-83). The feminine traits he embodies enable him to solve cases, they enable his ability to empathise with criminals and therefore read them psychoanalytically, gaining results. His masculine traits that Duguid lists become excessive in relation to his feminisation, in what becomes almost like an ‘unbalancing’ act. This notion of Fitz’s excess is highlighted in the episode Brotherly Love (SE03E01) when Fitz confesses "I drink too much, I smoke too much, I gamble too much. I am too much." Fitz is a conflicted character, a man who can deconstruct the most heinous murderer’s mind but cannot understand his own, causing conflict in his personal life which causes his turn to excessive drinking, smoking and gambling. Duguid comments on this when he writes that ‘Fitz’s family serves as a recurring reminder of his inadequacy in traditional masculine roles – as husband, father, provider – an inadequacy that is most glaring when he is kept at bay from his police work’ (2009: 118). This argument provides an understanding of Fitz’s confusion over how to be masculine. In his professional life he is able to inhabit the feminine and masculine traits that enable him to do his job but in his personal life his femininity is displaced by his over compensating masculinity, with adverse effects.

The implications and consequences of excessive masculinity are also explored in the plot involving Penhaligon’s rape by DCI Jimmy Beck (Lorcan Cranitch). Beck, as a representation of traditional masculinity in his character and methods of policing, had been continuously opposed to Fitz’s involvement in the force and in opposition to de-masculinised members of society. As an example, Beck referred to homosexuals as ‘shirt-lifters’ and made sexist jibes towards women, including Penhaligon. Ultimately, his displaced masculinity created by the insertion of Penhaligon into the unit, arguably caused an excess of masculinity, resulting in his rape of Penhaligon. Mark Duguid supports this argument when he states that Penhaligon’s ‘challenge to masculine discourse is interpreted not only as overreaction, but as evidence of extremism and sexual aberration’ (2009: 62).

Cracker’s sexual politics enforce the idea of conflict of the narratives of masculinity and femininity. Feminine characters have to perform masculine social roles in order to fit in with the rest of their masculine colleagues, as Duguid states ‘Both Mo and Penhaligon have evidently managed to make some progress in the force by playing ‘one of the lads’, participating in the hard-drinking culture and accepting or enduring the sexual humour and slurs of their male colleagues’ (2009: 62). What is created is a state of confusion over the complex performances of masculinity and femininity which become problematic in the excesses created and, therefore, of the ability to perform towards upholding the totalising narrative of the law. Anthony Elliot comments on the postmodern state of conflicting pluralistic narratives when he states that ‘the more society generates pluralism and ambivalence the more this rebounds as a loss of orientation and meaning.’ (1996: 21)

The loss of orientation and meaning is a concept that can easily be transferred to the BBC’s miniseries Luther. The six episode series created by Neil Cross follows the story of DCI John Luther (Idris Elba) and focuses on his reinstatement as a detective after spending months in a psychiatric institute following the near death of a murdering paedophile, which Luther was responsible for. Luther’s mental state teeters on the brink between madness and sanity, similarly to Fitz, they are both genii on the brink of self destruction from their excessive masculinity. Their confusion over the conflicting narratives and their unstable status as men is a condition of the fragmented self that postmodernity is said to describe (See: Elliot, 1996).

Putting a paedophile in a coma and nearly becoming a murderer, the very people he has dedicated his life to stop, caused Luther to lose his mind as he was suspended in a purgatory between ‘hero’ and killer. This confusion over moral, as well as legal, status is further expressed throughout the series in his relationships with the women in his life, most clearly in the plots involving the scientist and murderer Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson) and his Humanitarian ex-wife Zoe Luther (Indira Varma). The two women, representing binary opposites of the moral scale (note that its possibly not a coincidence that their names begin with A and Z), represent the alpha and omega of Luther’s psyche as he battles with his own conscience over the moral ambiguities of Henry Madsen’s (Anton Saunders) coma. Luther oscillates between conversations of constant questions with Zoe who he longs to get back together with and intelligent discussions on the meaning of life’s grand narratives with Alice. Alice represents the decline of law, as a murderer who escaped arrest due to lack of evidence, she embodies the decline of the metanarrative that defines Luther’s mental state. Zoe, then, represents the loss of love and the grand narrative of marriage and the family unit. If as, Anthony Elliot argues that ‘postmodernity...is seen as producing a fragmentation of the individual self’ (1996: 24) then Luther’s mental state is a perfect example of the postmodern condition.

The law becomes an obstacle for Luther, an institution that allows criminals to walk free and one that imprisons Luther within the rules that bind him from doing his job. His methods of catching criminals see him going further and further beyond the limits of the law, constantly bending or breaking the rules and regulations that his boss, DSU Rose Teller (Saskia Reeves), has memorised and repeats at any moment that Luther questions her decisions; she acts as if a walking rulebook. Whilst the females in Luther are strong, professional women a feminist critique can be made of their representations. Alice, Zoe, and Teller ultimately hinder Luther from doing his job and add to his mental anguish. Luther’s excessive masculinity represented through his constant loss of temper which borders on domestic abuse can also be criticized; however, the audience is always at a status of empathy and support with his actions, usually as a result of the negative female representations.

Luther and Cracker both offer complex representations of femininity and masculinity which are represented as being two narratives that are constantly in conflict and at odds with each other, whilst trying to progress towards stability and order. Cracker ultimately offers a criticism of masculinity within the police force, whilst simultaneously questioning the implications of feminine discourse alongside traditional male roles. Cracker also brings into question traditional methodologies of law enforcement that traditional masculine discourse upheld. Luther, on the other hand, brings into question new ways of enforcing the law; in a post 9/11 society that is filled with fear and the threat of terror; representations of society’s heroes have been continuously represented as becoming more brutal in their methods of getting results. This is a discourse which can also be seen represented in the United States in television shows such as 24 and Dexter. Luther’s representations of masculinity and femininity are similarly complex to Cracker’s; the females in the programme cause uncertainty and confusion in Luther’s life whilst the males are angry and destructive.

If we are to believe that patriarchy was one of the grand narratives of modernism, postmodern must then signal ‘the death of the great white male story’ (JOYRICH: 1998: 52). The contemporary British screen investigates the decline of this metanarrative through the complex shifts in ways of policing and the social exchanges between traditional masculinity and the rise of the professional female. The contemporary screen represents the decline of patriarchal rule and the rise of feminism with confused characters that are unable to anchor their status in terms of changing roles of masculinity and femininity. Feminised males are represented with a counterbalancing excess of masculinity whilst females in traditionally male roles take on performative masculine social characteristics. These performances of gender stress the confused state of the psyche in the postmodern condition.

The law itself is represented at times to be fallible, sometimes the criminals get away and sometimes the police let them get away. However, the law is a constant, it may change in methodology but the screen represents the law as ‘the great goal’ that Lyotard had claimed we had lost (1979: xxiv). The contemporary British screen seeks to critique the methods of the law but simultaneously uphold it as the means by which justice is served. Fitz and Luther’s aim is always to get an arrest, so one can argue that the contemporary screen both investigates the decline of metanarratives and seeks to restore or support them, as Norman K. Denzin states ‘the grand narratives of the past are not dead, nor are they exhausted. From the university to the state, they are everywhere present and firmly in place’ (DENZIN, 1991: 38-39). If postmodernism is a transitional state (See: BEST & KELLNER, 1997), the conflict between the narratives of masculinity and femininity may well be the unstable shift from inequality to a grand narrative of sexual equality, but one will have to wait and see if the future British screen is a site that reflects this prediction.

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