Safe (film)
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| Safe | |
|---|---|
 Movie poster |
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| Directed by | Todd Haynes |
| Produced by | Christine Vachon Lauren Zalaznick |
| Written by | Todd Haynes |
| Starring | Julianne Moore Peter Friedman Xander Berkeley |
| Music by | Brendan Dolan Ed Tomney |
| Cinematography | Alex Nepomniaschy |
| Editing by | James Lyons |
| Release date(s) | June 23, 1995 |
| Running time | 119 mins |
| Country |  United Kingdom  United States |
| Language | English |
| Official website | |
| IMDb profile | |
Safe (sometimes written as [safe] or [SAFE]) is a 1995 drama/thriller film directed by Todd Haynes. It was produced by Christine Vachon, founder of Killer Films and "godmother" of the New Queer Cinema.
[edit] Story
Set in an affluent neighbourhood of the San Fernando Valley in 1987, the film recounts the life of a seemingly unremarkable homemaker, Carol White (played by Julianne Moore) who develops multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS, also known as "Twentieth-Century Disease"). MCS is a medically controversial diagnosis in which a person develops allergic reactions to the visible and invisible toxins found in everyday household and industrial chemicals.
Carol passes her days with activities such as gardening, taking clothes to the dry cleaners, and attending aerobics classes. Her marriage is stable but devoid of emotional intimacy, and her son is actually a step-son from her husband's previous marriage. Similarly, her friendships are polite but distant.
As she goes about her routine, she slowly begins to develop unpredictable and strange bodily reactions, such as persistent exhaustion, uncontrollable coughing (when surrounded by truck exhaust while driving), asthma-like symptoms (at a baby shower), nose bleeds (when getting a perm at a hair salon), vomiting, and eventually convulsions (at the dry cleaners).
Doctors are able to isolate only one chemical she reacts to after she undergoes an allergen test; milk, which she drinks frequently in the movie without incident. Doctors are at a loss of how to help her cope or cure her. She attends some psychotherapy sessions but does not gain any insight into her condition.
After seeing an ad at her community centre, she eventually resorts to moving to the New Age/religious retreat in the desert called Wrenwood, which is designed to help people suffering from MCS recover.
Here, she meets other people suffering from the same condition and staff who help her reduce the accumulation of toxins in her body within an all-natural, chemical-free environment.
[edit] Analysis
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Please see the discussion on the talk page. |
Arguably Haynes' most critically successful film to date, Safe has been described as a character study without a character.
As the film progresses, two possible, not mutually exclusive, explanations emerge: the first, is that Moore's "illness" is, in fact, only psychosomatic; the second, is that she suffers from MCS. Haynes exploits this central ambiguity to launch a self-reflexive exploration of classical narrative structure. He questions its tendency to eclipse social and political realities by restaging them as interpersonal dramas driven by character psychology.
In taking this approach to the material, Haynes utilizes his academic background in the field of art semiotics. As a result, Safe simultaneously examines a single woman's struggle with illness and a more pervasive zeitgeist of fear and alienation.
The film demonstrates Haynes' long-term interest in the once-maligned genre of the "Woman's Picture," a territory both he and Moore would reapproach in Far From Heaven. But where that film was a meticulously exact homage to the Technicolor melodramas directed by Douglas Sirk in the 1950s (particularly, All that Heaven Allows), Safe fuses the domestic melodrama with horror and sci-fi stylistics—many critics compared it to 2001: A Space Odyssey in its long-take, long-shot austerity. Consequently, Haynes created a unique genre mongrel.
[edit] External links
- Safe at the Internet Movie Database
- toddhaynes.net : Tribute site with interviews and forum.
- Official Site (Archive)
- Essay by Julie Grossman
- Senses of Cinema essay
Assassins: A Film Concerning Rimbaud (1985) • Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987) • Poison (1991) • Dottie Gets Spanked (1993) • Safe (1995) • Velvet Goldmine (1998) • Far from Heaven (2002) • Corporate Ghost (2004) • I'm Not There: Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan (2006)
