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The more I tried to be done with Sublime, the more it gripped me and I kept coming up with ever so many questions. This movie is obviously commentary under the guise of psychological thriller. I'm not equipped for this level of scrutiny without some kind of help, so I finally approached Scott and asked him to watch a movie with me that would forever ruin him going to any doctor the rest of his life, and he said absolutely not. One glance at the cover and he literally left the room. I'm on my own.
My biggest challenge is keeping a storyline timeline since my own time orientation is screwed and I still have enough short term memory fuzz to not quite be sure of things. Going back over Sublime was a delightfully daunting exercise (Pinky says you guys know I like it hard), but it has taken a few days to settle into a think piece. Some of the memory scenes were logical, but toward the end it felt more smeared together, like George was kinda losing the last of his memories or something. I couldn't tell if we were seeing him wildly misinterpreting realities that had actually happened, like he simply just couldn't reconcile the two anyway (even before the brain damage), or we were getting real story memories that he could no longer see himself. Either way, the misinterpretations were tragic, even if he recognized the problems spot on, because there was absolutely nothing he could do about them.
The most obvious thing in the entire movie is Mandingo, and slapping that bad boy into google search was not disappointing. Or maybe it was. Urban dictionary had me cringing, geographical history had me going srsly, wtf?, and movie history had me facepalming like how in crap's name did something like THAT wind up in a rotten tomatoes review on this planet? I was slinking around the internet slapping my forehead going OHHHHhhhhh.....
After that I raced into my bedroom to grab a spiral and ripped through 4 pages of very sloppy very fast questions. Whoever put this movie together was either a genius or had some really deep revenge issues, so there I went again on another search and learned many things about Tony Krantz.
Krantz's opportunity to direct came with the development of the Raw Feed project, a series of direct-to-DVD movies that represented a first of this format for Warner Bros. Studios under their Warner Home Video division.[14] Krantz told Elyse Eisenberg at Warner Home Video that his dream since the third grade was to direct. Eisenberg told him "Warner Bros would approve you as a director in a heartbeat."[3] So Krantz became part of a trio of directors (alongside Daniel Myrick, director of The Blair Witch Project and John Shiban, writer and executive producer for Supernatural and The X-Files)[4] who were tapped to create "Raw Feed," a series of films in the sci fi, horror, and thriller genres. In March 2007, the second film in the 6-part film series, a surreal psychological sci-fi thriller called Sublime, that marked Krantz's first directorial effort, was released. The film was directed by Krantz and written by Erik Jendresen. Krantz described it as "a thinking man's horror film" with a huge twist at the end.[15] In 2008, the fourth film of the Raw Feed series, a black comedy/horror film entitled Otis was released. The film was co-penned by Jendresen and directed by Krantz during an 18-day shoot. The film stars Daniel Stern, Illeana Douglas and Kevin Pollak.[16] In a 2008 interview at SXSW where it opened the festival in its midnight slot, Krantz described Otis as a purposeful satire on the over-abundance of torture and gore porn movies, but also a "meditation on the Iraq war."[15]
Not just another scary film.
I think the result is a movie that will utterly ruin a non-thinking man's relationship with doctors the rest of his life. 😂 My poor husband.
Ok, so I've been busy and haven't had the time to pen this all out, so I'm going to leave it in my questions/statements format and maybe toss in some thoughts. It's not terribly organized because it's raw brain melt. If you haven't seen Sublime yet, go do that and then help me out here.
Ned
The way George sees himself is through his son filming a documentary on how he sees himself. (Loop cycle layers.)
The infection (abscess) in his chest is George's diseased attitude.
The double (triple) scene- filters, how we see things internally.
Mandingo- fear
Ned reminds George of his role (fatherly kiss)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Zoe became primary interactive mode
Zoe literally on the stump
Complexities of Zoe- She hurt him but snuck in to briefly "care" about him- this scene back to back with wife scene
With Zoe George was still "master" or authority.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jenny
Barely mentioned history of volunteer work abroad before she married.
George assumes his wife would leave him for another man and he didn't exactly beg her to stay
Pre defensive posture, self fulfilling destiny
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mandingo
undoing the 1975 film?
running it backward?
magic?
Mandingo character is about control, neglect, abuse, slavery (including debt slavery) and corruption in corporate/govt policy and either revenge or restitution
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How do Zoe and Mandingo fit together?
Zoe is quiet (complicit?) in the face of confrontation.
Zoe assuages complicity with illusion, reality layered with fiction
Zoe is the key to Mandigo
white male privilege
George couldn't reconcile reality with cover up without costing his heart and soul
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chloe
Is George assuming Chloe is lesbian? This isn't clear.
The faceless man in the bed next to George says it doesn't matter.
AND is George the hero of her innocence with his interpretation of his love for her?
He was going to tell her Yes.
Give her his permission to love whomever she desired, perhaps.
Role of the father (sexually) to hand off daughter.
George never verbally acknowledges this to Chloe.
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What does Ravyn represent to George? (the black bird swooping around)
Cadavergirl, the final emasculation
What was the point of the Yes scene?
The Stump.
Ravyn wants to see the stump. Ravyn is in control. She is named Death.
Longshot- Is it possible George is/feels responsible for Chloe being gay? Do we get a hint of "filled with love" being shunned? Does this relate to a child/fetus being killed in the 1975 Mandingo film?
Ravyn wants to see the stump.
Death wants to cut it off.
Judge and jury.
Cadavergirl is representative to Mandingo culture oppression.
Mandingo doesn't interrupt Chloe and Ravyn like he does Ned.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chloe is guilt.
Ned is reflection.
Ravyn is judgment.
Mandingo is executioner.
Brother Billy is prosecutor.
Wife Jenny is ____? Reason 👈 layered meanings.
Zoe is excuse, alibi, distraction, connection.
Zoe crosses into the broken world as the narrative. ("I'm not supposed to be here.")
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lotta questions there. I went in so many directions peeling back so many layers, and there aren't actually answers to some things as far as I can see, but in a nutshell, Imma psyche analyze this now-
George is a guilt-ridden financial success because emotionally (spiritually) he's an utter failure with a plant dying, his beautiful wife thinking about leaving him, his intelligent son mildly condescending to him, his daughter possibly brushing off finding a copy of her daddy to reproduce with, his brother mocking his social intelligence (below the belt on his birthday), and the rest of his 'friends' (soulless) at his birthday being a jerk lawyer, a greedy neighbor, and a guy we never get a full name on and who George doesn't notice tries to talk to him by the pool. PJ sat at George's right hand during the jello birthday song, on his left hand during his Last Supper birthday photo shoot, which would make him James the Greater in the painting, Jesus' first follower. Significant to Sublime?
I'd say why yes, yes it is significant.
I ran back through all the birthday scenes to confirm that PJ is the one person that we know nothing about, even though he was a significantly comfortable part of George's birthday party, and the only person George didn't see in his memories or in his broken delusions after the medical accident. In fact, I got to wondering if George ever even makes eye contact with or personally addresses PJ in the movie at all, things I normally miss anyway because my own real life EQ is so dismal, and dang, even Jenny tells George that PJ came out to talk to him by the pool, and George didn't respond, obviously hadn't even noticed him.
Is PJ a token black in George's friend set? Is he the biggest clue to George's inner guilt over white privilege?
I think I can finally walk away from this movie satisfied. I knew I couldn't put a finger on what was eating away at me, Krantz brilliantly exploded that into my brain once I dug in some more.
And shouldn't that have been more obvious??? Dart to my own heart, Krantz.
This movie is a 2020 must see. Here, have a shopping link.
And since I'm remembering that this is actually a continued Tom watch review, here you go, have some pretty Tom pix. Sorry about forgetting I was doing that. Good thing I don't write for money, I'd be fired. 😬😂 If you look closely throughout this scene, his pupils do some funky things, probably all that lighting, but don't worry, they're perfectly normal and round when you do zooms through other scenes. I know some people are really into weird eye stuff. Since I'm light sensitive, I notice these things, too.
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