Al's Omniflick: The Babadook

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

The Babadook

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Jennifer Kent/Starring: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Hayley McElhinney and Daniel Henshall

Australian Director Jennifer Kent makes her feature-film debut with The Babadook; a frightening and often disturbing story of a mother and son who are menaced by an evil, supernatural entity clad in a black top-hat and suit. It isn't often we find horror from down under arrive on our shores but it is fortunate we have Kent's film to give the genre a jolt with a dark, offbeat story that dispenses scares liberally.

The odd title refers to a character in a children's book, which Amelia (Essie Davis) reads to her young son Samuel (Noah Wiseman) as a bedtime story.

Years earlier, Amelia lost her husband in a car accident on the way to hospital to give birth to her son. In the present, the tragedy continues to haunt Amelia and Samuel.

Amelia has difficulties rearing her son, whose elementary school life is troubled by strange and sometimes violent behavior, which taxes the patience of the school administration. Unable to cope with her son's erratic behavior, which includes making weapons to fight the Babadook, Amelia removes him from school.

Samuel's behavior also troubles Amelia's sister Claire (Hayley McElhinney), whose own young daughter refuses to play with him. Despite repeated scoldings, Samuel persists in his belief about the Babadook, which exasperates his mother.

As her life continues to spiral out of control, Amelia begins to realize Samuel's warnings about the entity may be real. She begins to hear loud, strange sounds in her home while their dog Bugsy barks at something unseen. Not long after, she begins to see the black-clad apparition from Samuel's book.

After ripping up the book, she finds it; days later, on her doorstep with the pages reattached. In re-reading the book, she finds that what were seemingly harmless passages are now ominous warnings about the entity's intentions, including possessing her body and visiting violence on Samuel, the dog and herself.

Amelia also sees her husband's apparition intermingle with the Babadook, which brings her psychological state to bear. After the entity possesses Amelia, Samuel and the family dog become her target, which leads to some disturbing developments.

The dread factor is maintained with an edgy score by Jed Kurzel and a terrific set design; interiors are solid grays and steel blue, which darken rooms and make for a somber mood.
Essie Davis gives a sound performance as a mother who pines for her husband and for someone to assuage her loneliness. Child actor Noah Wiseman's quirky appearance and dark eyes make his lonely, social awkwardness all the more poignant.

As Amelia and Samuel's confrontation with the Babadook comes to a decisive conclusion, we see the family become less victimized in their battle with the malign spirit.

It is easy to see The Babadook as an allegory about overcoming grief and loss and the evil tormenting the family a projection of their own anxieties. Kent doesn't give our own fears and anxieties rest, as every moment Amelia and Samuel are in the house makes one squirm and wish for an escape. Her first film shows directorial promise.

If most American horror films had the ambition of Jennifer Kent's film, we'd see fewer messes like Ouija. The Babadook doesn't just scare, it denies one refuge from something determined and implacable. A terrific film; a terrible evil.

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On DVD

Fury (1936)

Director: Fritz Lang

Though we might normally think of the films M and Metropolis when director Fritz Lang becomes the topic of conversation, less known is the legendary director's work in Hollywood. Having fled the ever-growing menace of Nazi Germany for America in the early 1930s', Lang eventually found himself under contract for MGM.

Though his work in Hollywood is very uneven, one standout is Fury, from 1936. Starring Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney, the film's condemnation of mob justice seems spectacularly daring now, considering lynching was still a reality in Depression-era America. We don't see one black person in the film entire but we know precisely for whom Lang film is sympathetic.

Spencer Tracy plays Joe Wilson, who is arrested in a small town while en route to meet his fiance, Katherine (Sylvia Sydney). Suspected of being part of a kidnapping of a little girl, Wilson is arrested on the flimsiest evidence. While he sits in cell; angry and indignant, Katherine is puzzled as to why her fiance hasn't arrived at their prearranged meeting place.

But Wilson's fortunes take a darker and more dangerous turn when a mob--already on edge--is roused to anger. Egging one another on, the mob moves on the jailhouse where Wilson is being held. As the angry gathering becomes a mass, drawing citizens of the town into their swelling numbers, a lynch-mob begins to form. The sheriff, determined to see due process take its course, refuses their forceful demands. Becoming angrier and angrier and bolder and bolder, the crowd storms the jail, overwhelming the sheriff and his deputies. Unable to unlock the cell doors to reach Wilson, the mob sets the jailhouse ablaze as an alternate method of lynching.

Katherine, having arrived on the scene, faints when she sees flames engulf the cell where her fiance is held.

In spite of the mob acting as a faceless entity, its principle members are brought to trial though the town and the defendants maintain a conspiracy of silence, hoping to escape convictions and censure.

A sure acquittal seems imminent until damning evidence assures their guilt. When the majority of the members receive death sentences, Wilson turns up at his brothers, having survived the fire. Knowing the public is unaware of his survival, he vows to stay in hiding to ensure the mob conspirators are executed.

The scene where Katherine, nearly insane from grief, comes face to face with Joe is a powerful moment in the film. As she slowly recovers from her state, she realizes Joe's vindictive determination to see the mob hang is in itself a great injustice.

The story climaxes during a stirring courtroom scene that brings the fascinating story to a close.

I would have never expected Hollywood to make a statement as powerful as Fury made in 1936. Given the fact that lynchings in America at the time went unpunished, the movie railed bravely, in spite of the main character being white rather than black, against what was then the status quo. The Oxbow Incident would make a similar and commensurately powerful statement seven years later.

The film's willingness to peer into the darker side of American life could be partly attributed to Lang, who co-wrote the story and who was no stranger to exploring the darker side of humanity. Having seen evil flower in his home country, it makes sense Lang would choose to tell this story.

Spencer Tracy and Sylvia Sydney give wonderful, emotionally layered performances. Katherine's near descent into madness is depicted touchingly by Sydney. To see Tracy's mild-mannered Wilson become angry and vengeful is heartbreaking.

Even watching Lang's film on a small screen does little to diminish its power. Weeks after the viewing, I still can't shake its indelible images or its angry indictment of one of America's great crimes. One couldn't devise a better title than one it was given eighty years ago. Fury indeed.