Dir: Gareth Edwards
2010
*****
Gareth
Edward’s 2010 film Monsters was the breath of fresh air the Monster movie genre
really needed. I tried not to, but I couldn’t help but compare it to Cloverfield
that came out just two years before. Cloverfield tapped into the found footage
sub-genre that was gaining popularity but I didn’t think it brought much to the
genre as a whole. I jokingly said that it would have been better if Lars Von
Trier had directed it (what film wouldn’t?) and when I first saw Monsters I saw
that it wasn’t such a jokey idea after all. While
Gareth Edwards is no Von Trier, he clearly has a different vision than most,
although it should be said that he also wanted to make a found footage film but
changed his mind when Cloverfield beat him to it. Still, he comes from a SFX
background but is clearly concerned with much more than visuals and aesthetics,
although the film is stunning to look at. Godzilla represented Japan's fear of
the atomic bomb, District 9 was about apartheid, and Cloverfield, supposedly,
represented the fear of terrorism in the western world post 9/11, although
personally I think it is just an excuse to make a monster movie and besides, the
remake of War of the Worlds did that much better anyway. Every monster film out
there proclaims to be about representing people’s fears of whatever is scariest
that decade but Monsters seems to be the exception. You can read so much into
it though, at first I thought it was about Western paranoia, fear of the
unknown and the fact that when you try to keep things out, you only barricade
yourself in. Like I said, you can read a lot into it and after watching the
making of, I'm not so sure much of that was the intention. Besides, he seems
more interested in the emotional effect of the scenario, it's really a simple
love story, another reason why we don't actually see an invasion as such but
join the story when the monsters have already settled. The monsters take a back
seat in the overall story, the film isn’t really about them. Indeed, the film
is much more like Scoot McNairy’s earlier film, In Search of a Midnight Kiss,
which Edward’s states as an influence. The monsters are ambiguous, this leaves
the audience to decide who the real monster is, is it us or is it them and what
are they anyway. A monster doesn’t have to be a giant spider thing, it can be
an idea, your subconscious or your own lack of self-confidence. When the
monsters appear in the film is very telling. It’s very clever, without being
all smarty pants about it. I think the most impressive thing about this film,
apart from the fantastic and quite beautiful last scene, is that it cost next
to nothing to make and was shot with a crew of eight or so people including
cast. That is impressive. Spielberg made Jaws, Gareth Edwards made Monsters,
this is the future of film making, or at least, I really hope it is.
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