Sanctuary

Finding mine in this GEM

I’m still pondering even now why I like this film so much. I’ve read a lot of reviews or as many as I could find because it seems no one is seeing this gem. I’ve seen it 4 times now in theatres and I think I may be the foremost viewer on this except for the filmmakers themselves. So what has me so captivated? I don’t know but to the chagrin of my mother (rest in peace), "I find that “I don’t know” can be an answer even though she attested that “I don’t know” isn’t an answer. In the not knowing becomes the wonder of curiosity, learning and exploration, these 3 things don’t always give answers but they do illuminate. At this point in my life I even find sex somewhat boring, I still like to fuck, don’t get me wrong and master bate but overall I’ve done it all and I get the gist of it ya know; So films like this that seem to supposedly be all about sex doesn’t do much for me. Erotic thriller is not what attracted me to it, who really wants to sit in a theatre full of people eating popcorn with boners anyways. What I think initially attracted me to this one was the trailer, it had this one location and the characters seemed fucked up! I love bottle episodes in many ways and characters who think they have it all together only to realize they are a mess, even better. When I actually saw the film it blew me away because a lot more themes I guess I didn’t fully expect started to emerge, especially on multiple viewings. Its not just a thriller/drama its so much more, so much deeper about who we are as people and how we hide from ourselves.

First, Its a hero journey, not the hero you want or expect but the one you need. Is this any different of a journey than Thor smashing a bunch of bad guys to get his hammer back? I think not. The whole point here is to grow through trials and tribulations, so this is my Marvel/DC epic. I’ve always been a comic book nerd so somewhere in the middle of watching this I realized, Hey this is a journey but with no trekking. This is a journey film but just through the dark emotions of the soul swirling around and every break in the film with the kaleidoscope colors and Avant Garde jazz score, which I love, it is taking us deeper into those primordial kaleidoscope colored mountain ranges of our minds eye, flowing through technicolor highways of neuro pathways of our psyches, to journey to the center of our core souls instead of the journey to the center of the earth, even though earth is us and we are Earth. Fuck! I geeked out so hard, knowing that we were stuck in this room, like the blacked out room our skull makes for our imaginative lucid wonderfully haunting brain.

Second, I root for people who are inherently fucked up. This connects with me, somewhere deep for sure. For people to to succeed at their goals is always what I want if you aren’t hurting anyone of course, ya know Hitler could have succeeded a lot less in my humble opinion. But for fucked up people who don’t realize they love each other, until battle tested to find some happiness is just bliss for me. My heart swells like the Grinch’s does when he finally accepts the loving singing of Whoville’s Whos; all 4 times in the last 5 minutes of the film I had the same reaction. Its just so darkly beautiful. Also let me make the argument that these are not awful people okay, they are two individuals bent by their own lies they have told themselves and been told by others while forced into roles. To break lies about self it takes molten fire to bring them to ash, while someone else can help meld them back together as truth.

Third, I love great rom coms too, that gooey feeling you get when someone succeeds like in a baseball game! I’ve always said Baseball is romantic, the only sport that truly can be because it is a game of negatives a great hitter only has .300 batting average it is a game of loss, so when something spectacular happens its even more amazing, and just like love it doesn’t have a time limit, no ticking clock you have to get all the other teams batters out, just like with love you have to break down all 27 or more defenses of another person to really win. That is what happens here. Most people don’t want to change and most people never will, as Bob Dylan said it takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry.

Fourth, this film feels like Batman and The Joker cartoon episode, I say that in the most loving way. A battle of wills but they need each other and my comic book nerd self revels in this type of back and forth. The real beauty I find is how quiet the action really is because as she says this is psychological so no need to jump off rooftops or have blazing action. Instead words cut like knives. I believe as Alan Moore says that words are powerful like magical spells, look at what beauty and awfulness language has brought forth in the world. Just look at speeches from John Muir brought people together to help create and save national parks or how speeches from dictators galvanized mobs to kill for them. Their is a beauty to how natural they are on screen, a chemistry like watching the wind battle the tree tops, as natural as a driving rain on the oceans surface and calm below the reefs. Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me, we all heard that as kids well its bullshit, it always has been always will be because words can’t hurt you but they can convince you like a witches spell to take those sticks and stones and smash some ones brains in, thankfully that doesn’t happen here, all that happens is we get to the truth of this relationship, because sometimes dark truths still need to be heard.

Fifth, what you will do for love? The extremes to get to true self? We all talk a big game when it comes to who we are but we all wear a ton of masks, the bullshit slew upon on by society, family, friends, our own messed up brains from childhood trauma… So what does it take to get to the center of our tootsie pop? Not just a few licks, even though that helps sometimes haha, it takes strength and honesty, that hard honesty of stripping away years of programming. Its becomes an immense task especially to do it in a hotel room in one night so it seems like Rebecca goes to crazy lengths but I never for one moment except the first time I saw it believed she or Hal would hurt each other. Its Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, the love they share is greater then the chaos of the world or themselves. A game is ebb and flow, both of them knew they needed this and she realized she needed to go off script, finally. The firing broke her, they could not lose each other or they would lose themselves, now that’s commitment. The whole film they are just reading lines until she finally burst forth back into that hotel room really laying it out behind hurt pain. She still is closed off just asking for money the way we all hide from saying the full truth, we make up some other want we need supposedly to still beat around the bush. She understands though that the start of the this fight will push both of them to get closer to a truth. The truth is they NEED each other and are in LOVE, period.

Sixth, She knew him and he knew her, to every fault. Every look and side glance in the film opens a well of hidden desires and care. The whole film is trying to get to the core identity of these two characters and in turn the audience. The film asks us to think about what our true identity is, what does it mean to us are we living authentically. For most the answer is fuck no! I say that even about myself in many ways. How do we get to that other side of deep subconscious self? Through the force of another persons care. Yes you may says this doesn’t seem like “care” between the two of them but if they didn’t go to these extremes they would have never changed and would have lived there lives out with the aching feeling of regret pulsing in the back of their skulls. Which it seems most people in this life live with. What if always looming, not for them, they don’t have to worry about that anymore. They fucked around and found out. Their is a supreme beauty in that for me, I wish at times I had done that with one ex in particular, told him exactly how I felt pushed him to his brink, damn well I know he needs it seeing how much he is living an absolutely false life and he wonders why he can’t get his mental health under control. I know this so well, the idea of feeling the other person needs a bit of a push or struggle to let them break free. He is the only ex I know this for sure as Rebecca knew this about Hal and their relationship dynamic. All my other exes I let go, especially the one I was with for 5 years on and off, She and I knew it wouldn’t work, nothing could change that. Their is something intoxicating watching Rebecca understand that feeling, that is so hard to describe for myself. When you aren’t truly yourself whatever that may be, doesn’t have to be a dominatrix, then you always live in a state of fogged purgatory. A place of chaotic boredom. It eats at you like a rat chewing through a lead pipe poising the water that flows to every facet of your being.

Seventh, These are two people whole and completely misunderstood. They have identities that have been forced onto them in some way or another. Not given the chance to win because they were poor so they have to do something to get that dominant force out of them, or being groomed for something they could give two fucks about. Hal is hiding from shame, Rebecca isn’t given the chance to truly shine. So even beyond their love for one another they envy each others roles they have been put in. Yo do not have to be what you have always been told to be, change your fucking stars. Its also for me as a service industry person, really beautiful to see another service industry person win, not just the money but to be able to be their whole crazy self. The idea of being seen by each other and the outside world is palpable here. They both are hiding from the outside world but also love what they have. I adore the idea that what we do sexually and otherwise with art or whatever can never be fully separate from the realities of the outside world and our overall being. Everything is intertwined in some way. They see this as the film goes on. She doesn’t have to be just beating men in the street, somethings are beautifully private, but they see how one talent is transmutable to other places in life. They oddly work on each others trauma and overcome it together, through intense exposure therapy. All of us as humans need to be seen by another and also see another person which they both do, they see every aspect of each other and ain’t that beautiful.

Lastly, Its also so refreshing to not demonize or have a film like this end horribly. Its just two people who aren’t bad people at all, they just have something a bit weird about them. I fucking love weird. I’m weird! So bring it on, let me be seen. This film is fun deep down as well, making you love and root for these characters. The dark humor helps to illuminate more intense things with healthy levity, which is how I’ve always opperated. We all must realize these things deep in us that pop up here and there mean more than we can image, they should be explored and usually it takes something extreme to force them out. For me it was traveling, volunteering to give myself away to help people I didn’t know, and getting sober, who knows what it is for you… but this film implores you, as I do too, to EXPLORE, we all have talents and oddities, find your true self wherever, however deep it lies within and make the world a more interesting place and yourself whole at the same time.

P.S. The real fun of this is its pure fantasy, all actors, made up from a real mind, but emotions faked register real, compartmentalize, let your self slip away to feel themes that mean something in reality, but cant always trust emotions but I let they move me, so how real can it feel, ohhhhh so real to have a chemical reaction, physical, emotional in the darkness of empty space and a flickering screen, something fake is real and vis verse, film is a funny wonderful silly magical….Creation.