Fire Walk With Them: A “Queen of Earth” Review
Why can’t we be friends?
Queen of Earth, the latest film from Alex Ross Perry, ranks among the best horror films of 2015. But, judging from its simple and almost generic sounding synopsis, most people might skip what could’ve been a straight forward drama. This would be a mistake.
As the title of this review suggests, I found many a comparison to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me — at least in terms of attitude and atmosphere. Whenever characters converse with another, there is a surreal subtext of tightly wound tension, thickly floating in the air between them. It’s unexplained at first, but makes for a good mystery to unravel as we spend the week on a friend-cation at a lovely and serene on the surface lake house.
Mysterious. Dramatic. Anxiety inducing. Horrific. A shame some of us thought this would be dry, dull and tedious.
Gettin’ Some R&R
From the beginning, the very beginning, we are thrust into the collapsing world of Catherine (Elisabeth Moss). Our first shot of her (and of the movie) is reminiscent of a violently sad and angry clown. Her makeup is smeared, her nose is red, and her hair a mess. This is not pleasant to look at, nor to feel, for the audience or for Cat.
Having suffered two major life blows — her famous father committing suicide and her boyfriend breaking up with her — she goes for a week long stay at the lake house of her “best friend” Ginny (Katherine Waterston). With our first looks at her, we take in the doughy eyes, the weathered face and dour near judgmental expressions. This too is not pleasant, for the audience or for Cat.
As each day passes, the dynamic of their relationship unfurls like heavy baggage. We (and perhaps they) experience the present and the past at once, remembering the last vacation as this one trudges along. It gives us a chance to understand what they may have been like towards one another in happier (slightly) days. They bicker, sure, but seemed, at the very least, like close sisters. Now? There is nothing for them but depressing diatribes and accusatory conversations. Not so much love/hate, more struggling to love/easier to hate.
Cat slowly but surely goes off the deep end, with the weight of her recent tragedies plus dealing with her in tatters friendship getting to her. She retreats to talking and behaving like a child, perhaps as a defense mechanism of some sort. She is unable to communicate with anyone other than Ginny, and even with her, she’s unapproachable. It’s scary, seeing someone so close to the edge, so close to jumping off, so willing and wanting to jump off.
Almost always, there is music playing in the background. Even if there is a scene without it, I hear it. It’s a frightening sting, letting me in on something horrible that will happen. Or, perhaps, something horrible happening throughout. We fade out from and fade in to increasingly tense moments, broken apart by blank black screens and a score to scare. We are subjected to sequences where characters look at each other close up or afar, without the other knowing. We get the strong sense that these are people who shouldn’t be around kitchen knives.
This is the horror of Queen of Earth. The end of a friendship. The slow, bizarre, preyed upon end of a friendship. And who is to blame? There really isn’t a killer in the traditional sense, though it’s safe to state that both Cat and Ginny knew how toxic things had gotten, and were, in subtle and not so subtle ways, pushing each other to assume the role. The thrust of the movie is that very back and forth, with neither wanting to be it, but both knowing that it should happen.
Paranoia and delusion, sarcasm and intrusiveness — these are not the things to rely any relationship on. Even ones that are long past their prime. Where do you go after such a breakup? Where can you go?
Rating — *****
Perry sets a tone that I haven’t felt since Orson Welles’ The Trial or Werner Herzog’s Even Dwarves Started Small. Would Kafka like Queen of Earth? Would Herzog? They might just relate to Cat in some ways.
