Top 5 Scary Places I’d Travel if I lived in the Movies
I always prefer to go away for winter holidays. First, getting away from your lap-top screen for two weeks saves electricity bills from expanding. Second, there’s an all-across-post-soviet territory spell (or rather curse), which says “What you do on New Year’s Eve is exactly what you’ll be doing for the rest of the year”. This most energizing curse makes people insane. From going to a village disco (and accidentally becoming a photographer for local mafia)in the midst of Belorussian countryside to celebrating 12 o’clock in slow trains, or in a forest hut, or on two dates at once and even in the metro station.
But this year my health pulled the plug — and left me with a flu, a bottle of strawberry champagne and a good friend. Because the friend - like me - is a movie-junkie, we spent New Year’s Eve on a movie marathon. By 12 o’clock next day (or a day after) we’ve been to so many virtual locations, brain started to question itself. Whether “movie-traveling” or traveling in the movies is a thing or not, I decided to gather some of the film locations that were scary, but also exciting to re/visit . Here’s the list in “whatever” order.
- LABYRINTH (1986)
Location: Labyrinth (obviously)
It is a very old film that scared me from the bottom to the top from the times my top could fit freely under the table. Labyrinth had the whole list of nightmarish elements in stock:
- old folklore (goblins)
- deadly traps
- dark passages with secret doors
- and all the horrors of 1980’s glitter make up.
Then: The worst scene I remembered from the childhood days was the one with fake happy ending, where Sarah, the main character, returns to her room and the room literally falls apart to reveal that white walls of home were fake and we’re still in the dark reality of the maze.
Now: Re-watching it, of course, gum toys jumping on the characters from the corners seem naive, but what things I didn’t notice before was interesting plot twists and great-quality humor. In the beginning a little monster cries “the other way” and makes Sarah go right not left. After she’s gone the monster casually notes that “if she went left, she’d come directly to the palace” — the place she actually needed. Or when faces on the walls ask Sarah to “play along” and pretend she’s afraid, because they are very bored without proper work. Philosophy of the place is — nothing’s what it seems. Besides, how grotesque and cool is that Bowie wears new costume for every new scene.
Location: Retro-Future (or alternative 1950's)
Terry Gilliam’s Brazil was the one I haven’t seen before. From the very beginning it looked like a continuation of Godard’s Alphaville. They could even be neighbors. Like, when you’re tired of crazy professor’s experiments or registry number’s tattooed on your skin, please come to Brazil and either have a skin-removal operation, or buy yourself some well-decorated pipes for Christmas.
In two-something hours you fall into absurdist space where Kafka would feel at home. Where dishes in the restaurants look like equally unappetizing blobs of green, blue or red, and the main character, a pedestrian worker of a nazi-like intelligence corporation, is doomed because he says “stake” instead of “number 4”. Or because he wants to return money state takes for holding you in prison to the woman whose husband dies from tortures he payed for with these money. The scheme of tax on tortures would sound fantasmagoric if you didn’t know about some countries making Syrian refugees pay for staying in detention camps in 2015 (link). Anyway, staying in “Brazil” for a while helped me to re-evaluate the closeness of nightmare to real life.
3. The Brand New Testament (2015)
Location: a world where middle-aged housewife can chose color of sky by clicking computer mouse, like it’s a screensaver
It’s Belgian “Dogma”, and if you don’t know what Dogma is (because apparently you’re an alien form brought to this universe two days ago)— stop reading and go watch it immediately!
As any atheist I love to watch comedies about religion. From Monty Python to that one movie where Travolta played a beer-drinking angel, healthy humor makes old arguing between those who believe and those who don’t a livelier and much more interesting subject. And although I believe that every person who becomes successful in politics should be partially sociopath no matter whether it’s a man or a woman, the idea of a nonchalant cleaning lady issuing laws of “no gravity” or “sky in pink dot”, or new testament written by a hobo seems much more hopeful than those real enough to be true rules of “the other line in the supermarket always moves faster”, which are definitely set in the core of our twisted godless reality.
4. 12 MONTHS (1956 to 1973)
Location: alternative Russia mid-19th century set with fake snow and classical music and forest fires made by 12 men who are not gnomes.
If it’s winter holidays and you’re a Russian speaker, there is no other choice but watch a vintage Soviet cartoon or fairy-tale. Because they are wonderful and escapist, and for some time if you had any imagination but didn’t want to tackle marxist-leninist theory in your art, you were destined for the “children TV”. The best Cinderella for me is still Janina Jeimo circa 1947, an almost 40-year old woman who looked like an underfed elf and who had to play happiness during the shooting which took place in the midst of WW2.
This year I chose “12 Months” (both cartoon and film) for its very spot-on plot about rich people who want spring-flowers for New Year (and get them!), and about poor people who because of their poorness must deal with family issues or else evicted from communal home. Also winter fur-coat arguments are always a pressing subject when its -15 outside. And what always made me wonder — why Russian fairy tales have so many 12-brother story plots and in none of them they are gnomes? Well, I don’t mind here since the “spring” part of brothers (March, April and May) are so fit and fancy.
Location: Fierce American-Canadian nowhere with tons of white snow and black humor
After re-watching it once again I still think that the best of Fargos is the first of Fargos. The plot is fit to the movie length. It is realistic as it can be, and makes good people seem more cool than the coolest of bad people. Which on the “license to shoot” shelf of movies is a rare case. The TV series despite the fact that they are beautifully made lose the battle as charisma of Billy Bob Thornton over-weighs any one of positive characters’. Same way people remember better what Joker says than Batman, and dress as Dart Wader for Halloween rather than yoda, etc. In the universe of Fargo 1996 hero logic works for the good. There is a set of bed guys, who are either mentally deranged or simple sociopaths or victims of their own poor choices. And then there’s a pregnant woman who’s the the cop and the coolest badass at the same time. Besides she’s absolutely believable and often afraid, not trying to play sure of her actions. In short, it’s a manual on coolness circa 1996, and I’d watch it again indefinitely.
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And there were my 5 favorite scary places to travel when you can’t travel. Of course there are many many more (from black-and-white “Ninochka” to Christmas in Connecticut), but even my flu has its finish line, and with new real and fake destinations in mind I have to wrap up. Read and see you soon.
P.S. By the way, what scary places would you chose if you could live in the movies?
