Carol: Review / Todd Haynes Q&A
London’s Picturehouse Central previewed Carol on 35mm film on Tuesday, followed by a Q&A with director Todd Haynes.
Rating: 4/4
At a crucial moment in Carol, a character utters: ‘we never look like that’. It marks the discovery of beauty. It laments how society can hide that beauty. It acknowledges that, once hidden, beauty must be captured, made valuable because of its rarity.
Carol captures beauty made elusive by early 1950s American society. A lesbian romance must remain clandestine, and what is left unsaid is as important as what is spoken. The visual becomes vital; director Todd Haynes states that Cate Blanchett ‘had to be portraying the image of Carol’, as the film ‘wouldn’t work if the acting made her feel too available to you’.
Carol’s lover, Rooney Mara’s Therese, is a street photographer in her spare time, her perspective oscillating between distance and intimacy. She spies Carol across the shop floor; shortly, they are locked in conversation. She photographs her from afar; soon, the two embrace.
Cinematographer Edward Lachman recreates early 50s New York with grain and smudged colour — inspired, Haynes notes, by the post-war photography of Saul Leiter. In contrast to the aesthetic of Haynes’ Far From Heaven, set during what he calls the ‘glossy Eisenhower years’ of the late 50s, Carol captures what Haynes calls a New York of ‘insecurity and vulnerability’ after war.
Whereas Far From Heaven, Haynes says, used ‘the language of Hollywood filmmaking’, it was this street photography that decided the visual language of Carol. While the former depicts the homogenized comfort seen in films later in the 50s, the latter shows the attempt to rediscover calm, and take control of the present moment rather than being inhibited by the past.
Therese’s desire is the viewer’s, our point of view framed and obscured by the screen just as her’s is by walls, pedestrians, and windows made misty by winter weather. Lachman and Leiter isolate figures in the blur of their surrounding environment, with warm colours contrasting frozen melancholy. Therese speaks of her isolation as if she is the subject of a Leiter photograph:
‘I always spend New Year’s alone, in a crowd.’
As proximity shifts and intimacy becomes precious, every slight gesture — a touch of a shoulder, the smell of perfume, a backwards glance — becomes pivotal, as an accumulation of delicate acts forms a powerful romance. Like ingénue Therese, the viewer’s understanding of these gestures grows with experience, as images recur and subtle moments are redefined.
The opening scene is repeated from alternative angles near the film’s end, a beautiful portrayal of passion in conflict with doubt, seen initially through a lens of innocence before its true emotional underpinnings are revealed later on.
Uncertainty is crucial in Carol, with each unspoken word causing facial expression and body language to be the sole communicator. At first, Carol seems to be in control, her iciness and calm masterly portrayed by Blanchett. As she tells Therese,
‘You seek resolutions and explanations because you’re young. … I release you.’
Therese is being guided, engaged in a relationship made more intimate by its defiance towards the male bravado that surrounds them. But Carol’s guidance isn’t an assurance of safety through this ‘release’; instead, she assures her that things change inexplicably, and escaping expectations is the most freeing act of all.
Many of these expectations are caused by the 1950s male gaze, a general ambivalence towards lesbian romance arising when what men desire is unattainable and at odds with social norms. Carol leaves this prejudice on the periphery; Haynes declares that it is ‘not an issue film, but [its subject] is important’. The director depicts Carol and Therese ‘discovering their desire and being able to claim it’ — all that matters is their passion for each other.
As the film continues, Carol struggles to maintain control, in conflict with her husband over a divorce settlement. She knows she cannot continue ‘living against [her] own grain’, and Therese allows her to escape. Carol depicts how love at its most pure overrides the senses, indestructible to external forces. Haynes understands how we ‘wait for the love affair to be consummated’, tantalized with beauty until it can evade these external restrictions.
The acting in Carol is so intricate, navigated by Mara’s doe eyes and Blanchett’s regal demeanor, that when the love is consummated, it is a stunning crescendo. Rouge lipstick, perfectly curled hair, and rich fur coats have contributed to the 50s aesthetic; and while Carol and Therese escape social restrictions, moving beyond the windows that separated them from each other — and us from them — and finally remove these garments that adorn their beauty, we are consistently entranced as they collide.
Carol is released in UK cinemas this Friday, 27th November.
