Ramsay actually removes a key point from Eva and Kevin's final visit in the novel to heighten the ambiguity in Celia's injury.
Chris, let me just state a few things right off the bat.
Thank you for coming over and considering my comments.
Really interesting and insightful comments on the film, and I'm sorry I'm going to totally overlook 99.999% of what you said and focus on the one part that affords me an opportunity to basically get really defensive... Truly, I'm sorry.
Also, I'll stipulate that: A) Not everyone who loves this movie, either in this forum or out in the real world, read the book first. Obviously.
B) It's possible (though if we're being honest with each other, not totally likely) that you would be able to express everything you've articulated here had you not read the book first. (And to cover my bases, even if you read the book
after, it informs everything you're saying here looking back on the film.)
But. Wow. That line above is illuminating. Josh wasn't crazy when he wondered in bonus content if some of the group taking us to task had read the book first, was he? Listen, if it's not totally clear by now, I'm standing by my review of the film, insofar as I stand by any review as my attempt to express the experience I had, and certainly not my unleashing of any sort of definitive analysis. If I'm doing things right, I'm wrestling with my reaction while discussing it, and gleaning things from the conversation -- the conversation with my co-host, and the one it strikes up with listeners. It's not a static thing.
But how much different would our discussion inevitably have been, might my experience with the film had been, had I read the story first? Who knows, maybe I would have disliked it more. But isn't it also possible that I might have been more patient with Ramsay's 'overstated oppression', as one forum member described it? That I might have recognized more nuance in it, and been more forgiving of certain aspects because I could read between the lines, so to speak?
I mean, Josh and I had to contend with the movie on its own - a challenging movie that is naturally distancing, that presents one person's POV and leaves so much up for interpretation. I'm sure the book isn't really any more black and white, but you watched having had the entire narrative told to you previously by EVA HERSELF, in her own voice. What perspective!
Let me be clear, this isn't really directed at you specifically, Chris... I'm just using it to vent a little... but it was of course frustrating, and frankly a little insulting, to have someone equate our conversation about Kevin to the one Lyons and Mank had about Synecdoche, NY. All 2.5 minutes of it. And that frustration is only exacerbated by (sometimes) patronizing charges of insufficiency from folks who had read the book first. Can they all guarantee they would have appreciated it as much, and would be defending it as vociferously, if they hadn't?
Genuinely, I love being told I got a movie wrong. I love having to reconsider everything I said, and as you put it, "The fact that we have such opposing views on the film and the same techniques" is, in fact, quite interesting. It's when the tone isn't one of, hey, I respect your position but did you consider this... here are some things you might have missed, or this is how I read it... that it gets problematic for me. I guess I'm just wondering if the deck was stacked against us here a little bit.