movie: Medea (1969)

Last night, I watched the 1969 Italian film, Medea, which is pretty much a direct adaptation of the Medea myth, if you removed the actual plot and replaced it with a focus on the concept of forcing a person to conform to the rules of a society and culture, and then using it to strip them of everything and kick them out.

Basically, it was one of the randomest and most pretentious things I have ever seen. And, as a result, often accidentally hilarious.

About 90% of the dialogue in the first half of the movie is in the first 5 minutes and is infodumping from Chiron. I was distracted from what was being said by the fact that part of it included what appeared to be a 4-5 year old boy sitting naked an bareback on a horse, and hoping that wasn’t what was actually going on, because, uhm, owie. Chiron also randomly changed from a centaur to a human during those 5 minutes. Jason didn’t seem to notice. This was eventually explained, but that didn’t necessarily help, and made Jason look even dumber than he already came across. (Has there ever been an adaptation in which Jason seemed remotely intelligent? Oh, wait, the one in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys wasn’t so bad, but he also had very little to do with the mythic character after his first appearance, and got a lot smarter after that.) Even after he grew up and got clothes, Jason was still in severe need of pants the entire time.

The movie assumes that anyone who watches it is very familiar with the myths surrounding Jason and Medea, and so doesn’t bother with a plot. I pity anyone who watched it without knowing the story. Because it’s still confusing when you know the story and are watching it with someone all but married to Greek mythology who’s also confused. As such, things like the Argonauts patiently waiting while Medea hacks her brother to pieces in the carriage and his head randomly (until the last half hour, everything really does seem to be a random assortment of scenes, and the scenes themselves made up of randomly selected images and events) flies out are unintentionally hilarious, as they’re just inserted and extremely dramatic.

The actress who played Medea seemed to be an odd choice at first, but was absolutely brilliant in the end. I understand that she’s actually a famous Greek actress who played Medea onstage, so that makes sense. Because as pretentious and nonsensical as much of I was, the latter part of the movie did an excellent job with her psychology. I’ll never quite “like” Medea due to the whole “murdering small children” thing (probably as close as I’ll get to it, though), but I’ve always found her fascinating from the perspective of a woman giving up everything for a man (and doing most of the work for him), only to have that man later try to take everything from her, and getting revenge by taking away everything they value in return.

Oh, and there were nuns in Medea’s village. Ok, probably not actual nuns (I hope!) but their outfits really, really looked like medieval habits. They confused me the whole movie. Also, when Jason first went to confront Pelias, he started flirting with one of Pelias’s wives, and all I could think was “But what if that is your mother!?!?!”

Gothic Tales by Elizabeth Gaskell

This is one of those times when a negative review is the final decision about whether or not to read something. Like this:

This is a man-hating collection of stories that demonizes men and promotes angry bitter women! Wow! THAT's original! It reads like a 'Lifetime' channel movie with a gothic backdrop! If that's what you're looking for then fine. If, however you want to read stories by someone who actually LIKES gothic fiction (as opposed to Gaskell, who has merely recently become interested in the genre as a new avenue to promote her misandry) I suggest you look elsewhere.

(BTW, of his other Amazon reviews I recognize, the glowing reviews are sausagefests and anything with a female lead is all about manhating.)

Actually, I probably would have eventually read it anyway, but isn’t that a thing of beauty?

This collection of Gaskell short stories is rather similar to the other short stories of Gaskell’s that I very recently read (even sharing three stories with it) but has Gaskell turning her attention to darker themes, often with supernatural elements. The stories included here are Disappearances, The Old Nurse’s Story, The Squire’s Story, The Poor Clare, The Doom of the Griffiths, Lois the Witch, The Crooked Branch, Curious if True, and The Grey Woman. Like the other short works I read, Gaskell is concerned with women’s roles in society, their relationships with and treatment at the hands of men, both good as bad. Only with curses, evil doppelgangers, ghosts, missing people and such. I still find Gaskell’s prose slow and even dull at times, but like her characters and themes enough to get past that.