LFF 2021: Spencer
VENICE 2021Ghostly places and faces conquer and horror the audience in Pablo Larrain’s haunted house spectacle Spencer. Set over a three day period commencing during the Christmas holiday, Larrain’s feature follows the internal and external horrors that Kristen Stewart's Diana will face and take her to places that she may not come back from, both mentally and physically.
Larrain’s latest is not the delicate and high art produced drama that it perhaps exhibits in promotional material. Instead, thankfully so, Larrain’s feature is a tender and hauntingly produced horror of sorts. Not the likes of the quintessential slasher such as Halloween, of course, but very much in the frame of new-wave horror in the vein of Aster's Midsommar. Spencer analyses such tender and harrowing motifs in character’s imprisoned to an ideology and burden of tradition. In a similar way to the slow but sure exploration of mental illness and thematic examination of Pugh's Dani in seeing the external abuse interfere and advance with the internal.
These themes are explored with nuance and a fragile depiction that gives precedent to these terrors but also brevity, a certain foreboding, and thematically rich – consciously – torturous affair. Granted, what helps here is that this is not a feature that makes the viewer feel sorry for the lead character against the plethora of riches but instead find common ground in the alineation of a person. Understandably using a national treasure put against a symbolic monarchy that echoes sentiments of privilege and collective dissonance with public relations – and as much as Larrain’s proposes the ideology that this feature is apolitical and takes no contextual stand against said monarchy – before long, it becomes clear that such a stance is to keep the right-wing press off this depiction more so than anything else. As Larrain, a Chilean native who lived under a dictator’s regime, has the upmost stance to deliver this specific message.
Spencer, however, is interested primarily in exploring the titular figure, and it does so wonderfully in two elements. The first is the screenplay from Steven Knight, and the second is Stewart herself. Starting with the former: while this may have political tones, they are undertones with throwaway lines and iconography used to establish greed, excess, and abuse. These are elements that never overcrowd or drown this picture in the excess political message but are clear, concise and hardened motifs that install the precedent of tone and weight – working wonderfully and effectively in their nuanced depiction. Knight weights his feature never in monologues but concise notions of dialogue delivered at a pace that echoes the sentiments of the chaos reflective of the plot. That ferociousness echoes harrowing sentiments of time and moments feeling rushed, a collective response to the anxiety and internal abuse suffered but also the tragedy that inevitably is to arise, which in turn curates a harrowing notion that, even with the titular's trajectory, life is only moments of small achievements and each day is a battle to the inevitable end. While that thematic is not perhaps a majorly conscious motif, it does in fact craft a secondary undertone that makes this feature all the more tragic.
The latter – performance – is where Stewart takes this already mighty work into a stratosphere that might not be touched or even glimpsed for some time. While watching Stewart here, it needs to be said that something here is defining one way or another. It is defining in the same way that the performance of Maria Falconetti’s Jeanne d'Arc in Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc feels in its almost one hundred year history. Stewart achieves something here on the verge – if not completion – of transcending performance. It is not only the curation of fragility and tenderness that is provoked here, but the delicacy of said themes brought to fruition in such a flawless and majestic manner of depiction. Performance and reality blend to a degree of absolute haunting perfection. Granted, while the following is undeniably hyperbolic to a degree, it is said in the utmost honesty and reality, with Stewart in Spencer, the actress begins her reign as the most essential and talented actress of her generation. In time, Stewart's career will be described as before and after Spencer – she simply had that awe-defining of a performance.
Nevertheless, this is not a feature that is produced purely in substance, as the spectacle and style are curated in nearly identical perfection. The production and set design throughout are produced to a tremendous degree of artistic beauty that provokes the theme and mood of the feature ten-fold, bringing about sensuality and tragedy when the scene demands it. Each frame is crafted with a stunning eye from Director of Photography Claire Mathon that, again, captures the heart and soul of this story. Wide shots filled with mist echo the haunted places and faces that populate these dying and abusive traditions. Capped off with what is a shoo-in for an academy award nomination – if not win – is the costume design from Jacqueline Durran that populates such beauty and thematic power that it broods morality and emotion.
There are slight missteps and excessiveness; however, thankfully, nothing that overpowers the feature or takes away from it but, undeniably, moments that inflate the running time and thematic weight. One such instance is the arc of Sally Hawkins, and while the inclusion of said character as the eyes and ears of the audience that reinforces the public opinion and adoration of said titular figure is critical, it is used to point in which it is far too on-the-nose and blooms into something that does not need to be said, as Hawkins' has the skill to portray such through performance and – having such stated in writing – this is the only major misstep of Knight's screenplay.
Nevertheless, Spencer, is driven by the utterly spectacularly tender Kristen Stewart, who produces range and depth like nothing the audience has seen since the likes of Maria Falconetti; she is simply that good. The production design and effective aesthetic work wonder to brood dissonance and emotive disconnect with moments, in particular of notorious foreboding, and will undoubtedly run tears down many faces to destroy yet build up again in the hope of Stewart‘s depiction of the titular subject, ultimately crafting yet another magnum opus in the filmography of director Pablo Larrain.
