Despite being from different eras, these two striking and disturbing tales get to the core of the damaged human mind.
Because Fantasia Fest offers such an eclectic assortment of films year after year, from sci-fi to horror to animated, it’s almost a given that virtually no two films will be alike, let alone share common themes. However, two titles playing at the year’s festival have proven my theory wrong. Darkest Miriam, a dark drama making the festival rounds, and Hollywood 90028, a restored arthouse “slasher” playing in the festival’s retrospective section, are both stirring, unforgettable films that delve into similar motifs such as isolation and fragility. On paper, it would seem that neither movie would complement the other. Each one takes their lead character on vastly different experiences through two worlds that aren’t necessarily what everyone thinks they are- a small town library and 1970s Hollywood. Yet neither one shies away from either the provocative or the poetic in their quests to expose their dark unbellies.
In Darkest Miriam, a somewhat introverted young woman (Britt Lower) finds her quiet existence disrupted when a new love enters her life at the same time she starts receiving disturbing letters hidden amongst the books in the library where she works. Meanwhile, in Hollywood 90028, a young cameraman named Mark (Christopher Augustine) has dreams of making it big in the movie business but finds himself spiraling into madness after being forced to find work shooting pornographic films.
Darkest Miriam
Executive produced by Charlie Kaufman writer/director Naomi Jaye’s second directorial effort is a quiet and meditative exploration of grief and the incredibly complex act of trying to exist beyond it. Miriam is such a compelling character, full of the kind of realistic contradictions that can be found in most of society’s wounded souls. She’s someone who can function well enough within the walls of the library she works in, interacting with coworkers and regular patrons as if she’s someone who isn’t struggling internally. Yet once she leaves the safety of her domain, Miriam finds herself somewhat lost, not knowing if the outside world is one she belongs in.
One of the most interesting traits about Miriam is the sense that she’s unable to relate or even be in the present moment unless she’s interacting with something tangible, namely books. When she starts receiving the troubling, threatening letters randomly hidden within the random books she’s tasked with shelving, we not only fear for her safety, but we find ourselves shaken at realizing that the sanctity of her world has been violated. Jaye does a good job of balancing the dark and the light of Darkest Miriam through the main character’s romance with Janko (Tom Mercier), giving her a chance to prove to herself that she is not someone defined by the grief that has tried to hold her captive for so long. However, Jaye also shows that Miriam’s darkness, much like the darkness that finds so many, still lingers.
Hollywood 90028
After a fantastic opening that blends the fantasy and the reality that was La-la Land in the 1970s, Hollywood 90028 follows its dreamy intro with an immediate punch to the gut as we see the film’s hero strangle his latest one-night stand. Although a mostly dreamily-shot experience, Hollywood 90028 is a film about the danger and disillusion of the 70s as seen through one of the most idealized cities in the world. Showing the sunshine of Los Angeles surrounding a man whose murderous tendencies have been awakened by it gives us a dichotomy that’s at the very heart of Hollywood 90028. The L.A. landscape of the film is a lonely, almost solitary one. In her feature debut, director Christine Hornisher does such a striking job of capturing a Los Angeles she knew was dangerous and was never going to last. This rings especially true in the montage showing a collection of the city’s adult film movie marquees and a sequence depicting the iconic Hollywood sign as old and rundown, presenting it as a symbol of a tarnished Tinsel Town.
A brief glimmer of hope comes in Hollywood 90028 when Mark’s murderous tendencies take a backseat once he meets Michele (Jeanette Dilger), one of the porn actresses he’s tasked with filming. Even though both have their respective damages (him obviously more than her), there’s the desire on both their parts to cling to each other. The scene where they prepare dinner is weirdly normal and even serene, while a later lovemaking sequence between the two is beautifully erotic without being needlessly explicit. Its moments such as these that deceive the audience into believing they’re in a different movie altogether until the illusion inevitably disappears, culminating in one of the most breathtaking shots ever put to film in the 1970s.
Several other similarities easily show themselves in watching Darkest Miriam and Hollywood 90028 unfold. Chief among them is the fact that these are films with people who have problems relating to the opposite sex and experience strong (and in Mark’s case, extreme) reactions to being with someone sexually. These are problems that are compounded by their respective struggles to reconcile the troubled family pasts that haunt both of them. But the biggest commonality (and by far the most compelling one) shared between Darkest Miriam and Hollywood 90028 is the fact that both feature protagonists who are pulled into dark existences by forces neither can resist nor control.
It’s worth noting that both Darkest Miriam and Hollywood 90028 were made by female directors. The fact that women filmmakers are capable of crafting tales that venture into the kinds of places these movies do is far from surprising in this day and age. What is telling, however, is the response each work got in their respective eras. Hornisher’s film was written off as pure exploitation and barely seen, despite the young filmmaker having garnered attention for a series of shorts she made while at UCLA film school. The curiosity and determination of a cinephile in the midwest is responsible for kickstarting the film’s current restoration, which will include a proper Blu-ray release later this year. It’s much-deserved justice for a film and a filmmaker ignored by an industry that didn’t know what to make of her or her unconventional work.
Like Hornisher, Jaye entered into the feature arena after making a name for herself by helming a series of short films which earned her a reputation as an exciting and innovative new voice in filmmaking. Unlike Hornisher, however, Jaye’s work is wonderfully experiencing the kind of acclaim it deserves in real-time. As of writing this, Jaye has (rightfully) been awarded Fantasia’s Best Director prize for her helming of Darkest Miriam. I doubt Jaye has seen Hollywood 90028 simply because so few people have. Yet it’s both easy and comforting to see these two filmmakers as spiritual sisters, each of whom dared to pick up a camera and explore the dark side of the world in the most powerful of ways.
