Todd Haynes is a filmmaker who uses subversion to draw out the most intriguing details of his subject matter. Whether it’s using Barbie dolls as actors in his debut featurette, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story or portraying the life of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan with seven fictional characters in I’m Not There, he has always played with the medium of film to find the unexpected perspective. This quality allows him to explore ideas of identity, sexuality and culture in America with a greater perceptiveness than most. With the arrival of May December, starring Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, in theaters this coming weekend, this is a good time to revisit his remarkably prophetic 1995 film Safe, Haynes’ first project with Moore.
Growing up in Los Angeles, Haynes placed his film in an area he knew best – the San Fernando Valley in 1987. Although Safe is an examination of Moore’s character, Carol, Haynes makes several observations on American society in 1987, a collision of peak consumerism during Ronald Reagan’s presidency that gave way to a new, college-educated upper class, cuts to social programs, and the scramble to quell the AIDS epidemic. One notable aspect highlighted was the rise of individuality over the public in which the onus was placed on the self to succeed. This had a variety of social and economic consequences; for example, if someone was struggling to make ends meet and dissatisfied with their lack of upward mobility, it was deemed as their own failure rather than any insufficiency in social structures.
In Safe, Carol is married to a wealthy husband, Greg (Xander Berkeley), with her days consisting of running errands, doing aerobics, and interacting with the family housemaid, Fulvia (Martha Velez). It’s a life as isolating as it sounds, where her only social activity comes from hanging out with women in similar economic situations, but who are acquaintances more than friends. As the film progresses, Carol becomes sick with what is diagnosed as environmental illness, a condition caused by toxic fumes in the air and chemicals in food. Haynes leaves the source of her ailment up to interpretation, including a parallel to AIDS, and allows the audience to think about the way Carol’s life could lead up to such an affliction. Is it her lack of any real connection, her disgust with the working class people she interacts with or her frustration with her domestic role as a woman? When modern medicine and psychiatry fail her, she joins a New Age community called Wrenwood that focuses on self-help. Residents isolate themselves in cabins or even small igloos and listen to a director (Peter Friedman) who talks about doing away with anger and negativity in order to heal. One only has to think of the growing popularity of California detox retreats to get a sense of the attractiveness of the idea to the upper class.
While Haynes deserves credit for the societal questions posed in Safe, Julianne Moore’s first major leading performance is the crux of what makes the film work. She is simultaneously able to tease out feelings of empathy and repulsion for Carol. The physicality she employs to portray someone isolated and empty of purpose is fascinating. In early scenes she presents herself as doll-like, dressed in pink and peach colors with a hair perm. She is wafer-thin and fragile, looking like she can barely hold herself up as she literally leans on her husband. This meshes well with her childish demeanor, frail voice and inability to articulate complete sentences. Throughout the film, this facade crumbles as her attire transitions from sweaters and dresses to white cotton pajamas at Wrenwood. It’s a subversion of the typical heroine narrative where the protagonist struggles but eventually finds a treatment for her condition, communicating to the audience that something is wrong and that change is necessary.
And that brings us to the modern day where, yes, technology has advanced but the same structural problems still exist. It feels as if we’re stuck in the Reagan days with worsening outcomes for those who are not at the top. We’ve exchanged one catastrophic disease with another, revealing the inadequacies of the institutions designed to support us. The Wrenwood director’s claims that people should look at themselves to solve their problems is still a popular idea today, with elites positing that self-determination is the answer. But this serves to flatten politics and eliminate the possibility that we only have to look up to find those responsible for our struggles. In reality, change is not a quick fix and requires those oppressed to show solidarity and band together. Those at the top tell us to pacify our anger, but if channeled correctly, it can make all the difference.
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