Friday, March 15, 2024

The Films of Ana Lily Amirpour: The Bad Batch

 


            The second film in my analysis of the films of Ana lily Amirpour, is the desert denizen dystopia, The Bad Batch; the next film in what I have dubbed Amirpour’s “Apocalyptic Anomie” trilogy. For this sophomore outing, Amirpour trades Tehran for Texas, and vampires for cannibals in this amalgamated homage to the work of George Miller and John Carpenter. Through Amirpour’s deft hand and critical eye, she weaves a story of brutal survival in a wasteland manufactured by a draconian criminal justice system, while intimating at our own problematic interconnected web of immigration, militarization, and poverty in the United States.

 


PLOT

When a young woman is extradited from the United States for unknown crimes into a lawless wasteland located in what was once the Texas desert, she is happened upon by a community of cannibals. Escaping their clutches after giving a literal arm and a leg, Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) is rescued by a hermit (Jim Carrey) and taken to a compound called Comfort; ruled over by the enigmatic “Dream” (Keanu Reeves).  Once recuperated, Arlen goes looking for revenge which sets in motion a series of events that causes her to question Comfort’s illusion of security, the horrors of scavenging poverty, and what it truly means to be one of “The Bad Batch”.

 


HISTORICAL CONTEXT

            Production

            The writing of The Bad Batch took place while editing A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. Since Amirpour has likened the process of editing to the scene in The Shawshank Redemption when Andy Dufrene crawls through a sewer pipe to escape, it is understandable that she would need to have her own extrication from its disgusting monotony. In interviews, Amirpour has stated that while writing The Bad Batch she was in a period of great transition in her life; “one that violently rips apart your identity” and from that, she conjured this vision of a woman in the desert, bleeding, missing and arm and a leg.  That image stayed with Amirpour all the way through the grueling 28-day shoot in the Salten sea deserts of California in April of 2015.

            Amirpour cites Jodorowsky’s El Topo and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll as primary influences on The Bad Batch. Being a western, El Topo seem like an understandable source of inspiration especially given the barren landscape. However, it is through the “looking glass” of Carroll’s Alice that the film takes on this ethereal quality, especially at the opening when we as an audience cross over with Arlen into the wasteland. The menagerie of characters and nightmare fueled experiences she has on her journey to find Comfort and “Dream”, is such a mesmerizingly beguiled adventure that it could have sprung from Carrol’s Consciousness (including the grooming pedophilia towards the end of the film).

 In addition to the direct influences of Carroll and Jodorowsky, there are also flavors of George Miller’s Mad Max series (Fury Road coming out in 2015) and John Carpenter’s Escape films. Like those films, The Bad Batch has an authoritarian government (the acronymically vague USRCS) that deports denizens depending on dubious deplorability. The audience is unclear as to the so called “crimes” that these people were found guilty of to deserve such punishment, or how many of “The Bad Batch” there are, outside of the brief glimpse of the prison-like number that is tattooed behind each person’s ear, right before they are released. This number increases with each person it is applied to, the most recently removed having the most up to date number as to “The Bad Batch’s population. This is akin to the Carpenter classics, just as the communities Arlen encounters, with their clothing, technology, and other resources being based in the scavenging and repurposing of products for what they need, is a cornerstone of Miller’s Mad Max Movies.  While never stated, I am sure that there was Cannibalism at the beginning of Mad Max’s post apocalypse. While Miller spared the audience, Amirpour makes us stare it right in the face. It is with such indifferent detachment that Arlen’s arm and leg are removed from her body, and placed on a grill, that makes this contemporary horror world feel lived in, raw, real. So real in fact, that given the time-period when this film was released, it feels like we are just a proverbial stone’s throw from this outcome.

 US Political Context

Three months after production wrapped on The Bad Batch, Donald Trump, then a real estate “billionaire” and media personality, awkwardly rode down an escalator and proceeded to give what would be, at the time, one of the most racistly unhinged and deranged Presidential running announcements in history.[1] In this speech, Trump condemned Mexican Immigrants as drug addled rapists who needed to be removed and our borders strengthened. By the time the film was released widely, two years later, Donald Trump had been elected President and he had instituted a Six country travel ban on non-white countries he reportedly called “shitholes.” It is eerily prophetic that the expulsion of “The Bad Batch” depicted in Amirpour’s film, is like the eventual (and current) state of the US/Mexico border in how we handle asylums, the separation of families, and the erecting of detention centers (see Social Analysis). People did not want to experience this harrowing tale both in the news and in their entertainment media, which many use as a form of escape from real world troubles and issues. This most likely contributed to, but was not likely the cause of, the film being leveed with heavy artistic and commercial criticism upon release.

            Critical Reception

The international success of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night provided a lot of opportunities for Amirpour. Yet, it was clear, even from the reviews of her debut film, that many in the industry wanted to label and pigeon-hole her into a certain style while making assumptions about the themes she is interested in. The industry was trying to codify and package her art. It is clear with the critical response to The Bad Batch, many people either didn’t get what Amirpour was attempting to do, or did not like what she presented because it went against the image of who they thought Amirpour was; which made some people resentful. Therefore, in addition to only making $201,000 off of a 6 million dollar budget (not including marketing), the film holds a review aggregate of 46% from 101 critical reviews,  despite winning the Special Jury Prize at the Canne Film festival, the year of its release.   

            bell hooks (2009) discusses, in the context of blackness in cinema, the support for the progressive vision of the Avant-Garde; to which she identifies as any filmmaking/filmmaker who is non-white or that does not reproduce a white cultural narrative. “Patriarchal cinematic practices inform so much of what is identified as film… that audiences are more comfortable watching black women when we are kept in our place by sexist and racist characterizations.” (hooks 2009:127). This perspective, much like the discipline of Sociology, sees the familiar as strange and sees strange in the familiar (hooks 2009). To that end, it is hooks’ (2009) belief that if filmmakers of color would discard the “patriarchal cinematic pedagogy” there would be a revolution; because without it, no amount of deconstruction of “white supremacist capitalist patriarchal cinema” will lead to social change (hooks 2009:135).

            Through the lens provided by hooks (2009), Amirpour’s The Bad Batch is recontextualized. A lot of the expectations for this film centered around Amirpour continuing to explore the themes of her previous work, namely feminism and female empowerment. And while a woman coming into her power amidst a “preapocalyptic” arrakeen landscape is central to the plot and various themes of The Bad Batch, many people did not care for the abrupt harshness of the world Amirpour depicts: a gruelingly punishing world that exacts a literal extraction of its proverbial pound of flesh from the protagonist, left many in a state of shock. Yet, because the protagonist is a woman, many interpret the violence that is put upon her was because of her gender presentation, and that presenting such violence, on such a body, normalizes misogyny. Also, considering this violence is exacted by other women, it displays the different forms of internalized misogyny that can exist within patriarchal (sub)cultures, including “The patriarchal bargain”, which sees women reinforcing stereotypical gender norms, and propping up men into authoritative positions to then glean some of that power for themselves by their relational proximity to men. The patriarchal bargain could be an interpretation of the actions of Arlen’s captors, considering that the men of “The Bridge” community are ‘roided’ out cannibals and the pained reluctance and nonchalance, with which these women dismember Arlen. Yet, it is the harshness of this landscape that produces such behavior which is not exclusively levied against women; men in equal measure are dismembered for the community’s sustenance.  Thus, a lot of the pushback on this film is from those whose expectations weren’t met by the film’s final form, and the themes that they were expecting did not have the same clear socio-political delineation as was seen in Amirpour’s previous work.  However, this is the avant-garde filmmaking that is necessary to break us of certain forms of white supremacy cinema. As bell hooks (2009) states: “…the more commonly accepted markers of avant-garde filmmaking may be too restrictive for work that endeavors to engage in the politics of representation (p 133). While that may not be exactly what Amirpour is attempting to do here with The Bad Batch, we need filmmakers like her to continue to push outside of the socially acceptable “revolutionary boxes” social systems generate so that they can control and minimize the effects of ideologies that are fundamentally disruptive to its operation. Such is the case with any female empowerment and Feminist rhetoric media content that seems to present a progressive perspective, only to be one that is easily consumed, repackaged, and sold back to us as a commodified identity; thereby becoming nonthreatening (Zeisler 2016).  

            Race Controversy

            One of the more specific and salient criticisms of The Bad Batch, is its racist depictions of violence and death. The only characters in the film to die are Black. First, Arlen (played by Suki Waterhouse, a White woman) shoots a Black woman in revenge for her dismembering, even though this black woman was a reluctant cannibal, and was not responsible for Arlene’s amputated limbs.  Granted it is through that murder that Arlen finds purpose, and begins to value life, but I think that we have come further along in Cinematic history, even in 2016, than to have a Black character not only be “fridged’ for the propelling of a White female narrative, but to have that White Female character supplant her victim by taking her place within the family unit. The second and the last person to die is a fellow cannibal who looks to trade gasoline to Miami Man (Jason Momoa) for Arlen. Miami Man seemingly agrees, allowing the cannibal to walk a few feet away before killing him with a series of knives, and then retrieving Arlen. Many film scholars have taken the stance that just because something is depicted on screen does not mean that the filmmakers have a tacit endorsement of that behavior or action.  Amirpour seems to share this sentiment when she was called out 8 weeks into her festival run by an audience member who was offended by the depictions in the film. Amirpour cocked her head to the side and said “Just because I give you something to look at, doesn’t mean I’m telling you what to see.” While Amirpour is not doubling down on the depictions in her film, she is less than conciliatory to this interpretation of her work. It was only after this continued to come up, that she gave a lengthier response:

              I’m a brown woman immigrant, my family escaped the Iranian Revolution, I grew up on two continents, English wasn’t the first language in my home,” she said over lunch in New York a few days before the film’s release. “I know what it is to be the ‘other’ very, very well. My film and my filmmaking is all about asking questions about how the system pits us against each other. If anything, this movie is about how we are eating each other. It’s fine, I get it, some people don’t see those things or ask those questions. Cinema is a private, personal experience for an individual. But this felt personal against me.”

            While Amirpour implies that her brown skin and ethnicity means that she can’t be racist, a false assumption and a callous use of one’s own identity as a shield against the criticism of their art, she does provide an alternative answer. Sociologically, this is also interesting when thinking about “the death of the author” and the public ownership of media content. Based on the quote(s) above, it does not seem like Amirpour intended to only depict violence and death through Black bodies. However, with increased racial media literacy on her part and the part of the editor, the racial optics would be glaringly apparent regardless of intention.

 Additionally, for depictions of dangerous, illegal, or otherwise disgusting behavior, actions, or ideals to not be an endorsement, there needs to be either consequences for such behavior, or a clear delineation of morality between those individuals that commit those acts/atrocities and those that don’t.  One of the problems with “the art is subjective” stance, is that it often is used to protect artists and filmmakers from the consequences that their content produces in the populace, rather than filmmakers feeling socially responsible for how their work is received. From film we get introduced to new ideas, gain new goals or career paths, see and understand the world in a new and different way; it is a source of knowledge and a source of influential power that the creators of such content should hold with more responsibility and respect.

 


SOCIAL ANALYSIS

            The opening of The Bad Batch begins in media res, and before we get a single clear piece of footage, over the production company logos, we begin to hear the authoritative extradition process for those deemed unworthy to stay/live within the United States. The voice over explains how those deemed as “Bad Batch” shall be treated and how others should interact with them. We see quick cut shots of a woman getting a head tattoo above the arch of her ear with the letters BB and a number. She is then taken out to the desert and forced to walk through a barbed wire chain link fence. She is allowed her belongings, a single meal, and a gallon jug of water. The sequence lasts less than one minute. In that time, the audience is left to ponder the single most important question: What are the social conditions necessary to allow this to happen, and how did we get here?  These questions lead to implications about modern US immigration and the militarization of the border, that when contemplated in the current socio-political context, are closer to resembling the events of the film than most are comfortable with, or even willing to admit.

            Immigration

            Since its inception, the United States’ track record on immigration has been abysmal. From the genocidal removal of native peoples, the involuntary human trafficking of Black slaves for profit, race based quotas on voluntary immigration for ethnically white and non-white people, the criminalizing of people of color’s mere existence/presence in the country based upon whatever endless war we are fighting abroad, to the fear mongering of white naturally born citizens in order to ensure a militarized southern border that is racistly hypocriful compared to its northern counterpart, and the separation of immigrant families leading to child death are all aspects of the bipartisan anti-immigrant deportation machine that has been identifying, dehumanizing and removing varieties of people of color from the United States for centuries (Goodman 2021).   

            This extraditing mechanism is supported by three pillars: formal deportations, voluntary departures, and self-deportations; all working in tandem to guarantee “the land of the free” only applies to white people. In fact, “eight out of every ten deportations since the 1880s have occurred via a fast track, administrative removal procedure euphemistically called “voluntary departures.” (Goodman 2021: 221). This implies that while not initiated by the individuals themselves, there was little to no resistance when identification and removal was applied to them. Many others “choose” to self deport due to the horrendous anti-immigration laws, threats to actual acts of violence, and perpetual fear mongering designed to make living in the United States so miserable that people leave.

            Given Miami Man’s “Bad Batch” number (88), it is implied that he was one of the first to be deported under the new law. His crime? He was a Cuban immigrant living in Florida. This is analogous to actual US immigration policies that see non-white immigrants as the enemy, thereby deporting them first under some new draconian policy that criminalizes human existence in a particular geographic location. Typically, the policy is first applied to those who’ve been scapegoated as undesirable leeches on the limited resources of a country, then behind closed doors quietly expanded upon to apply to scores of others. Unfortunately, this seems to be playing out in real time with Donald Trump’s 2025 plan for immigration (if he reclaims the presidency in November 2024).

            The fictitious immigration policies of Ana lily Amirpour’s The Bad Batch and Donald Trump’s proposed 2025 Immigration agenda are staggeringly similar. In the beginning moments of the film, after being dropped off by border patrol agents, Arlen walks past a sign that reads:

 

Beyond this fence is no longer the territory of Texas; that hereafter no person within that territory beyond this fence is a resident of the United States of America or shall be acknowledged, recognized, or governed by the laws and governing bodies therein. Good Luck!

                                                                                                               Title 18 USRCS

 

In the film, as stated above, this is something that was first applied to migrants and other documented or undocumented immigrants then expanded to other people defined as unsuitable. We do not know what “crime” Arlen, who is presented as a young white woman, could have committed to earn her a “Bad Batch” number. But the way that she looks longingly mournful at a picture of her and another woman early in the film, it is possible that she is bisexual, thus explaining her exile.  This gives credence that in the film there was a reestablishment of a white heterosexual Patriarchal Christian ethnostate; one that Donald Trump seemingly wants to (re)create with his 2025 plan.

            If re-elected, Trump’s Project 2025 plan proposes:

·         Outlawing Plan B and other “Morning After” pills and their distribution across the country through The Comstock Act of 1870

·         Elevating Christian Nationalism and its influence on government.   

·         Dismantling strategies for eliminating Green House Gasses including the EPA.

·         Expand Presidential Powers under Article 2 and adopt the unitary executive theory.

·         Eliminating the independence of the DOJ

·         Outlawing Pornography

·         Retaliation and retribution against political opponents and the Media

·         A Reintroduction of the citizenship question on the US Census  

·         Mass Deportation of Immigrants by Deputizing the National Guard, ATF, DEA, and local police forces and deploy them in “blue” states to conduct immigration raids.

·         Re-establish a Spoils system that grants government jobs to those loyal to the party (i.e. Trump)

It is this nakedly authoritarian proposal which centralizes institutional power in the executive branch, dismantles the other branches of government or absorbs them; thereby eliminating the checks and balances system. Suddenly, 2025 feels like a possible prologue to the events in Amirpour’s The Bad Batch. Such an oppressive government must exist for an immigration policy that not only restricts access into the country, but unilaterally revokes/denies citizenship for not following the whims and desires of a single person, political party nor their cultural identity.

       This general attack on Immigration in the United States is entirely cultural; a form of racism that seeks to disempower the political capital of immigrants as an economic and social resource. Xenophobic fear of lost (read as “stolen”) jobs has roots in the first immigration act restrictions against Chinese immigrants (Desmond 2023). Immigration policy, especially the one under the Trump 2025 Project, will seek to circumvent the constitutional right for states to be able to govern themselves, as 50% of immigrants live in the states of California, Florida, and Texas, which, regardless of rhetoric, has not caused an increase in those state’s poverty rates (Desmond 2023). In fact, many immigrants have some of the highest rates of economic mobility. Their collective success impacts neither white wages nor employment, because most immigrants are competing with other immigrants for the same jobs (Desmond 2023). However, politically manufactured “border crises” are economic boons for the collusive connections of the Military Industrial Complex that, fueled by fear mongering tactics, continues to maintain the bipartisan supported economic viability of military production.

          After 9/11, the beginning of “The War on Terror”, and the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), there was an increased effort to funnel military style weapons, gear, tactics, and training down to the US/Mexico border to “secure it”. One of the first offices under this new initiative was the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC). According to Balko (2021) these members became “the most violent and racist in all of law enforcement, [as] they do not exist within the realm of civilian law enforcement. They view people…as enemy combatants, meaning they have no rights” (p.414). It is these kinds of federal officers that Donald Trump, in his 2025 plan, wants to send into “blue” states in cities like Seattle, Chicago, Albuquerque, Cleavland and Milwaukee (Balko 2021). Such an action seems expected in a “pre-Apocalyptic” film like The Bad Batch. It is a harder pill to swallow when it’s presented as possible public policy.




 Disability as Metaphor for Hardship

       Throughout film history, disability has always had a precarious representation on screen. From the work of Lon Cheney in the silent film era, to current blockbusters, disability has always been used as a tool of emotional evocation for non-disabled people (Norden 1990). Consistently, Disabled people and their bodies are used as conduits for filmmakers to reach their (usually non-disabled) audience (Snyder and Mitchel 2010). Through these images, the non-disabled are infused with a range of emotions, from relief to dread, that this disabled body is not them… but it could be. The chief emotion that is regularly deployed is pity (part of the dread/relief cycle) which fuels the tired trope of inspiration porn. This is the process by which the disabled body is used either to motivate non-disabled people or cause them to be self-reflective on the “value” of their ablebodiedness.   Yet, in addition to being generally ableist, continuing to view disability in this way masks its normalcy. The image of the disabled body is still overpopulated within the horror genre. It regularly presents images of disability as punishment, or as a cautionary tale, and maintains the perception that disability is the horror itself. Disablement exists simultaneously as the threat from an antagonist (who often might also be disabled) and the source of retributive justice for the protagonist.

       The disablement that is depicted in The Bad Batch is designed to present the perilous dangers of the world. You will lose literal parts of yourself out there.  As Arlen is chained up and looks around at the other disabled prisoners, waiting to be slaughtered, there is a sense of helplessness. Additionally, once she escapes, a process that through quick editing jumps over the actual freedom from the compound, her recovery, and acclimation to a prosthetic leg is similarly truncated. This, intentionally or not, makes glaringly obvious that the filmmakers did not think to have a disability consultant on set to accurately depict the movement, and needs of a double amputee. Amirpour also seems to handwave the process of moving from vulnerability to strength through the film’s time jump; being more interested in the way that acquired disability creates a desire for revenge, above anything else. Here, Arlen’s body is fridged (well, literally grilled) to motivate the story. Without this disability trope, there is no initial motivation for Arlen to move through the rest of the film. Thus, disability is presented here as both trauma and a plot contrivance.

 



The Lesser of Two Evils

       Durkheim’s (2014) understanding of the social order revolves around a society’s social solidarity or integration within a particular group. According to Durkheim (2014), these social entanglements are simple in mechanically solidaric societies and grow increasingly complex until they become organically solidaric societies. Mechanical solidarity is usually a characteristic of pre-industrial societies that have less complex social structural forms. Many of the ties that bind in these communities are based upon kinship, direct mutual relationships. Whereas societies with organic solidarity, which are organized based upon an acute division of labor, consisting of shared values, and integrated rituals. In both organizational forms there is a collective consciousness: the shared beliefs and moralities that act as a unifying force amongst its people. Mechanically solidaric societies tend to have a collective conscience that is concrete and specific, revolving around religiosity and often cult like behavior. Contrarily, organic solidarity has a collective conscience that is increasingly secular, and values individual dignity, equality of opportunity, work ethics and social justice (Durkheim 2014).

       Because the communal organizations in The Bad Batch are more so a part of Amirpour’s ethereal backdrop of nightmarish sublimity on which the narrative is painted, it is difficult to graph on Durkheim’s ideal types to a fictitious social structure that did not clarify the specifics of its social order.  At face value, The Bridge community is mechanically organized, and Comfort is organized organically.  The Bridge community has strict rules, is not interested in integration or expanding their society, and has repressive sanctions. Of the people in the Bridge community that we meet, everyone participates in the capturing and slaughtering of new ‘Bad Batch’ inmates. Social bonds are based in a weak system of trade based on needs and survival. The leader of The Bridge people, Miami Man, rules by fear and presence; caring little about anything outside of his kin, specifically his daughter, Honey, who’s reclamation becomes his central arc in the film.

 Meanwhile, Comfort has structural organization, commerce, sanitation, water access, and a division of labor that provides health, food, and (relative) safety. From this organic solidarity rises a charismatic leader in the form of “The Dream” who establishes a dictatorial rule through the possession and distribution of hallucinogenic drugs and control of waste removal. He keeps a majority of the community in a perpetual state of intoxication to maintain passivity, and from that capitulation through distraction, he establishes a misogynistically pedophilic sex slavery ring which grooms girls for impregnation by “Dream” once they reach puberty.  The harsh violence of the world is still very salient in each community. The delivery of that violence is what separates them. Do you want to be treated the same (as cattle) in one group, or do you want the illusion of safety/security while violence is perpetrated on bodies behind closed doors for the disgusting sexual proclivities of a misogynistic mediocre white man? In the sociological tension of agency vs structure, Arlen chooses the former, because as brutal as the world of The Bad Batch is, at least it does not pretend to be anything other than apocryphal.       

    

 


CONCLUSION

       Ana Lily Amirpour’s The Bad Batch is an eclectically gonzo amalgamated cataclysmic intersection of genre, tone, and plot devices/contrivances. While it fails to reach the critical and commercial success of its predecessor, the radical choices here make the world so immersive; that its flavor should saturate all independent cinema. Amirpour is the unsung hero of Gen X deconstructive avant-garde filmmaking, flaunting convention in storytelling and character motivational tropes. She is just the acrid balance to the homogenized monocultural saccharinity of big budget industrially produced feature length content that is currently consuming cinema.   

 

REFERENCES

Balko, Radley 2021. Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces New York: Public Affairs Press  

Desmond, Mathew 2023. Poverty, By America New York: Crown Publishing.

Durkheim, Emile 2014. The Division of Labor in Society New York: Free Press

Goodman, Adam, 2021. “The Expulsion of Immigrants: America’s Deportation Machine” in A Field Guide to White Supremacy Kathleen Belew and Ramon Gutierrez (eds.) pp 220-229 Oakland: University of California Press.

 Hooks, bell 1996. Reel to Real: Race, Class and sex at the movies New York: Routledge.  

Norden, Martin 1994. The Cinema of Isolation: A History of Physical Disability in Movies New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.

 

Snyder, Sharon L. and David T. Mitchell 2010. “Body Genres: An Anatomy of Disability in Film.” In The Problem Body: Projecting Disability on Film Sally Chivers and Nicole Markotic (eds.) pp179-204 Columbus: The Ohio State University Press.   

 

Zeisler, Andi 2016. We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrl to Covergirl the buying and Selling of a Political Movement New York: Public Affairs Press.

 

    



[1] He would go on to top this racistly scapegoating lunacy many times over during the course of his political career that is still ongoing, at the point of this writing.


Saturday, February 10, 2024

The Films of Ana Lily Amirpour: A Girl Walk Home Alone at Night

 



                The first film in my analysis of The Films of Ana Lily Amirpour is the goth vampiric German expressionist spaghetti western A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night. This debut film is an artistic accomplishment in the amalgamation of genre, tone, and theme. The composition of this film, its pace, and subversive subject matter was to become an eventual calling card for future films with Amirpour at the helm. This freshman film in what I like to call Amirpour’s “Apocalyptic Anomie” Trilogy (Girl, Batch, Moon),[1] is an eclectic encapsulation of the director’s favorite things: music, movies, and movements. Yet, this ambitiously anarchic allegory of Feminism, isolated ennui, and the languished longing for love/life was nearly snuffed out by a transforming cinematic landscape.   

 



PLOT

            A young man in an impoverished Iranian city becomes ensorcelled in the supernatural when, after losing his car to the local drug dealer (due to his father’s drug use and addition to prostitutes), he encounters a female presenting vampire. As their attraction grows, paralleled by her viniferous body count, they must decide to stay and face consequences, or flee and take their chances together on the open road.



 

HISTORICAL CONTEXT 

            A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night produced between 2012-2014 is the perfect encapsulation of the indie movie scene at a time when the monopolistic monoculture, brought on by Disney content acquisitions, was starting to take hold. The uphill battle faced by Amirpour and fellow producers, along with the film’s ancillary thematic content which speak to the socio-political tensions between Iran and the United States over the last 40 years, point to a systematic yet slouching sterilization of cinema.

            Production

                        Like many first films, Amirpour’s Gothically noir reluctant romance began as a short film, then later extended to feature length. Unlike a lot of indie films of the past, especially during their heyday of the 1990’s when the independent movie scene was belligerently bolstered by an aggressively agitating misogynistic sexual predator, Harvey Weinstein, through his company Miramax, the production of A Girl did not have a typical trajectory. Usually, a film is made on a shoestring budget, cobbled together with the director’s lunch money, other loans, or trades for equal value; then shopped around on the indie film circuit to acquire a distributor. However, after winning the Noor Iranian Film Festival for the short form version of this story, Amirpour started a Indigogo page and crowdfunded the film’s expansion into feature length.

 In the early 2010’s crowdfunding was yet to be commonplace, where a larger number of smaller investors are promised “extras”[2] once the production team and producers reach or exceed their funding goal. The rise of crowdfunding as a legitimate option for the development of creative projects, as well as the payment of medical bills, is symptomatic of the continued virulence of Western Free Market Capitalism. Obviously, of the two examples, the crowdfunding of medical debt is the more egregious of the two, regardless of their success rates. Yet, the necessity of crowdfunding creative projects like A Girl, points to just how risk adverse the major producers in Hollywood have become; only supporting a project if it is either: socially and politically vacant, or already bought and paid for. Thus, major studios, worth billions of dollars, allow the general populace to take on all of the risk, while they can acquire a sure thing once the monetary goal is reached.[3] Similarly, as crowdfunding is continually used, the more these profit driven companies will attempt to underinsure potential patients (Medical companies), and produce standardized monocultural drivel (Media Companies).  This not only allows for the increase in profits by lowering coverage and production cost for companies, but it also reinforces the lack of diversity in healthcare support and storytelling. Just as many poorer people of color are the ones that end up starting a crowdfunding campaign for medical debt, so too do non-white male directors and their stories about non-white male gender fluid persons end up needing similar support.


Cinematography

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was shot by Lyle Vincent, and along with Amirpour, they craft a sublimely haunted and melancholic tonal tapestry (lacking) technicolor. Shot in black and white, Vincent and Amirpour use the color grating to sharpen the angles and definitions of wherever light shines. This allows “The Girl” to completely disappear in darkness, enveloping her using just her cloak. Amirpour also chooses to include extreme close-up shots that peer into the psyche of whomever is the subject of the camera’s focus.

While the film does have mild female nudity, the camera never seems to adopt the male gaze. There are no long tracking shots up or down female bodies and the sex acts depicted are always of individuals that are fully clothed, while shot from a voyeuristic distance of an observer. Even when Atti, the prostitute, is dancing provocatively, it is not presented as lewd, lascivious, or crass.  

Additionally, being a fan of practical effects, Amirpour has many special effect shots that happen in camera, often in a single take. When “The Girl” is seducing Saeed (the Pimp), in a single shot, “The Girl’s” fangs are extended and physically interacted with. Similarly, after “The Girl” bites off Saeed’s finger, she opens her mouth wide in a smile, and then regurgitates the finger in one long fluidly sexual motion. The former shot was achieved by film splicing/frame removal; so that the shot with fangs comes so quickly on the heels of the shot with no fangs (literally the next frame) it looks as if her fangs are extend/retractable. The latter shot required the actor to be able to hold the severed finger in her mouth while smiling which adds to the scene’s sexual entendre.

Yet, the most compelling aspect of A Girl’s cinematography is the versatility of shot diversity. Whether between shots, or transitioning from different scenes, Vincent and Amirpour showcase an assortment of styles. Long lenses, extreme close ups, dolly shots, crane shots, “Dutch tilts”, slow motion, frame removal…all techniques are present in voluminous variety. One of the more fascinating cinematic choices being made throughout the film is the decision never to have the characters at the center of any shot. This decision not only has our eyes always looking elsewhere, as the audience’s focus is constantly pulled from the foreground focus to the background, or the edge of the frame; but it is also designed to increase tension. This is illustrated in the first scene as Arash (Arash Marandi) walks past the city limits sign crossing the reservoir, as the shot slows to a crawl, we witness that the ditch is not filled with water, but with bodies; as the title flashes on the screen.  Through this stellar visual storytelling, we understand the looming threat, as we cross the threshold into a new environment. It is brilliant.        

 

Historical Backdrop: US and Iranian relations

            The film is set in an enigmatically named town in Iran – “Bad City” (a playful homage to Frank Miller’s Sin City), yet given the socio-political relations between the two countries, Amirpour, Iranian herself, decided not to shoot in Iran due to the inevitable gender backlash the film would experience and a desire to avoid harsher shooting restrictions. Instead, through shot composition and set dressing, Bakersfield, CA doubled for Iran; and yet, this film still holds the spirit of the US Iranian relationship which began 80 years ago.

            The diplomatic souring of US-Iranian relations began in 1953 when the American CIA supported and aided the Coup of the democratically elected Prime Minister who nationalized Iranian oil Production and was set to increase oil prices on Western Countries. Since the US government wanted access to Iranian oil reserves, they propped up a brutal dictator in ‘The Shah of Iran’ because of his “pro-west “policies.

Decades later, when the Shah fled the country, the United States harbored him for a time. Once the Shah was displaced, an exiled religious leader (Ayatollah Khomeini) dissolved the monarchy and made himself the legitimate religious authority. Because US intervention kept The Shah from returning to Iran to face Judgement. Khomeini loyalist held US Embassy hostages for 444 days. After the crisis was abated, and the US/Iranian ties severed, The US began to sell munitions and aid to Iranian enemies. This included Iraq and Saddam Hussein in the Iran-Iraq war through the 1980’s.

Tensions again rose in 1985, when the warmongering Pro-Capitalist Regan Administration circumvented President Jimmy Carter’s Arms Embargo on Iran by selling weapons to Iran under the guise of supporting Contra Militants topple a Nicaraguan Government. This was additionally obfuscated by the “Guns for Hostages” program that traded guns for 7 hostages captured by Hezbollah terrorists.  Girl references this history through consistent establishing shots of oil fields and a centralized shot of a partygoer in a Ronald Regan Mask; it becomes a subtle but important historical backdrop in front of which this story plays out.    

 


SOCIAL ANALYSIS

 

            One of the consistent arguments that come up when discussing film, especially if you are an academic engaging in content analysis of pop culture, is the question: When does the private ownership of a piece of content stop, and when does the public ownership of the content begin? Most would say that upon the release of the content (song, novel, film etc.), the creator’s artistic expression no longer belongs (solely) to its author. Typically, this argument is invoked when talking about beloved franchises, and the various characters within them. Does Dave Filoni owe something to Star Wars fans when he helms a new show or produces another film? Certainly, the fans think he does…which is the point. How much does a desire to placate fans edge its way into impacting the creative freedom of a filmmaker? [4]  Adjacent to this, is when an audience assigns a political and social message to a piece of content. Whether that messaging is understood as either divine or diabolical, it is still valued; shaping the film’s public perception in ways that its creator never intended.  Ironically, the creator is then often pressured to affirm or deny these claims, thereby making the art less subjective. Granted, it’s important to gauge the claims based on human rights. The Matrix (1999) can be interpreted by Right leaning MAGA loving morons as a “reinforcement of…perspectives indicative of a white male gaze.” (Brutlag 2022). Because of this interpretation, during the production of The Matrix Resurrections (2021), director Lana Wachowski felt behooved to clarify an opposing, and more fluidly inclusive point. With Amirpour films the reverse seems to be happening. Many scholars and film reviewers seem to want to label all of her films, but especially A Girl, as a Feminist film, even when that label has been rejected by Amirpour herself. In the context of ownership and perception, does this mean that the film is feminist regardless of the creator’s intent?

Sociologically, Durkheim (2001) and Goffman (1959) would agree that the film is indeed Feminist, not for any semblance of their understanding of an actual Feminist argument, but because of the creation of sacred and the social construction of reality. Durkheim (2001) understood that the power of religion is in people’s ability to believe in it. It is through social structures, relationships, and communities that we give power to myths, legends, gods, and stories. Objects and behaviors become valuable because of the meaning we ascribe to them. Thus, something becomes “sacred” because we define it as such. While not being a symbolic Interactionist, Durkheim skirts the use of an interactionist argument through his explanation of the sacred.  Similarly, Goffman (1963) proposes that social status can be manipulated by controlling the perception of ourselves in the eyes of others. Therefore, in that theoretical context, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is ancillary feminist because that is what the audience sees in its presentation. However, when contemplating the specific content of the film, an exclusively feminist argument can also be made.



'A Girl’s' Feminism            

            The fundamental premise of A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is inherently feminist by placing such a protagonist against the backdrop of Iran, which still exists in a state of religiously gendered persecution. In a cheeky act of defiance to these problematic protracted perceptions, Amirpour reclaims the traditional chador (outer garment often warn by women in Iran made compulsory after the 1980’s Iranian cultural revolution) by having “The Girl” use it as a cape; providing a subtle nod to both her own vampiric nature, and early vampire cinema of German Expressionism and the early 20th century Universal Monster Films. The image of “The Girl” riding a skateboard, with her chador bellowing behind her, is. iconic.

 One of the reasons why this film’s feminist appeal is so widespread is because the vast ubiquity of misogynistic patriarchy. It unfortunately speaks to many people regardless of culture. As abysmal as the reality of normalized experiences of misogyny are, there is a collective effervescence in the commiseration of universal male domination when it is presented through cinema. Amirpour plays on these gendered assumptions and experiences through the film’s title. Living in a world where apps are created and marketed to women to be safe, the title: “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” evokes danger and fear given that for many men, the simple existence of women (not to mention trans, nonbinary and queer individuals) is perceived as a threat that needs to be met with violence. The beautiful juxtaposition of the film’s premise is that the titular “Girl” is the danger. 

It is the type of danger and where “The Girl’s” violence is focused that also infuses the film with a feminist flavor.  “The Girl’s” targets are representations of toxic masculinity cringily   embodied in one single character (Saeed), and anyone who troubles Atti (The sex worker). In a conversation with Atti, “The Girl” explains that she feels a kinship and amity with her because Atti reminds “The Girl” of herself, stating in a lyrically close haiku:

“You Don’t Remember Wanting.”

“It passed long ago.

“Nothing ever Changes.

This points to the solidarity of women through the shared experience of living under patriarchy; and while the fracturing of this unity is often at (usually class and race based) intersectional fault lines, this enmity can be abated through a focus love and communion (Kendall, 2020, Hamad, 2020, hooks, 2001, Hubbard, 2022).

 


Vampirism as [Insert Allegory Here]

Throughout the history of film, vampires have been used as various allegories. It is easy to graft onto the cinematic vampire image a compelling metaphor for immigration, sexual identity, gender socialization or Disease. In Girl the vampire is presented as an amalgamated allegory. Amirpour has stated in press interviews that vampirism is being a romantic serial killer. The danger is in the allure of the act of consuming the lifeblood to be immortal; but it becomes an amorous trap of ennui when experienced. Yet, as Amirpour depicts vampirism with a type of anxious attraction, she also deploys that image to make a statement of drug addiction and the oil industry.

In a shallower reading of this film, “The Girl” is obviously positioned to be the proxy for addiction in the way she must regularly kill and consume blood to live. While that is present, the more interesting and deeper addiction messaging comes from Arash’s father Hussein. Hussein is the nexus for all the characters in the film. Through his drug use and lust for prostitutes, his addiction destroys all lives in his vicinity, including his own. In this context, “The Girl” also becomes a manifestation of addiction itself; causing both hurt and pain to everyone in Hussein’s vicinity, before finally coming for him. Additionally, every death that “The Girl” deals (discounting the homeless character)[5] is after some form of drug use: Saeed, after he ingests several lines of cocaine, and Hussein, after taking heroin. The Girl is the consequences of addiction.

That addiction rhetoric is similarly used when looking at the oil industry through a vampiric lens.  In an interview with Rodger Corman for this film, in talking about shooting locations, Amirpour talked about the city of Taft, CA near where they shot in Bakersfield. She described the city as a sea of oil derricks (seen in the film) constantly churning old dinosaur bones up to the surface.  Whereas humanity has decided to live off the crude blood of the earth, so does “The Girl” feed off the blood of humans, sucking us dry until there is nothing left.  This is simultaneously a cultural, capitalistic, and environmental critique that tethers together international Iranian relations, capitalism, and a lack of environmental conservation.



 

CONCLUSION

            A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a wonderfully shot masterclass in subversive and anarchic filmmaking. The film’s themes, cinematic language and cultural impact invite repeat viewing and academic study. It is the kind of cinema emblematic of the director’s Gen X sensibilities of systemic deconstruction and self-introspection; leading to Amirpour’s signature storytelling style: an elective affinity for found families of outsiders. This is something she explores in her next two films in rich and bloody detail.     

 

REFERENCES

Brutlag, Brian 2022. “Bodies in Pods: Masculine Domination, Sexuality and Love in The Matrix Franchise.” In Global Perspectives on the Liminality of the Supernatural Rebecca Gibson and James M. Vanderveen (eds) p 129-140 New York: Lexington Books

Durkheim, Emile 2001. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life Oxford: Oxford University Press

Goffman, Erving 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life New York: Anchor Books

Hamad, Ruby 2020. White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color New York: Catapult

hooks, bell 2001. All About Love: New Visions. New York: Harper Collins

Hubbard, Shanita 2022. Ride or Die: A Feminist Manifesto for the Well Being of Black Women. New York: Legacy Lit.

Kendall, Mikki 2020. Hood Feminism: Notes From the Women A Movement Forgot New York: Viking Press

Wachowski, Lana, director. 2021. The Matrix Resurrections.  United States.Warner Bros.

Wachowski, Lana and Lilly Wachowski, directors. 1999. The Matrix: United States Warner Bros.        



[1] There is no direct connection in character, plot or story line between these films, but the importance and subversion of structures and systems are so prevalent in each of her first three films that I prefer to link them together. Additionally, as of this writing, these are the only films Amirpour has directed. As with the other directors that I have covered in this series, I will write on any subsequent film she directs henceforth.

[2] Usually the extent of the “extras offered is directly proportional to the amount one is investing; usually organized by tiers of support

[3] This is what recently happened with the development of The Legend of Vox Machina and Amazon Prime Fan backers contributed enough to create 3 seasons of the animated tv show, it was already bought and paid for, therefore Amazon decided to distribute it for only the cost the distribution.

[4] I discuss the toxicity of Fan cultures in my essay on Comics Cultural Collateral Damage linked earlier in the essay above.

[5] There is also a link between homelessness and Drug use/ Addiction.