The Christopher Nolan/Emma Thomas produced Tenet was my other favourite movie of 2020. Enough has been written about Tenet and the movie’s successes and failures. See my earlier review of Tenet on this site for my opinions on Tenet.
Cinema trips have been a rarity for many this year. In another year audiences would have visited the cinema ten or twenty times. Sadly much has been lost by many of us this year. Many families, friends and lovers have lost people close to them or seen their lives irrecoverably changed. As I look back on my favourite movie of 2020 I would like to dedicate this piece to those we have lost this year and their memory.
Proxima (2020) is a movie about parenthood and specifically motherhood. In the modern era and before women have had to navigate the dualities of employment, motherhood and sex whilst also paradoxically being judged by how those societal roles are defined primarily within archetypal spaces by some aspects of patriarchal systems and culture. Women are constantly holed into one of those spaces. Yet surely nobody is a binary entity as the emotional intricacies of our own personal stories and experiences would span galaxies of space if laid out on a map. Yet sometimes women are either thought of strictly as sexual beings, career driven women, caring mothers or portrayed negatively in media and in society if women aren’t seen to focus on being fulfilling the expected gender dynamics within one social group.
In popular culture these archetypes play out in cinema and have done for years. Within comic book movies the archetype of the strong (usually white) woman is defined as feminist simply because she headlines the movie. To the femme fatales of old film noir and the nineties sex thriller to the romantic comedy. Within many of these pictures women have to be extraordinary gifted in some regard as human beings, in a similar way to how blackness is thought of in society women aren’t allowed to just be who they are, they have to be superhuman (which is the text and not the subtext within the superhero genre). Yet the everyday remarkability of the women we know within our own lives can sometimes be lost both in popular culture, familial relationships and society.
Which brings me to Proxima directed by Alice Winocour and starring Eva Green as astronaut Sarah Loreau, Zelie Boulant- Lemesle as Sarah’s daughter: Stella Loreau and Matt Dillon as astronaut Mike Shannon.
Proxima tells the story of a mother and her daughter. Sarah is French and has been chosen to be part of a mission to travel to Mars alongside Mike Shannon and numerous other male astronauts. To do this Alice must leave her daughter behind for many months and years. What the movie then does is to show how Alice and Stella’s relationship changes as her mother leaves her behind to live with her father Thomas (played by Thomas Eidinger).
What I like about the movie is it’s simplicity. In other science fiction or space journey stories what usually occurs is a story about a man leaving earth behind because there is either a threat to mankind, or there is also some existential melodrama that is played out over the course of the narrative.
Ad Astra (2019), Interstellar (2014) and to a lesser extent First Man (2018) all deal with men journeying of into space. I would argue that whilst all of those movies are stunning and have a deep emotional resonance within them it is undeniable that they view exploration as something strictly within the confines of masculine understandings of enlightenment even when juxtaposed next to female characters those movies are still primarily about male experiences.
What director Winocour and her cast manage to do is to centre the story around dynamics the audience will more easily relate to and understand.
Sarah’s experiences as she prepares for the journey into space are more akin to someone’s first few weeks in a new place of employment, university or any new life experience; Alice has problems with her co workers, struggles and strives to adapt and succeed in her new situation. The way her journey is portrayed on screen is therefore incredibly relatable to the audience.
The bond between Sarah and her daughter Stella is the key to the entire movie. There is a deep bond and love between the two, their relationship is beautifully realised by the two actresses.
I also liked the way an SEN register child was allowed to build her own character rather than serving as a prop for the adult characters.
Winocour builds the emotionality between mother and daughter to a crescendo early on in the movie which allows her the benefit of bringing key visual metaphors into the story so that when the final frame of the picture arrives the lack of ambiguity helps to define what the movie stood for.
By the time Stella watches the horses from outside the coach journey with her father she places her mother’s letter to her joyfully into her pocket and watches the animals she has started to place on her bed room walls with a stare of awe of hope. Stella can now run free like the horses without her mother because of the love between the two characters. As her mother ascends into space, Stella has the emotional tools to enjoy herself with her father, new friends and her life as a child.
The conclusion to the movie is upliftingly simple because of the way Winocour and her cast avoid moving into melodrama (I don’t always think melodrama should be viewed in the pejorative, but here it wouldn’t be suitable).
Whilst Matt Dillon’s character appears to be a sexist and chauvinistic character at first glance. He is eventually revealed to be a man who simply wants the mission to succeed and understands some of the pressures Sarah faces. Yet what is key when considering the male characters within the movie is the difference between how fathers within the family unit are treated within society versus the expectations and realities single mothers and mothers in general face.
Shannon has a wife who he expects to look after his children whilst he is away. In some families what happens is the mother is left to deal with the emotional needs of the children whilst the father is the provider who loves his children yet isn’t required to focus his time on the complex intricacies of the emotional needs of the children. This can at times mean that for a mother they also have to be the leader in terms of a child’s schooling and logistics whilst also being the prime care giver.
I am of course generalising here but I have seen how this idea plays out in the lives of women in my life.
Whereas for Sarah, she has to be everything to her daughter, whilst her husband in the movie is a nice guy. He deals with Stella’s needs in a completely different way as to how her mother deals with them. Both parents are good parents but what the movie does is to be subtle in how gender distinctions result in the separation of different parenting responsibilities.
Some of these aspects could result in a polarisation of character, theme and story within the movie but in Proxima you are simply watching human beings make mistakes and in particular a woman doing her best for herself and her family, without needing to be perfect or superhuman.
By the time the movie arrives at the emotional third act with an act of tactile symbolism between mother and daughter because the director’s approach to telling the story has been so skilfully carried out; it is truly one of the most stunning sequences I have seen at the cinema this year.
The casting of Eva Green is also important.
When the movie was released on Blu Ray and on digital home video the amount of male reviewers who patronised Eva Green by insisting that somehow this role as a mother represented a career high point for her as a professional actress was utterly ridiculous to me. One reviewer even insisted that Green should now pursue more roles in which she could be a ‘real actress’.
This not only hints at the sexism within movie review culture but also speaks toward the movie itself.
The first Eva Green movie I ever saw was The Dreamers (2003), Green then followed this movie up with Casino Royale (2006) and Ridley Scott’s underrated Kingdom of Heaven (2005). Green then moved on to make Jordan Scott’s (ironically Ridley’s daughter) Cracks (2009).
Green has starred in television shows like Camelot (2011) and her utterly compelling portrayal as Vanessa Ives in Penny Dreadful (2014-2016).
Green has also worked with Tim Burton three times in Dark Shadows (2012), Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children (2016) and Dumbo (2019).
Green also starred in the comic book adaptations of Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) and 300: Rise of an Empire (2014).
The actress also starred with Shailene Woodley in White Bird in a Blizzard (2014) and as lead with Ewan McGregor in Perfect Sense (2011).
Green was also part of the ensemble cast in the lesser known movie Franklyn (2008).
The breadth of all of these roles over seventeen years flies in the face of any supposition that Green is a new actress or should be patronised by male reviewers who haven’t educated themselves on her career.
What some of these reviews point toward is how the Madonna Whore Complex has moulded and fractured into different pieces over time.
As a woman you are either a sexless virgin to be admired, a whore who should not be accepted into society or a woman defined by hysteria. Because Green has played some characters who embrace their sexuality and where that physical desire is a key component of who they are as women it has resulted in some reviewers being confused when she now plays a mother.
The fact society still seems to link sexuality or eroticism when embraced and portrayed by a woman on screen or in real life as something distinct from herself as a human being is reductive and sexist.
Also anybody who has watched the movies or television shows listed above would see sexuality is only one string to both those characters and Eva Green who is a generational talent.
A woman can be a professional, friend, lover, mother and whoever she wants to be whilst also being a sexual being as for many of us that is a key part of our journey through life.
So by casting Green Proxima seems to understand how some modern audiences perceive Green as an actress and that also serves as an interesting real life sub text to the definitive roles we at times ask women to portray in society. Which represents not only sexism but a distinct misunderstanding of human beings.
Proxima is an awe inspiringly beautiful movie and one I will cherish for many decades to come.
Utterly stunning work from the cast and crew.
Proxima also ends with a stunning piece of electro pop music with You’re High by Agar Agar for anybody interested in music.
Thanks to the small number of you who support the site. I wish your friends and family a happy new year