Us - A Mire Of Many Possible Readings
Thoughts On: Us (2019)
A family is haunted by an identical 'other' family.
Us is Jordan Peele's second feature-length film. It follows, of course, Get Out, a film I have respect for and have seen (I believe) three times, but nonetheless think is overrated. I went into Us openly, expecting a solid piece of filmmaking, but with Get Out in the back of my mind. The opening pounded its vibrations out from the screen and I felt some place familiar. A Lanthimos film? A Carax film? The counterpoint of image and sound - a wall of caged rabbits and abstruse, neo-classical symphony - struck out as uncannily meaningful. And, indeed, much could be said of the opening in regards to the wider narrative. The rabbits may be clones - they are also food to be eaten raw. They have been institutionalised, pets in the back of a classroom no one learns in. What are the rabbits but complacent and unknowing - trapped? Such resonates with the population of the underworld; soulless zombies, pets, food, experiments, institutionalised, all at once and meaninglessly so. The ringing soundtrack makes emphatic this queer predicament, implying a cacophonous melee of conspiracy, of uprising, to come. Much is expressed with indecipherable ambiguity in the highly affecting opening; it sits in the bones and stirs the chest. However, the film unfolds toward dissatisfaction from this point onward.
The central issue of Us, in my view, is its demand to be interpreted, yet, simultaneously, refusal to be about one thing. It seems apparent that some people appreciate this, but Us appears to merely be appealing to the audience member tantalised by an implication of implication. The joy of watching a David Lynch film as a teenager and understanding nothing is a unique one; to sense meaning but have almost no ability make sense of the feeling is a transformative experience that I personally found addictive when I first began to watch films seriously. However, as you mature and as you watch more films, this sensation dissipates and the experience becomes more of a rarity. Much of this has to do with the fact that convention is something that you must continually uncover, discover and further understanding when watching a vast array of films. Convention reveals a landscape of a film, its logical constraints and modal limitations. That is to say, a film tells you how it wants to be read and viewed (this does damage to your capacity for awe, surprise and naive wonder). It is a director's job to know when to listen to what their film demands and when to play deaf. Us doesn't work too well because Peele doesn't demonstrate an ability to listen very well, but he is nonetheless seemingly trying to play deaf.
The opening of the film tells us that genre should play little to no part in this narrative. Why the ambiguous evocation of thriller conventions dictate exposition, character-centricity, back stories and the framing of entertainment (horrifying and thrilling sequences)? Why make us watch rabbits if you are going to provide rather standard comedic play, are going to have a big twist in the end, are going to waste our time with meaningless chases, fights and nonsensical details?
I ask these questions because there is no dramatic cohesivity binding the many disparate parts of Us. Let us try to analyse some of these parts. We shall start with the implication of class conflict. The family of the over-world are affluent and money is a constant point of reference - consider the father's competition with the family friend (who has more money than him) and his boat. The family of the underworld emerge as those who have not where the affluent family have. Is this then a film attempting to comment on an underclass neglected by the majority of the world? Is this why the uniting of America via the chain of people holding hands is such a prominent feature of the narrative? A new unity must be established?
The discourse on class can be associated with race. Are the elements of the film juxtaposing an under and over class directed at black America? Is this a film that sees affluent black people confronted with a shadow on their culture? The red jump suites worn by the other family are somewhat reminiscent of clothing worn in prison - prison being a pathway to the realm of the underclass. (Fuck the police). The voicelessness, the lack of education, clothing, the obedience and yet the physicality of the others capture elements of the underclass so thoroughly that the mind is made to drift toward one of the causes of extreme poverty in black America: slavery. Are these valid topics to discuss in regards to Us? You could make a case for this if the only family to have an other was our central black family, but this is not the case.
One may then make something closer to a Jungian reading of Us. Is the collective consciousness of America seeing a shadow rise from an underworld? Does the coming of the others symbolise a terrifying step taken towards individuation? It could be argued, taking into account the consistently broadcasted idea of division in American culture, that Us speaks on the apparently hellish period of change America has recently experienced--is currently experiencing--one that has brought out their ugliest sides. The mass killings at the end of the film, one could argue, resonate well with many items in American news at present.
If you re-introduce class and race to the discussion at this point, you can understand the argument of Us being about xenophobia and the "other." The underworld is the 'America' America, in its divided state, has failed to acknowledge. It is at this point that you could argue that the ending says much. With it being revealed that our main character is one of the other, then we can speak on the idea that every American is am immigrant, is an other. However, it would confuse me to see Us speak about xenophobia, yet make the others a murderous cult of mind-washed tyrants. And why the government conspiracy that explains their existence? The government is to blame for xenophobia? This is all too muddling.
The element of the twist ending that catches me is the sudden humanisation of the 'other.' The reveal makes clear that this is a narrative about the potential in the others to live normal lives, to love, to have a family, be successful, etc. This explains why our main character begins to show compassion toward her 'other' children; she realises that, whilst they are not biologically hers, fate once had it that they were to be hers. Furthermore, this emphasises exactly why the over-world mother trapped underground is so profoundly hateful; she knows that her fate was stolen away from her. Alas, all of this humanisation does not resonate very well with the meandering discourse on class, xenophobia and shadows. Not in my view at the very least.
Us is loosely about a great many things - probably more than what I have outlined. It suffers due to its inability to make cogent one subtextual discourse. I would have liked to have seen this focus more on one character (our main character - I would have loved to be able to sit and write about just her), ignore the conventions of the thriller to a greater degree, and not try to force relevant, conscious social commentary onto the narrative. It is the over-consciousness of Us that I can't help but recognise and can't hep but dislike. I have, however, only seen this film once. Maybe a second watch will reveal more. With that said, however, what are your thoughts?
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A family is haunted by an identical 'other' family.
This review is full of spoilers and will make sense only to those of have seen the film.
The central issue of Us, in my view, is its demand to be interpreted, yet, simultaneously, refusal to be about one thing. It seems apparent that some people appreciate this, but Us appears to merely be appealing to the audience member tantalised by an implication of implication. The joy of watching a David Lynch film as a teenager and understanding nothing is a unique one; to sense meaning but have almost no ability make sense of the feeling is a transformative experience that I personally found addictive when I first began to watch films seriously. However, as you mature and as you watch more films, this sensation dissipates and the experience becomes more of a rarity. Much of this has to do with the fact that convention is something that you must continually uncover, discover and further understanding when watching a vast array of films. Convention reveals a landscape of a film, its logical constraints and modal limitations. That is to say, a film tells you how it wants to be read and viewed (this does damage to your capacity for awe, surprise and naive wonder). It is a director's job to know when to listen to what their film demands and when to play deaf. Us doesn't work too well because Peele doesn't demonstrate an ability to listen very well, but he is nonetheless seemingly trying to play deaf.
The opening of the film tells us that genre should play little to no part in this narrative. Why the ambiguous evocation of thriller conventions dictate exposition, character-centricity, back stories and the framing of entertainment (horrifying and thrilling sequences)? Why make us watch rabbits if you are going to provide rather standard comedic play, are going to have a big twist in the end, are going to waste our time with meaningless chases, fights and nonsensical details?
I ask these questions because there is no dramatic cohesivity binding the many disparate parts of Us. Let us try to analyse some of these parts. We shall start with the implication of class conflict. The family of the over-world are affluent and money is a constant point of reference - consider the father's competition with the family friend (who has more money than him) and his boat. The family of the underworld emerge as those who have not where the affluent family have. Is this then a film attempting to comment on an underclass neglected by the majority of the world? Is this why the uniting of America via the chain of people holding hands is such a prominent feature of the narrative? A new unity must be established?
The discourse on class can be associated with race. Are the elements of the film juxtaposing an under and over class directed at black America? Is this a film that sees affluent black people confronted with a shadow on their culture? The red jump suites worn by the other family are somewhat reminiscent of clothing worn in prison - prison being a pathway to the realm of the underclass. (Fuck the police). The voicelessness, the lack of education, clothing, the obedience and yet the physicality of the others capture elements of the underclass so thoroughly that the mind is made to drift toward one of the causes of extreme poverty in black America: slavery. Are these valid topics to discuss in regards to Us? You could make a case for this if the only family to have an other was our central black family, but this is not the case.
One may then make something closer to a Jungian reading of Us. Is the collective consciousness of America seeing a shadow rise from an underworld? Does the coming of the others symbolise a terrifying step taken towards individuation? It could be argued, taking into account the consistently broadcasted idea of division in American culture, that Us speaks on the apparently hellish period of change America has recently experienced--is currently experiencing--one that has brought out their ugliest sides. The mass killings at the end of the film, one could argue, resonate well with many items in American news at present.
If you re-introduce class and race to the discussion at this point, you can understand the argument of Us being about xenophobia and the "other." The underworld is the 'America' America, in its divided state, has failed to acknowledge. It is at this point that you could argue that the ending says much. With it being revealed that our main character is one of the other, then we can speak on the idea that every American is am immigrant, is an other. However, it would confuse me to see Us speak about xenophobia, yet make the others a murderous cult of mind-washed tyrants. And why the government conspiracy that explains their existence? The government is to blame for xenophobia? This is all too muddling.
The element of the twist ending that catches me is the sudden humanisation of the 'other.' The reveal makes clear that this is a narrative about the potential in the others to live normal lives, to love, to have a family, be successful, etc. This explains why our main character begins to show compassion toward her 'other' children; she realises that, whilst they are not biologically hers, fate once had it that they were to be hers. Furthermore, this emphasises exactly why the over-world mother trapped underground is so profoundly hateful; she knows that her fate was stolen away from her. Alas, all of this humanisation does not resonate very well with the meandering discourse on class, xenophobia and shadows. Not in my view at the very least.
Us is loosely about a great many things - probably more than what I have outlined. It suffers due to its inability to make cogent one subtextual discourse. I would have liked to have seen this focus more on one character (our main character - I would have loved to be able to sit and write about just her), ignore the conventions of the thriller to a greater degree, and not try to force relevant, conscious social commentary onto the narrative. It is the over-consciousness of Us that I can't help but recognise and can't hep but dislike. I have, however, only seen this film once. Maybe a second watch will reveal more. With that said, however, what are your thoughts?
Previous post:
End Of The Week Shorts #100
Next post:
Await Further Instructions - The Evil Spirits In The Television
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
