Welcome to Marwen
05/01/19 Filed in: Cinema
My first review for a while after the Christmas break. It was Helen's choice and I knew very little about the film, other than it involved dolls. I hadn't read any reviews, and having since done so it seems that neither the critics nor audiences were very impressed, with some reviews being quite scathing. This could be because of the doll angle, the negative perceptions of cross-dressing or the objectification of the female characters as Barbie dolls.
Disturbingly the film is based on actual events, whereby in 2008 the principal character portrayed in the film, Mark Hogancamp, was beaten and almost killed by a group of five white supremacists who took offence when Hogencamp told them he was a cross-dresser. At the time he was a heavy drinker and said later that admitting to cross-dressing was unwise in the circumstances. After nine days in a coma and 40 days in hospital he was discharged with brain damage and post traumatic stress disorder. Unable to afford therapy, he created his own by building a ⅙ scale model of a Belgian town in his yard, and using dolls to represent himself, as Hogie, and his friends and his attackers. He photographed these dolls in action poses and it was these photographs that eventually brought his story to the attention of a wider audience. There is a Marwencol website and a book with nearly 600 of his images.
For me, there is far too much 'sameness' in the cinema today, with each successful film being either cloned or subject to several sequels; or prequels. Marwen is refreshingly different, and although I accept that the dolls and the sentimentality may at times feel awkward, the technical achievement of blending real life with the doll theatre is quite amazing. In the doll action scenes the dolls are in fact human actors with no animation involved. The dolls themselves are superb likenesses of the characters they represent, which for the film was, I believe, achieved by 3D printing. Being Barbie-type dolls, the women are of course very Barbiesque, while Hogie ain't bad either.
The opening sequence sets the scene, as Hogie in his fighter plane crashes in Belgium during WWII and, with his shoes in tatters from a fire in the wreckage, he finds an abandoned German car with a suitcase containing women's high heel shoes. He wears them, which we assume at this stage is because they're better than nothing, but as the plot develops we appreciate their significance. He is soon confronted by a German officer and four soldiers, this signifying the gang who attacked Hogancamp, the officer taking great delight in commenting on Hogie's shoes. When the chips seem to be down, he is rescued by five women, all Barbiesque Resistance types. This effectively sets the scene for the film as the action breaks away from the dolls to Hogancamp, who's seen taking a still photograph of the set, the posed figures being disturbed by the arrival of a removal lorry at the house opposite.
His new neighbour, Nicol (without an e) is to play an important role from now on, and she of course is soon featured as a new redheaded doll. But there's one doll in the collection, Deja Thoris (the Belgian Witch), who is Hogie's nemesis, always ensuring that any woman who comes too close will meet a sticky end. She in fact represents the terrible trauma under which Hogencamp lives. Meanwhile the five German soldiers can never die, representing the inescapable suffering that Hogancamp seems destined to endure. He has much support in the town, none more so than from Roberta at the model shop where he buys his dolls. But it is Nicol who has now entranced him.
His five attackers are to appear in court but he can't face seeing them, and rebuffs his lawyers appeals for him to appear to give a victim statement. Roberta wants him to go but it takes the hard reality of his misplaced infatuation with Nicol before he, as Hogie, ultimately realises that Deja Thoris, who he has up to now blamed for his inability to form a permanent relationship, has a dark secret. This revelation unlocks the door to a recovery, of sorts.
If you read the popular reviews you won't go to see this film, but if you can put aside any apprehensions I think you may find it to be somewhat better than the crowd is saying.
The opening sequence sets the scene, as Hogie in his fighter plane crashes in Belgium during WWII and, with his shoes in tatters from a fire in the wreckage, he finds an abandoned German car with a suitcase containing women's high heel shoes. He wears them, which we assume at this stage is because they're better than nothing, but as the plot develops we appreciate their significance. He is soon confronted by a German officer and four soldiers, this signifying the gang who attacked Hogancamp, the officer taking great delight in commenting on Hogie's shoes. When the chips seem to be down, he is rescued by five women, all Barbiesque Resistance types. This effectively sets the scene for the film as the action breaks away from the dolls to Hogancamp, who's seen taking a still photograph of the set, the posed figures being disturbed by the arrival of a removal lorry at the house opposite.
His new neighbour, Nicol (without an e) is to play an important role from now on, and she of course is soon featured as a new redheaded doll. But there's one doll in the collection, Deja Thoris (the Belgian Witch), who is Hogie's nemesis, always ensuring that any woman who comes too close will meet a sticky end. She in fact represents the terrible trauma under which Hogencamp lives. Meanwhile the five German soldiers can never die, representing the inescapable suffering that Hogancamp seems destined to endure. He has much support in the town, none more so than from Roberta at the model shop where he buys his dolls. But it is Nicol who has now entranced him.
His five attackers are to appear in court but he can't face seeing them, and rebuffs his lawyers appeals for him to appear to give a victim statement. Roberta wants him to go but it takes the hard reality of his misplaced infatuation with Nicol before he, as Hogie, ultimately realises that Deja Thoris, who he has up to now blamed for his inability to form a permanent relationship, has a dark secret. This revelation unlocks the door to a recovery, of sorts.
If you read the popular reviews you won't go to see this film, but if you can put aside any apprehensions I think you may find it to be somewhat better than the crowd is saying.