I really enjoyed the first half of this film. Horvat plays an exaggerated version of herself who is acutely aware that she's on camera. It's funny. She's quirky and enjoyable to watch and her highly performative version of herself reminded me of a young Miranda July.
It's a unique concept that raises some important points about the treatment of women in post #metoo Hollywood through the film-within-a-film concept. Horvat attends several intolerable meetings with Hollywood executives, reflecting the tokenism and lack of trust Hollywood tends to have in the creative capabilities of female film-makers. I Blame Society itself is a counter-argument to that. Co-written, directed and starring Horvat, with a predominantly female crew, it is nothing if not creative.
Unfortunately, however, when on-screen Horvat starts to descend into a type of psychopathy that sees her embarking on a killing spree, the film lost me. While I understand that real-life film-maker Horvat is making a statement about women not being taken seriously even while committing heinous murders, the on-screen action just felt a bit ... silly. The psychopath version of Horvat was much less fun to watch than the slightly off-kilter film-maker version of Horvat. And because she's the only complex character in the film, I was grateful the second half was brief.
Ironically, I blame society for my lack of tolerance for this film. The second half, while meaningful, essentially becomes a low-budget splatter film and I don't have time for that kind of silliness. It's sad that I've become a cliched humourless mum, but it's not my fault.
HE SAW
There's a lot going on in I Blame Society. It's a mockumentary about the making of a documentary and the central character in both is the filmmaker, Gillian Horvat, so you're starting out with a heavy mental load.
Very quickly the movie presents us with the narrative engine: friends have told Horvat she'd make a great murderer, and she is using that "compliment" as the launchpad for a documentary about who she would hypothetically murder and how. The documentary fails when a friend gets upset she's chosen his girlfriend, but, three years later, with her other film projects having been repeatedly rejected, ignored and misunderstood by men - including her boyfriend - who claim to be feminist allies, she sets out to resurrect the documentary, only this time much less hypothetically.
This is a film about the experience of women in the creative arts and the way their ideas are diminished and/or ignored by men in possession of a lot of Big Talk but not much else. Many of the film's men start out erroneously and gratuitously claiming to be feminist allies, and end up murdered. The men are so awful there's not much disappointment at their various ends. Horvat's on-screen boyfriend for instance never even bothers to change his T-shirt.
There's a recurring question about likeability. Is she likeable enough? "I guess I just don't know what 'likeable' is," she says at one point.
The irony is she's not a very likeable character - she's a murderer - but is that necessarily her fault? Could it be blamed on someone else? For instance, say, society? Obviously that question raises more questions. Is there a double standard at play in the movie business? Does a female character need to be more likeable than a male? If so, who's accountable for that?
The film doesn't deal in easy answers. Horvat's character is not redeemed by the titular catchphrase, but is ridiculed by it. Almost no one comes out of this film looking morally sound. Almost no one comes out of this film at all.
I Blame Society is in cinemas now.
