Blog Post #3 (AF AMER 112A UCLA)
This excerpt is 444 words
I remember watching Eve’s Bayou with my mom a loooong time ago and I probably didn’t understand much seeing as I didn’t remember anything but the characters faces. However upon watching it just recently I was impressed with just how beautiful the film looks even with the scrappy sort of feel it has from the quality. My interpretation of the film’s message would have to be that there are times we just really don't understand the pain and emotions being felt by those we love most. It reminds me of the concept surrounding the word sonder however, this movie was a reminder that we truly all lead uniquely complex and layered lives and you can’t always understand even those closest to us.
Not sure how I expected to understand anything as a kid watching this with how complex and layered it is, or why I was even watching this at all at my age, but still I really enjoyed it. I’m generally not a very big horror person either, but this class may just make me change my mind. Eve’s Bayou has also brought up another sub genre within horror (domestic horror) which I didn’t even know existed.
All that aside, I know there are a lot of debates about what actually happened in the end, and honestly I’m not sure whether I believe the father had assaulted Cicely or not. What I do know is regardless of whether it happened or not, there is no reason he shouldn’t have been well aware of how his own daughter felt for him. Leading those inappropriate feeling’s on seeing as its double taboo, incest and pedophilia, it was wrong for him to entertain it at all. That's not even to mention the fact that you have a whole wife and aside from cheating on her emotionally with y’all’s daughter you’re cheating on her with all these other women as well and aren’t even able to keep your kids away from the shock of it all. You’ve taken away their innocence and honestly probably ruined their perception of what a happy home/relationship should look like. Seeing how much I despise Samuel Jackson’s character, I must admit he played it well.
On the contrary, my favorite character would’ve probably been Mozelle. Yes she also had shared some of the same issues as the father, however I still felt a strength and comfort from her wisdom and guidance that she had shared with Eve. She felt so unapologetically human and I think it was really her words and reflection that made me come to the conclusion that I did regarding the message of the story as a whole.