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So thinking about how in "Fine Feathered Finks," it's heavily implied if not outright stated that Penguin doesn't know who Bruce Wayne is. Like, obviously by the time the movie happens he seems to know, but in this episode, when he captures Bruce Wayne and one of his henchmen asks who he is, Penguin's response is pretty much, "I don't know. A rival umbrella salesman, I guess."
The more I think about it, the more I think the “Towel Man” (although it’s probably a shroud now that I think about it) isn’t necessarily one specific person, particularly since he’s in the video before Ryuji’s death, but also before Ring 0 was made, which also makes me think it’s unlikely that he’s intended to be Toyama. Not to mention, Asakawa doesn’t seem to believe he resembles Ryuji except for the end of the movie, when he points out the copy of the tape. which makes me more inclined to think he was not Ryuji for the majority of the movie, but at least resembled him near the end.
Lately, I find myself wondering if he represents Sadako’s biological father, since in the tape, he appears to be pointing at the sea, but at times I think he could just as easily represent any and everyone who failed to copy and pass the tape.
So I’ve been thinking about the song “To Be a Princess” quite a bit lately. Something I definitely didn’t appreciate as much when I was younger is just the sheer amount of stuff going on in that number. Like, yes, there’s Julian teaching Erika how to imitate Anneliese and giving Alessandro Juliani a chance to show off his pipes but the song also communicates Julian’s attraction to Annalise, particularly in that moment where he is briefly distracted waxing lyrical about the way her presence makes him feel. On top of that, by pairing the “easy” parts about being a princess with strict rules about how you are allowed to present and behave, the song effectively communicates Annalise’s position of immense privilege, but also the exceedingly narrow guidelines in which she must exist.
It’s especially interesting to go back and listen to Anneliese’s lines in “Free” after this, since it adds a new understanding to just what it is she would like to be free from, since not only is she not able to choose her own spouse, but she is also regulated in her presentation right down to the emotions she is allowed to express and, in some cases, which ones she is allowed to feel, since “to be a princess is to never be confused.” It’s pretty telling that while Erika explicitly wants to be free from her debt and the endless work hours, and she wants to be free to sing, and to travel the world to do so, (“People will gather around the world to hear my song”) Anneliese is only able to sing about what she wants to do in abstract terms, “Free to try crazy things” and “Free to fly.” She’s effectively so regulated she doesn’t necessarily know what, beyond choosing her own spouse, she would do if those guidelines were relaxed. It’s just a nebulous concept to her. Which, now that I think about it, is also quite fitting to the arc she has in the film, since we see her learning to do things about the situations she’s in (the bedsheet ghost, having Serafina deliver the ring and tag, flooding the mine and floating up in a barrel, etc.) instead of simply dreaming about what she might like to do.
The song also becomes an example of how the characters’ arcs tie into each other’s. We have Julian and Erika’s arcs being tied together as people who came from outside the palace and courts and having to learn more or less how to fit. It’s not really stated in Julian’s case, but we know he didn’t grow up in the courts because of an earlier conversation with Anneliese in which we learn that his family could only afford a room in the village, and so we can assume that at some point, he also had to learn to adapt. His arc is also being tied to Anneliese’s, since his song is used to communicate things about her and also about his feelings for her. And of course, it further ties Erika’s arc to Anneliese’s, showcasing their differences despite their similar appearances, and showing Erika learning to adapt as Anneliese will later do in Madame Carp’s Dress Emporium, as well as the situations where she has to act as a bit of a trickster to escape, since we had already seen Erika disguise herself to sneak out and sing in the square. And in “Free,” her line, “She can never stop my schemes” as well as Madame Carp’s exclamation of “Here again?” when she spots her singing implies this isn’t the first time she’s done something like this. And of course, that’s only the examples that directly connect with “To be a Princess,” since outside of that, there are also ways in which Julian’s character is tied to Preminger’s, with their effectively being opponents in the Princess Anneliese situation, as well as being foils due to having both grown up in poor families and working their way up, but where Julian is perfectly happy being the tutor, Preminger’s ambition leads him to desire kingship, something which Julian, based on his reaction when he learns of Preminger’s ambitions, cannot understand.
And now of course I’m thinking of the other ways in which characters are tied together in this movie, but I feel like that’s probably best left as a second post.
One of these days I’m going to write a detailed analysis on how Michael Myers being portrayed by so many different people lends itself to the idea that he could be anyone and then I’m going to contrast it with Freddy Krueger’s position as a sort of “celebrity slasher,” and maybe throw in some discussion of Jason Voorhees and how he fits into that. But today is not that day because I really need to beef up my study of Jason and probably Freddy as well before I could do something like that.
Something I find interesting as I’m rewatching Revolutionary Girl Utena is that there are so many places where the arc could skew just a little to the left if the characters weren’t so stuck in their ways. Which I think is also part of the point, the idea that you can’t move on if you’re too stuck in an idea about the way things are or “should” be to allow yourself to grow. Right now, I’m thinking about the interactions between Utena and Saionji in episode 9, and how there seemed to be a point where he almost recognized his error before doubling down in his ideas of how things were “supposed” to work. In another story, he might have begun to realize something in that moment and begrudgingly come to terms with the situation, potentially even becoming Utena’s ally in future episodes. But the Saionji that exists in the context of Revolutionary Girl Utena’s story isn’t capable of that at the moment, and so he doesn’t do that.
I don’t really have any ideas for how I would explore all those split-second shift moments for each character, but it would be something I could potentially be interested in looking at in the future.
According to the Barbie movie wikia, Princess Anneliese is 16 years old during the events of the movie. If we take Preminger’s claim that “For ten long years I’ve had to pay my dues” as being literal and in reference to his work as the Queen’s advisor, this means he would have come into the role when she was around 6.
I dunno, I feel like that could be good material for some kind of first impression thing, especially since during the events of the movie proper, he doesn’t seem to think highly of her except for the potential role she could serve in furthering his plan, and while Julian seems quick to distrust him (though this is not unfounded), I’m not entirely sure about Anneliese’s impression prior to her discovery that he was behind the plot. If I had to guess, I’d say she sees him as someone trustworthy, but that he likely isn’t someone who occupies much of her brainspace most of the time.
Oh! And of course, there’s also the question of whether her father would still be in the picture when this happens. The opening narration makes sure to refer to Queen Genevieve as “the widowed queen,” which of course lets the audience know the king has died sometime between Anneliese’s birth and the news that the mine is empty. Now of course, if he had died recently, we would probably expect the line to be “The recently widowed queen was shocked,” but at the same time, we can guess that Erika’s parents are probably dead based on her dialogue with Madame Carp and the fact that she is without them in her servitude, and there is no explicit mention of that anywhere in the narration. I mean, you could probably infer that it’s likely been at least a couple of years, but at the same time, the fact that it is explicitly mentioned would seem to indicate it’s at least close enough to the events of the movie that it’s informing a lot of Queen Genevieve’s thought process.
And now I’m also wondering when Preminger’s arrival to the palace would line up compared to Julian’s, since Julian clearly seems to remember his family’s room in the village, so we know he was definitely old enough to remember things before arriving, but that also doesn’t narrow it down much, though at the same time, he has definitely been there long enough to form a close friendship with and affection for Anneliese.
I’m not 100% sure what I expected this spinoff to be about going in, but after having watched it, I think it is ultimately a movie about existing on borrowed time and what you do when that’s about to expire, but it’s also about trying to fill the legacy of a person who was important to you and the ramifications of throwing your own life away as a bargaining chip.
It’s definitely tonally different to its predecessors, but I think that’s because, in addition to it having a different director than its predecessors, that’s also because it is about something different than they were. Its predecessors were about justice and how far a person would be willing to go to achieve their idea of it, as well as of course being about the Kira conflict in general, whereas the spinoff is really more about life and learning to value that. I suppose it’s almost inevitable that a series which deals so heavily in death would eventually spawn at least some works about life.
At some point, I will have to dig into it for further analysis, but since this is the first time I have seen it all the way through, I will need to watch it a few more times both on its own and compared to its predecessors in order to determine just what I would want to say.
So in reading about Jacob's Ladder (1990) I have occasionally run across the "Louie is an angel" theory. Which I do generally think is probably true in the film's narrative. But what about Michael? I know he claims he was a drug manufacturer who created "Ladder," but at the same time, he has several suspicious appearances where he warns Jacob of impending danger or otherwise seems to appear right before events he shouldn't be able to predict. While it could be a coincidence this movie is not exactly subtle about its themes and imagery. So it the moment I find myself wondering if in the film's narrative, Angel! Michael either invented or assumed the form of Dealer! Michael in order to communicate the information he knew Jacob needed in order to move on.
