Vertigo (1958): Green! is the Colour. Green!

As well as containing plot-spoilers, this piece will make better sense to those who have already seen Vertigo. If you haven’t, you should watch it before reading on. Unless you really have no interest in doing so. But you should, because it’s a masterpiece. And it’s not just me saying that. At least 3 other people have confirmed it.

 

On a hot summer hallucination, Vertigo carries you gently into its clammy nightmare where ghosts manifest as solid and Scottie’s spiralling obsession with a delusional woman is as inevitable as ours with one of the best films ever made.

I always knew colour had something to do with the film’s potent atmosphere, but it was only after 10 (or so) viewings that I began to understand just how well-designed its distinctive palette is and how cohesive it creeps with the themes and their narrative progression.

The colour that invades the eye as soon as you start paying the smallest attention to set and costume is GREEN.

Early in the film it is a very particular light shade, a washy kind of mint green. It makes its mark first with the introduction of Madeleine as Scottie sits quietly watching her at a bar. The green shawl she wears with her black dress stands out among the greys and dark blues of everyone else in the scene. This establishes it as her colour.

This is affirmed the next day as Scottie tails her car to observe for himself the odd behaviour reported by Madeleine’s husband. The car is green, a less lurid shade, one that blends particularly well with foliage and shrubbery – something that takes on significance later.

After following her from a distance for some time, Scottie firsts meets Madeleine face-to-face after saving her from drowning in San Francisco bay. He takes her back to his apartment where she recovers. Right from this first encounter, Scottie is immediately enamoured. His clothes, his cushions and many fixtures around him are mint green. It’s not that he has somehow acquired all of these minty green objects as a way of becoming closer to Madeleine, the colours aren’t supposed to be a realistic representation of his apartment. It is more likely an impressionist (like the whole dreamy atmosphere of the film) way of showing how quickly Scottie has begun to fall for the ethereal woman. The seeds of his obsession are sown.

The red and white-dotted colours of Madeleine’s gown in this scene are also important to note.

That’s because on the next day, when Madeleine ends up driving Scottie out to a forest, Scottie is wearing a red and white-dotted tie.His mimicking is difficult to write of as coincidence. What is more, Madeleine is the one driving. If any more evidence is needed to suggest Scottie’s irrevocable slide into obsession, it is his position on the passenger seat in Madeleine’s mint-green-furnished four-wheeled honey trap.

When they reach the forest, they muse over the giant redwood trees around them. Scottie explains: “their true name is Sequoia Sempervirens: always green, ever-living.” Madeleine responds: “I don’t like them… Knowing I have to die…”

With this dialogue (the only mention of the colour in the film) we are given a first idea as to what green might signify: life, specifically long, even eternal life. Madeleine’s problem is that she intermittently takes on the persona of Carlotta Valdes, a woman who killed herself many generations previously. Green could mean the reincarnation of this dead woman, a symbol of her curse, never being able to rest. Then again, Madeleine seems terrified of death – she is worried where the possession she suffers might lead her. So does she surround herself with green to ward it off? Or could it be a prelude to Madeleine’s ‘death’? Or the refusal of Scottie later to let his obsession die? There are plenty of possible interpretations along the ‘green as life’ line.

The other main line is, of course, green as jealousy. This comes to the fore in the second act of the film, after Madeleine’s ‘death’. When Scottie has recovered from his long grief, he discovers a girl who bears a close resemblance to Madeleine so he follows her to her hotel and insists his way into her life. She is Madeleine, or at least she played that part when Scottie knew her the first time round, but Scottie is as yet unaware of this. Her real name is Judy. She wears green like in her previous guise but the difference is striking and obvious. Whereas Madeleine’s greens were always weak and diluted, Judy’s green is strong and bold – it’s clear that she is the non-fictional woman.

However this is where Scottie’s obsession spirals out of control and, tragically, he sets about transforming Judy back into the Madeleine that never existed. His jealousy is squeamishly misogynist because he rejects the real woman. We, who have been behind him for an hour and a half as the protagonist, have to watch as he objectifies Judy as a kind of empty-headed doll  and then, in an insatiable craving for a dead ideal, buys her clothes identical to Madeleine’s, bleaches her hair and forces her back into character. The culmination of this effort sees ‘Madeleine’ emerge from the pale translucent light of the Hotel sign outside into a solid form.

Crossing two themes, this moment demonstrates how Scottie’s envy and obsession has seemingly brought his love back from the dead. Despite the perfect cadence in the music, we know it is a sour resolution that can only end tragically. And it does in the final scene when the couple returns to the fateful bell tower and the haunting cycles of reincarnation are finally put to bed with an actual death.

Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

I’m a bit “whatever” about anime, at least the kind exalted by the obsessives who set up appreciation societies at universities or consider a world of wide-eyed super children their perfect home, one that they refuse to leave to the detriment of their actual 3D life. A lot of it just seems reductive and sentimental where its characters’ emotions are concerned – loads of blushing, unchecked streams of disappearing tears (both lacrimation and perspiration), wild face faults. Then there’s the shorthand X-eyes (for concussion) or black eyes (for death). I know this iconography defines a style and every style has its own, but the point is I just felt anime wasn’t for me (oh, except for Pokemon and Spirited Away – but they don’t count).

I say felt because watching The Grave of the Fireflies  the other night forced me to admit that it is unfair to judge an entire country’s animation output on what – after doing a bit of research – is actually called manga. It’s a late revelation I know, but it turns out manga is the style I don’t like; anime just means Japanese animation. And Fireflies is a brilliant Japanese animation.

Set in Kobe, Japan, near the end of World War II, it chronicles the desperate struggle of two children whose mother is killed during the American air raids on the city. Seita (14) and his sister Setsuko (4) find themselves having to trade their possessions, find their own shelter and steal food, all in a bid to stay alive.

It is a story set up for the worst kind of sentimentality but, thankfully, the film earns your tears through a slow portrait of the relationship between the siblings rather than slushy dialogue and bittersweet score. Despite living in harrowing circumstances, Setsuko is as fascinated and irritated by the world as all infants are in any situation. Seita facilitates his sister’s understanding of events and looks after her health while making sure he engages her in fun and games too. They both grieve over their mother in a much more understated and telling way than simply bursting out crying. The practicality of a hand-to-mouth existence is also well portrayed without resorting to saccharine ploys for the audience’s sympathy.

Around this central relationship is built a relentless depiction of the realities of civilian life and death during the war. Dead bodies and disease are presented matter-of-factly, alongside famine, firebombing and a ubiquitous survival-of-the-fittest mentality. It is a doomy backdrop, against which the plight of the orphans looks even more fragile and precious. A small tin of fruit drops – a rare commodity in a rationed society – serves as a motif for their vulnerability. Setsuko’s happiness hangs on how many of the multi-coloured sweets remain, although like the lives of everyone around them, once they’re gone they’re gone. Fireflies, too, bind themselves to the personal story of the siblings. They light up the dark cave where the children find refuge. Though they remind Setsuko of the American B-29 bombers, the glowing insects are magical to her and their short lifespan goes hand-in-hand with her epiphany regarding the ephemeral nature of human life.

The only negative aspect of the film is actually a disguised positive (and only applies to the English Language version I saw). It is the dubbing. The dubbing itself is actually fantastic, technically. Unlike many foreign language dubs, the dialogue actually makes sense when translated into English. It is also delivered well by the voice actors and matches the characters’ movements. The foley is great too – cups on saucers, footsteps, pouring rice; all of it is close and well recorded. However, the problem is the same as with any dubbed film: replacing a film’s original language is unnecessary and completely undermines the importance of watching a culture different to your own. What makes this film the perfect demonstration of this issue is the war that the story covers and the nations that are involved; to watch horrified Japanese folk running about with American accents while being bombed by American planes is just distracting and strange. It is easily solved. Just watch it in the original language with English subtitles. That goes for any foreign film.

Director Isao Takahata affirms that Grave of the Fireflies is not an anti-war film. He’s right to an extent, the film doesn’t push a certain ideology, its characters aren’t tasked to insert lines like “isn’t this war quite bad?” into their dialogue. That’s what makes it powerful; any message one might read into the film comes purely from watching an accurate representation of the way war affects those it shouldn’t involve. If your natural reaction to that is “isn’t war quite bad?” well… then that just goes to show that this is one of the best anti-war films ever made.