Mansfield Park

I imagine Mansfield Park was written when the 19th century's abolitionist movement was rapidly advancing, and the cruel and ruthless practice of slavery was soon to fade into oblivion.

But it hadn't yet as this narrative took shape so some of its characters seem rather outdated, as they lavishly live off the profits of enslavement in luxurious temper and ornate fashion.

Even if the story and its situations seem somewhat ghastly from current perspectives, it's strange to see characters genuinely presented outrageously profiting from the slave trade, I imagine it was daring and even groundbreaking at the revolutionary time, as it ethically shocked the established practice, and brought fresh perspectives to politically bear.

Thus, with the abolitionist movement passionately sermonizing in the background, Jane Austen theorizes Victorian realism, and creates a hypothetical yet possible set of circumstances, wherein which Society struggles with change.

The father, one Thomas Bertram (Harold Pinter), isn't squeamish about his distant holdings, and indeed brutishly profits from their labours, with no qualms or concerns regarding worker well-being.

His oldest son of the same name (James Purefoy) even captures his wickedness in a series of vivid disturbing drawings, which lead to his grand disillusionment, and general disregard for family life.

His younger brother Edmund (Johnny Lee Miller) has never visited their land or enterprises oversees, and has matured in the finest ethical tradition, even if he can't settle upon an occupation.

He grows up with one Fanny Price (France O'Connor) and the two fall in love through books and imagination, but they're both rather unacquainted with their own interests, and eventually find themselves about to marry others.

Even though they live with everything at their fingertips, and want for nothing material throughout their days, Tom and Edmund still detest their father's practices and express their criticisms with virtuous outrage.

It's unsettling to see people living so ostentatiously considering, but within the novel's historical context, perhaps it helped encourage the end of slavery.

Thomas has switched his interests to tobacco in the end and seems to have abandoned profiting from extremist tension, the counsel of a younger generation definitively having influenced his ridged composure.

I was surprised to see a Jane Austen narrative so sophisticatedly concerned with social justice, I had always presumed most of her books concerned marriage, and had no idea they examined broader issues.

Marriage is also of the utmost concern within the farsighted Mansfield Park, but it's regarded as another form of human entrapment, as Edmund and Fanny seek to fall in love.

The story's quite robust however and even though borderline romantic, still undercuts its amorous zeal with cold calculated depictions of poverty.

Still should people like Edmund and Fanny find each other love may flourish boundless and eternal.

I'm not sure how many liberties the filmmakers took with the plot.

But I'd very much like to read Mansfield Park. 

Into the Forest

Isolated ingenuity, embowered seclusion, 2 sisters living together in the West Coast woods far from town must learn to survive after the North American power grid suddenly shuts down, permanently, in Patricia Rozema's Into the Forest.

Feminine fortitude.

There's no fear, no frequent unprovoked breakdowns, in fact the film seems too sober and logical after their father (Callum Keith Rennie as Robert) dies and the grieving ends after a brief period of intense sorrow.

It's a matter of timing, the film divided into temporal segments which narrativize specific incidents yet leave out inquisitive aspects which leave you wondering why they chose to stay in the woods and why they weren't more curious about was happening in the world?

Such questions are entertained but they aren't examined at length, as they would have been if the story didn't jump ahead so often, which I found odd considering their circumstances and the massive destabilizing continental paradigm shifts enveloping them.

They can't find any information and there's no one else to talk to besides a partner (Max Minghella as Eli) who arrives for a short stay to state that no one really knows anything in town either, and game changing decisions are behind made based on conjecture, which moderately heightens end of the world tensions by acknowledging that communication networks and associated cross-references no longer exist, but the film remains deep in the woods so none of these convolutions can be explored.

Nevertheless, Into the Forest challenges gender stereotypes as Nell (Ellen Page) and Eva (Evan Rachel Wood) pioneer it hardcore.

Their survival skills were actually significantly enhanced precisely at the moment where I started to think the film was going to ignore such progressive potential.

If you've ever worked in the bush you know women can do anything men can, often with less complaining, and more team building enthusiasm.

Nell learns to hunt, forage, use ropes to hide food in trees so bears have a much harder time getting at it, and Eva learns to chop wood.

Eva's raped while doing so, a terrifying moment which speaks to the worst in men, i.e., as women begin to prove that they are capable of doing the work stereotypically ascribed to men, the worst men violently assault them to belittle and degrade their genuine badass accomplishments.

As Nell and Eva slowly realize they don't want to live their lives botanically bushwhacking, their dwelling gradually collapses, the last sign of the postmodern world, reclaimed once again by environmental inevitabilities.

Thought the film shouldn't have skipped Winter, left out some relevant discussions, and missed out on incredible cinematographic opportunities (see Sleeping Giant), but Into the Woods still aptly disintegrates gender stereotypes with regenerative pluck and expedient resiliency, transitioning from one epoch to the next, wherein every moment defines adventure.

Risk.

Synergistic sisterhood.

The nebulous sublime.