Poor Things (2023): A Troubled Fairytale
Written by Hasyir (Kru’23)
Poor Things is a 2023 film by Yorgos Lanthimos, which won many awards including that of the Oscars, et cetera. But — oh, you already knew that? Surely, you haven’t. As I am the most informed, now you may sit as I tell you new information you never knew. Poor Things tells a story about a woman named Bella Baxter. Reborn, reanimated more like, from her dead body to the same one but with a new mind of her own (her baby’s), which is still undeveloped. She was then raised by a mad Frankenstein-like surgeon named Godwin Baxter, whom she often called “God”, a double entendre because he, ironically, can be considered her God for resurrecting her back to life — which is another one you didn’t know, because I have not told you until this very moment. A familial relationship grows between the two of them, like father and daughter, he reads her fairytales before she goes to sleep, takes great care of her, and dines with her. Bella Baxter is a new identity of a body that belonged to a woman who committed suicide. A life unsatisfied and ended abruptly, now reborn as herself, but not quite.
A fairytale, too, this film. A fairytale that is more real than this world we breathe in. A story about a woman, men, desires, and naivete, roughly packaged in a steampunk-esque present with the blood of the content inside seeping through. Bella Baxter, above all, is a woman who had her way of life, from (re-)birth to the present, as fresh-minded as possible. To learn how the world works for the first time again as a 28-year-old woman. Shame is the one thing she did not have. It is as if a baby is learning for the very first time, but instead of starting from the bottom up, she starts from up to the bottom. The degrading aspects of society to sincere love and comfort. And for the actions that she did as she grew, we question our own morality and judgement as the audience. It challenges both who have or have not been exposed to a condition such as the case of Bella Baxter. Yet it also imposes a question on us: who are we to judge? The idea of resurrecting a dead body may be fictional but a damaged brain and mind is as real as it gets, such as the idea of shame. Bella did not have the slightest idea of what shame is or what it’s for. Her naivete, for what ultimately became her weakness, the easiest advantage to have over a person, yet it disintegrates for each act and hour as the movie progresses, until she eventually stood on her own two feet, became a woman of her own, and realised what truly made her, her.
We, as the observers, may as well play a role in the film. Like the men, we judge Bella’s actions and question them to challenge our own idea of morality. When one hits their lowest, they must do everything to survive and the act of survival is the barebones of all human instinct, and their ideologies start to fall apart to truly become what they truly are: animals. Here is an interesting outlook with peculiar sets of events, setting the questions to impose to the extreme.
Now, now, just stay still like I’ve told you to, and let me tell you my thoughts about this film. The glamorously unique film enthralled me from the middle to end — see, not beginning to end, for my tiny brain had only comprehended what the movie was about not until the midst of it all — for its discreet messages to the targeted and obvious to the reflected. The explicit messages were at its peak during the midpoint of the film, and that’s where it really spoke to me clearly. It seeks your attention with the unique façade and makes you stay for its genius allegories and uses of symbolism.
Director Yorgos has crafted something that reminds me of the brave films and stories that were told in the earlier eras of cinema — we were ruthless, speak as they come, elaborate later — for that’s truly what he, as a director, really is all about: the freak with an outlandish mind that seems to project mind-boggling ideas and allegories than most directors currently working. His clockwork-minded way of constructing a film amazes me — truly, it does. The balance this film has of his weird steampunk world and the ever so important thematic topics each and every act brought up and displayed. All jokes and pretends aside, this film is a masterwork that speaks with so much volume. Like the film Barbie — forgive me for my tasteless comparison — but relevant for all eras and ages of society before and after this current one for so many years to come.
