The Magical Realism Genre in Movies
English —
Unit 14
...
| 0s | What is Magical Realism? |
| 2s | It sounds like an oxymoron doesn't it? |
| 4s | Two natures that seem to oppose each other...but when put together, form a very peculiar genre. |
| 10s | Realism was an artistic movement in the 19th century where the world began to be portrayed |
| 15s | realistically instead of a in romanticized or idealized manner, the same way that photographs |
| 20s | began to show things as they were and not as people wished they were. |
| 24s | As a response to realism, magical realism was introduced in the early 20th century. |
| 28s | German art critic Franz Roh was the one who coined the term. |
| 31s | The literary genre grew in popularity in the 1950s, especially in Latin America. |
| 37s | Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Years of Solitude is one of the genre's most known and celebrated |
| 41s | works. |
| 42s | Although magical realism is a vast genre, containing different authors, languages and |
| 47s | styles, there's an important element that recurs: |
| 49s | The story is set in the real world and happens to have magical elements. |
| 54s | Unlike The Lord of the Rings where the story takes place fully inside of a fantasy world |
| 58s | or in Harry Potter where the two natures are separated and initially provide a certain |
| 62s | escapism to the main character. |
| 64s | The stories born of this genre are rooted in a world we know with rules we live by, |
| 70s | intermingled with fantasy elements. |
| 72s | The supernatural occurrences are treated like any random everyday matter and avoid explanation... |
| 77s | they are normalized. |
| 78s | and where the fantastic mirrors the realistic. |
| 82s | The end result gives us narratives that feel like modern or adult fairy tales. |
| 86s | In today's video, we will be looking at three films that fall under the category of magical |
| 90s | realism: Border, The Killing of a Sacred Deer and Tigers Are Not Afraid. |
| 96s | We will be delving into what makes them modern fairy tales and what the blending of real |
| 100s | and magical can teach us. |
| 102s | As with any of our videos, spoilers will follow. |
| 113s | What's interesting thing with these three examples is the way they normalize fantasy |
| 117s | by setting the story in modern times unlike one of the genres most popular movies Pan's |
| 122s | Labyrinth. |
| 123s | Sometimes when we see a period piece, we tend to perceive it as something removed from a |
| 127s | reality we understand. |
| 129s | Grounding these movies in an era we know brings the story closer to what we can relate to. |
| 133s | We start with characters that inhabit our world up until the moment they are faced with |
| 137s | an unnatural conflict. |
| 139s | Estrella is a normal Mexican girl that attends school at the start of the film until there's |
| 144s | a shooting. |
| 145s | [Gun shots] [Kids screaming] |
| 151s | She returns home only to realize that her mother is missing. |
| 154s | She eventually joins a group of orphans that are trying to survive in a gang-ridden and |
| 158s | violent world as she is followed by a ghost. |
| 162s | [Child screaming] |
| 165s | Tina is a Swedish customs agent who lives in a house near the woods along with her boyfriend. |
| 170s | She's extremely good at perceiving a person's guilt and is great at stopping people who |
| 174s | are trying to sneak contraband across the border. |
| 184s | One day she meets someone whose intentions she can't read. |
| 196s | Steven is a well-regarded surgeon with an enviable family and home, but he has an increasingly |
| 201s | odd relationship with Martin, the son of his former patient. |
| 204s | -I'd like you to come by my house one day, to meet my wife and children...I think you |
| 211s | will get along great. |
| 212s | He's been trying to help him out of a sense of pity but mostly guilt, because he accidently |
| 216s | caused his fathers death. |
| 218s | When Steven decides to finally cut ties with Martin, the teenager starts to enact his supernatural |
| 223s | vengeance. |
| 224s | -The critical moment we both knew would come someday... |
| 227s | -Here it is that time is now... |
| 230s | -You know what I mean. |
| 232s | The collision of worlds doesn't transport the story to a fantasy land, the characters |
| 236s | still have to face reality as the fairy tale elements come to add an interesting facet. |
| 240s | Even though the origin of the fantastical isn't explained, knowing its basis in mythology |
| 245s | can help deepen our understanding on why it's included in the film and what it signifies. |
| 250s | In The Killing of a Sacred Deer, the title refers to a story in Greek mythology. |
| 254s | There are differing versions so the one we will mention comes from Euripides' Iphigenia |
| 259s | at Aulis. |
| 260s | Iphigenia was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. |
| 263s | Agamemnon accidentally killed a sacred deer that belonged to Artemis, and so, blood was |
| 268s | required in return. |
| 270s | Iphigenia is meant to be the price of Agamemnon's mistake. |
| 273s | The movie is a representation of this tale. |
| 276s | Martin's father died on the operating table due to Steven's irresponsibility. |
| 280s | In order to establish a semblance of justice, Martin gives Steven an impossible choice along |
| 286s | with a set of fairy tale-like rules. |
| 288s | He must kill a member of his own family to atone for Martin's father's death. |
| 292s | A life for a life. |
| 294s | If he doesn't, everyone in Steven's family will fall ill and eventually die. |
| 298s | -One paralysis of the limbs, two refusal of food to the point of starvation, three bleeding |
| 303s | from the eyes...four death. |
| 304s | One, two, three, four. |
| 306s | He can't kill Martin either, because it'll be like killing his whole family. |
| 310s | Director Yorgos Lanthimos decides to heighten the magical atmosphere by using a very stable |
| 315s | camera that just floats in an out of rooms following the characters. |
| 319s | The unnatural high and low angles give us the feeling that the characters are being |
| 323s | observed. |
| 324s | They look like small people in large rooms, distorted by the omnipresent stare of the |
| 328s | wide-angle lenses. |
| 330s | As Colin Farrell stated, it gives us the sense that the gods of the past on Mount Olympus |
| 335s | were looking down at the foibles of humans. |
| 338s | Fairy tales are an ever-present theme in Tigers Are Not Afraid. |
| 341s | As the movie begins, Estrella's teacher asks her students what elements can be found in |
| 346s | fairy tales. |
| 347s | Once the shooting happens, the teacher gives Estrella chalk and tells her that she has |
| 351s | three wishes as a way to calm her. |
| 354s | Estrella uses her first wish to bring back her mother. |
| 356s | It doesn't go the way she expects. |
| 359s | Her mother's dead body comes and follows Estrella throughout the film. |
| 362s | Initially, she's afraid, but by the end, she comes to understand that her mother and the |
| 367s | other dead people are just trying to tell her something. |
| 376s | The magical elements are used here as a guide. |
| 379s | Everything that occurs is seen through the eyes of the orphans, that's why the camera |
| 383s | is usually at their level. |
| 384s | Issa Lopez stated that she wanted us to be the sixth child; lurking through the shadows, |
| 389s | seeing the world as the other kids do. |
| 391s | The focus on the kids is reminiscent of fairy tales involving children amidst a horrible |
| 396s | situation. |
| 397s | In an interview with author Cornelia Funke, Guillermo Del Toro expressed that fairy tales |
| 401s | come out of a time of great need. |
| 403s | Hansel and Gretel were taken into the woods to die because there was no food. |
| 407s | In Tigers Are Not Afraid, Estrella, Shine and the other children are in a similar situation |
| 412s | but instead of the woods it's the unforgiving nameless city they are left in. |
| 417s | In Border, the magical element we are introduced to is that of trolls. |
| 422s | Tina has grown as a human but unbeknownst to her, she's one of them. |
| 426s | She's not gigantic or stupid, as presented in various Scandinavian folk tales, she has |
| 431s | passed for a human all her life. |
| 433s | She just looks a bit rougher and Neanderthal-like. |
| 436s | Same goes for Vore, the person she couldn't read. |
| 439s | We also get to see an interpretation of the changeling myth through Vore's actions in |
| 443s | the film. |
| 453s | In most folk tales, trolls are known to steal human un-baptized babies. |
| 457s | Vore steals babies and replaces them with hiisits. |
| 460s | The hiisits are unfertilized troll embryos that can be molded to look like children, |
| 465s | so that the parents don't notice when the infants have been swapped... up until the |
| 468s | moment when they die. |
| 470s | The director Ali Abbasi knew the source material was very fantastical so, he put a lot of effort |
| 475s | in aesthetically grounding the story. |
| 477s | "I deliberately did not want to stylize it, (...) I said, if we want to pull off this |
| 481s | banality, it can't come across as too deliberate. |
| 484s | By stylizing shots, you're signaling to the audience that something special is going on." |
| 489s | He was very inspired by the magical realism of Latin American writers: |
| 492s | "The most important literary device they use is to combine fantasy and realism. |
| 498s | To capture life, and inner life, you need different layers. |
| 502s | This is why the dreams, hallucinations of the characters are as real as their everyday |
| 505s | life and part of their reality." |
| 510s | -If my husband made a mistake-if out of negligence or...I don't know what. |
| 518s | He caused this tragic thing to happen, I don't understand why I should have to pay the price... |
| 523s | why my children should have to pay the price. |
| 526s | The mixing of the real and magical compels us to decipher the message beyond the trolls, |
| 530s | the godlike powers and the dead. |
| 532s | As with many fairy tales, we have to dig deeper to find the meaning. |
| 536s | In Border, the magical elements serve as a way for the main character to reassess her |
| 540s | identity. |
| 541s | "It's mostly a love story and about Tina choosing to be who she wants to be, and the experience |
| 546s | of being a minority. |
| 547s | Anyone can relate to that feeling, where your existence is not given, and you have to abide |
| 552s | to rules set by others." |
| 553s | The humanity and compassion she's gained from her upbringing clashes with her inborn troll |
| 558s | nature. |
| 559s | It's nature vs nurture. |
| 561s | She considers Vore's actions of stealing babies to be horrifying, but she herself was taken |
| 565s | away from her own kind and raised on a lie... she's conflicted with what it is to be human |
| 570s | or what is it to be a monster...uncertain of where her identity lands. |
| 583s | In The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Steven is a successful heart surgeon, he's held the |
| 588s | life of his patients in his hands while operating on them. |
| 591s | He's used to being in control. |
| 593s | Martin on the other hand, is not as fortunate as Steven or his family. |
| 596s | He's the one with the least bit of power in this situation. |
| 599s | By forcing Steven to choose someone from his own family to be killed, Martin becomes the |
| 604s | one with control. |
| 605s | Often in the magical realism genre, the stories that are written are about criticizing the |
| 609s | powerful and focusing on the plight of those on the fringes of society. |
| 613s | Martin's character fits that narrative. |
| 615s | The awkward teen goes from being the one with the least bit of control, to the one that |
| 619s | holds all the power. |
| 621s | There is nothing that Steven's family can do to reverse the deterioration or to stop |
| 625s | Martin. |
| 626s | -I don't know if what is happening is fair, but its the only thing I can think of that's |
| 633s | close to justice. |
| 635s | It shows that control is an illusion when faced with someone or something outside of |
| 639s | our zone of influence. |
| 641s | Tigers Are Not Afraid is a film about childhood and what happens when it isn't protected. |
| 645s | Estrella, Shine, Tucsi, Pop and Morro have no one to count on other than themselves. |
| 651s | The only adults near them are those who are looking to murder them. |
| 654s | The most impactful lesson from the story is that its real. |
| 658s | Not the ghosts nor the chalk or the wishes...but the situation the orphans find themselves |
| 663s | in. |
| 664s | We are presented with the accurate harsh reality of how the drug trade is felt by children |
| 668s | who are orphaned and forced to survive by joining a gang or die trying to escape. |
| 674s | It's the real-world horror of what happens when children are separated from their parents |
| 678s | and left to fend for themselves. |
| 688s | Magical Realism honestly feels very idiosyncratic to the Latin America perspective. |
| 692s | Where the supernatural and natural share the same roof. |
| 695s | It is unfortunate that there are misconceptions in regard to fantasy. |
| 699s | It is sometimes seen as something to be taken lightly, as mere escapism to avoid reality. |
| 705s | There is a romanticized perception of fantasy where it is believed that it's only about |
| 709s | happy endings or that it's a genre geared towards children. |
| 713s | A place where magic saves the day. |
| 716s | The three films we've looked at show us that magic is not a get out of jail free card, |
| 721s | it complicates things and it can be used to reveal the true character of the protagonists. |
| 727s | Magical realism is a genre that creates a striking contrast that helps us reframe and |
| 732s | make sense of reality. |
| 733s | It offers an alternative look at a societal or philosophical issue. |
| 739s | So that we can understand a hidden truth. |
| 746s | Thank you for taking the time to watch our video. |
| 748s | We invite you to like share and subscribe if you haven't done so yet. |
| 752s | Today's musical composition was made by Eduardo Gonzalez. |
| 754s | If you liked his work, you can find his information in the description bellow. |
| 758s | Ans also, if you want to contribute to our channel so we can keep making videos like |
| 762s | this one, you can take a look at our Patreon page. |
| 765s | Until next time! |