I really enjoyed the two early films
written by and starring Brit Marling, Another
Earth and The Sound of My Voice,
both released in 2011. She co-scripted
and co-directed these with her friend Zal Batmanglij. They contributing a fresh and unsettling
cinematic voice and Brit has a powerful – and yet understated – presence on
screen. They started to write and
direct because when they arrived in Hollywood, both with economics degrees from
the East coast, neither of them with
formal training, agents or contacts.
So along with another University friend Mike Cahill they wrote and made
their own movies.
It has taken me some time to track down
Brit and Zal’s 2013 film, The East. In The
Sound of My Voice Brit played the leader of a cult. In this film Peter Scarsgard is the leader
of another kind of cult - or at least a group of American eco-terrorists,
determined to make those guilty of polluting the earth or exploiting the big
pharma market pay for their crimes. Marling
and Zol Batmanglij are both concerned with these isses, and say that “we went
travelling in search of direct action groups and anarchists and freeking
culture, feeling anger and frustration and a desire to find groups that were organised
and intelligent and thinking of ways to use all the tools of now to be
effective, and we are still looking for that group. So we made a film about it.”
The East is is not an anarchist
promo - it more nuanced than that. However,
I think that its maker’s commitment to the cause has rather blunted their
creativity.
Marling plays ‘Sarah’, ex FBI, working as
an undercover agent for a private industrial espionage/counter-espionage
company. She infiltrates a group called
The East, led by Benji (Peter Scarsgard).
Izzy and Doc (Ellen Page and Tony
Kebbell) are among the conspirators, both of them for very personal
reasons. They hide in a deserted,
partly burnt out mansion, and live off ‘free food’, the ‘past best by’ products
thrown away by the supermarkets. The
members of The East are committed,
playful, sensitive, democratic, and exhibit a strict alternative morality that
begins to attract Sarah. However, her
loyalties are not only divided between her ‘conservative’ work and this
‘radical’ group, but also stretched by the means employed by the group to
achieve its ends. This movie explores
the morally grey areas of the ‘ends and
means’ debate, an area of ethics that engages me deeply, but somehow the ‘grey’
seems to have leached into the films feel.
It is not exactly a thriller, but I wanted to see the struggle made more
explicit, even if it only takes place inside Sarah. Her struggle is too hidden. I also wanted a little humour which would
have lifted the tone from time to time, even if it was black humour. Although
I enjoyed Another Earth and The Sound of my Voice much more I still
recommend this movie, not least because Marling and co are determinedly carving
a fresh track on the Hollywood piste, and these films somehow form a trilogy in my
mind. Ridley Scott was a co-producer this time and
I hope he will continue to work with Marling and Batmanglij, mentoring and encouraging them.
The cast also includes Patricia Clarkson (Good Night and Good Luck) and the
under-used Julia Ormond (Vivian Leigh in My
Week with Marilyn). Zal’s brother Rostam is the producer, keyboard
player and composer for the band Vampire
Weekend, credited with music for Boyhood
and The Kids Are Alright. Rostam doesn’t seem to get a credit for The East, but in a ‘extra’ the two brothers
discuss their joint work before and during script development, and Rostam
composed an atmospheric piano piece, Doc’s Song, used in the movie (with the right had playing
4/4 time and the left 6/4 time, he says.)
If you go to youtube.com/watch?v=BgfuzhWM5hA
you can listen to Brit addressing the graduates of her old University with some
wit and wisdom.
