Release date: 23rd June 1995
Run time: 119 minutes
Certificate: 15
Todd Haynes' second feature film gets under your skin as soon as it begins and refuses to leave. The world is a suffocating place in so many ways and Safe not only knows this but seemingly revels in it, amplifying the horror and dread it makes you feel within as it descends further and further into a nightmare.
Few films have tackled and analysed mental and physical health as bravely as this. Early on in the film Julianne Moore's central character, Carol White, goes to see her doctor after experiencing ailments such as coughing fits, random nosebleeds and fatigue. The doctor, rather uselessly, says there is no medical or physical reason for these issues, and refers her onto a psychiatrist. In turn and just as uselessly, the psychiatrist sees very little wrong with her and it is here where the film unashamedly highlights the stigmas and taboos around mental health. Carol is effectively pushed to the side of society, where she really has been all along, by everyone around her (including her husband) and is left to take her own path to help and 'getting better'. The less said about the plot, the better. Go into this film as blind as possible and it will reward you even more.
At times Safe plays out in the style of David Lynch; a sickeningly 'perfect' American suburban life - full of nice houses, well-kept lawns and polite, sterile conversation - merely covering up the true issues of society mirrors Blue Velvet in obvious ways. A fixed camera shot of a car rolling through a dark American street, along with the brooding score of Ed Tomney and Brendan Dolen, echoes the atmospheric opening of Mulholland Drive (which in fact was released 6 years after Safe). Both directors portray disturbing and realistic depictions of society like few others can. Haynes' direction is deliberately paced. Wide shots are used to show Carol in her artificial surroundings, the camera sometimes creeping in to her face, suffocating and stifling her like the world she lives in.
Julianne Moore's performance is heart-breaking, portraying a woman crushed by society and with no way out, who, even if she realises this, struggles to break out of it and never really holds any power or agency. When you see Moore act in other films, you notice her voice is not like Carol White's; it isn't forcedly up-beat or fake, it is just Moore embodying a character so well it is painful to observe.
The film would have been relevant to audiences and society in 1995, but it is must be even more so now in 2020, whether it is through the COVID-19 pandemic or the artificiality of society. Early on in the film, Carol goes to her hairdresser and gets a perm. We see the close-up of her hair as it is excruciatingly rolled up and then drenched in sticky product, the sound design amplifying the oozing liquid running out of the bottle and into her head. This is a shot that sums up Safe so well, but you must continue further to see Haynes time and time again damn and indict society and humans in a way that will stay with you long after the credits roll. Paranoia is here to stay.
5/5
Pollution, paranoia, cults, human nature, health. Safe injects all of this and more into a world that does not recognise or simply refuses to acknowledge these issues.