Safe is about Carol, a woman struggling with her hollow existence as a wealthy suburban housewife. Although the movie, which was made in 1995, is set in 1987, there doesn't appear to be any significance to this. The central concern of the film is Carol's mysterious, possibly psychosomatic illness, which serves as a wonderfully ambiguous metaphor for her emotional and intellectual malaise; nobody, including Carol, can quite put her finger on what's wrong. She just knows that something isn't right.
While "best film of the decade" is a fairly ludicrous pronouncement (does anyone really think Safe is better than, for example, Schindler's List?), the film is indeed a hauntingly beautiful portrait of spiritual bankruptcy in contemporary America. Despite this, I found that Safe was, perhaps intentionally, itself hollow at the core. It simply didn't have anything interesting to say about such a big, important topic. One could argue that it is not the job of the film to supply answers or even an easily-digestible plot, but the almost complete lack of narrative drive, dramatic tension, and penetrating insight ultimately left me cold, and quite honestly, bored stiff. By contrast, American Beauty (1999), a roughly contemporaneous film with a roughly similar subject, also has nothing to say, but at least does so in an entertaining, over-the-top style.
The latter half of the film depicts Carol's experiences at a New Age retreat called Wrenwood, where she attempts to find the solutions to her problems. Unlike many viewers, I did not interpret Wrenwood as a cure that is worse than the disease. In fact, almost everything said by the guru Peter and his underlings is, as far as I can tell, consistent with widely-accepted, scientifically-validated ideas, such as Mindfulness. The exception is some of the more questionable statements about and practices surrounding "chemicals" and the immune system, but nothing remotely equivalent to "psychological fascism," which is how one high profile review of Safe termed it.
At any rate, the movie does seem to imply that life at Wrenwood for Carol is as empty as life in the suburbs, and her condition does not appear to improve. Particularly painful to watch, due in no small part to Julianne Moore's flawless performance, is a birthday scene at Wrenwood that serves as a climax of sorts. In that scene, Carol struggles to articulate the beliefs of the cabal, with the words as hollow as those in discussions with her vapid friends back in suburbia. The final shot in Safe, reminiscent of the final shot in The Graduate (1967), is a masterpiece of ambiguity, perhaps implying there is hope for Carol if she can find it within herself, but then again, maybe not.
I can't help but notice the similarities of Carol's journey to that of the protagonist in Hermann Hesse's classic novel Siddhartha. The protagonist in the book feels empty, tries various means to fill the void, including materialism and organized religion, and eventually finds peace through the hard-won development of a very personal perspective on himself, his life, and his place in the universe. By analogy, the plot in Safe would be like the novel's plot if it followed the protagonist through his life until it simply stopped in the middle of another failed attempt at finding meaning. It's certainly a journey, and perhaps a realistic one. However, it would be deeply unsatisfying, and would make me question the value in even reading the book in the first place. That's how Safe felt to me. Perhaps there is great value is simply calling attention to the issues, depicting the toll it takes on a woman, and doing so with compassion, honesty, and artistic skill. On that level, Safe certainly succeeds.
While "best film of the decade" is a fairly ludicrous pronouncement (does anyone really think Safe is better than, for example, Schindler's List?), the film is indeed a hauntingly beautiful portrait of spiritual bankruptcy in contemporary America. Despite this, I found that Safe was, perhaps intentionally, itself hollow at the core. It simply didn't have anything interesting to say about such a big, important topic. One could argue that it is not the job of the film to supply answers or even an easily-digestible plot, but the almost complete lack of narrative drive, dramatic tension, and penetrating insight ultimately left me cold, and quite honestly, bored stiff. By contrast, American Beauty (1999), a roughly contemporaneous film with a roughly similar subject, also has nothing to say, but at least does so in an entertaining, over-the-top style.
The latter half of the film depicts Carol's experiences at a New Age retreat called Wrenwood, where she attempts to find the solutions to her problems. Unlike many viewers, I did not interpret Wrenwood as a cure that is worse than the disease. In fact, almost everything said by the guru Peter and his underlings is, as far as I can tell, consistent with widely-accepted, scientifically-validated ideas, such as Mindfulness. The exception is some of the more questionable statements about and practices surrounding "chemicals" and the immune system, but nothing remotely equivalent to "psychological fascism," which is how one high profile review of Safe termed it.
At any rate, the movie does seem to imply that life at Wrenwood for Carol is as empty as life in the suburbs, and her condition does not appear to improve. Particularly painful to watch, due in no small part to Julianne Moore's flawless performance, is a birthday scene at Wrenwood that serves as a climax of sorts. In that scene, Carol struggles to articulate the beliefs of the cabal, with the words as hollow as those in discussions with her vapid friends back in suburbia. The final shot in Safe, reminiscent of the final shot in The Graduate (1967), is a masterpiece of ambiguity, perhaps implying there is hope for Carol if she can find it within herself, but then again, maybe not.
I can't help but notice the similarities of Carol's journey to that of the protagonist in Hermann Hesse's classic novel Siddhartha. The protagonist in the book feels empty, tries various means to fill the void, including materialism and organized religion, and eventually finds peace through the hard-won development of a very personal perspective on himself, his life, and his place in the universe. By analogy, the plot in Safe would be like the novel's plot if it followed the protagonist through his life until it simply stopped in the middle of another failed attempt at finding meaning. It's certainly a journey, and perhaps a realistic one. However, it would be deeply unsatisfying, and would make me question the value in even reading the book in the first place. That's how Safe felt to me. Perhaps there is great value is simply calling attention to the issues, depicting the toll it takes on a woman, and doing so with compassion, honesty, and artistic skill. On that level, Safe certainly succeeds.