The Perfection (2019)
[Reader disclaimer: there will be spoilers discussed. This piece also contains material of a sensitive nature].
For a few weeks now, the dark, film-orientated corners of the Twittersphere have been buzzing about an upcoming film to be released on Netflix called The Perfection (2019), a film which I had no interest in besides the fact that Allison Williams was starring in it, an actress who I've been keen to watch ever since witnessing her incredible performance in Get Out (2017).
So, I went into this film totally blind, only knowing of the praise it had received online. I can with 100% clarity tell you now that this film is, apart from Us (2019), the best horror I have seen this year hands down.
We are introduced to our 'protagonist', Charlotte (played by Williams): a veteran cellist who had to take years out of her career at the cello academy known as Bachoff to care for her sick mother. The film opens with the death of said mother and Charlotte reaching out to her tutor, Anton (played by Steven Weber) to rejoin the world of classical music in any way she could, which leads her to become a supporting judge for a cello competition in Shanghai.
Here, dear readers, is where I started to fall in love with this film. Charlotte meets Lizzie (played by Logan Browning), Anton's current protege: she exudes a kind of sensual confidence and intimidating albeit erotic vibe, completely contrasting Charlotte's quieter, kinder demeanour.
The dichotomy of the two characters is the centerpiece of this film. The dynamic between Williams and Browning on screen is spellbinding, something akin to the two heroines in films such as Martyrs (2008) or Black Swan (2010): there's also something to be said about having a strong, queer, WOC character at the forefront of this film, especially considering that it's a horror. I instantly fell in love with my new favourite power couple and that's when things took an unusual but exciting turn.
Admittedly, the first five minutes or so of The Perfection are...messy. It's a little too reliant on exposition and the editing is quirky but sometimes distracting. However, as the narrative progresses with Lizzie and Charlotte teaming up to travel, we see Lizzie's decent into the psychotic: having taken ibuprofen for her hangover, Lizzie begins to throw up violently, experience diarrhea and finally her flesh is seen to be infested with bugs.
At this point, I'm nodding at the television. Ahh, this is a body horror and a psychological thriller, I get it now. No, I didn't get it. Because as soon as the bugs burst through Lizzie's hand, Charlotte hands her a cleaver and the poor bitch chops her hand clean off. Then, the film does something I didn't expect: it rewinds.
A motif used in other films such as Funny Games (1997), rewinds in films often demonstrate a need to show something prior or to change the narrative: in this case, it was the former, and it shows how Charlotte not only orchestrated Lizzie's madness by drugging her with her dead mother's pills that can cause hallucinations, but through suggestion alone, managed to convince Lizzie to cut off her own hand due to bugs that weren't actually there.
This pivotal scene in the second act (titled "Detour") sets the tone of this film perfectly. It's weird, it's gnarly where it needs to be, and it's clever. And what sent me through a loop is that, whilst in the second act I had deduced that this film was a body horror/thriller, the third act (titled "Home") then conveyed shots and musical scores generic to slasher films.
Now you're probably thinking, 'well damn, so Charlotte is the antagonist, then'. Wrong again. It's slowly revealed that Anton the music teacher is actually a rapist and a man who is willing to sexually abuse children in order for them to achieve greatness, to achieve "the Perfection". Lizzie, his protege, had been brainwashed to believe that her trauma was invalid, that her suffering made her the brilliant cellist she was: it's not until she cuts off her hand, a deluded but ingenious ploy by Charlotte to bring her back into reality, that the young woman accepts that what Anton did was wrong and not justifiable at all.
This is where the true subgenre of the film surfaces: this isn't just a body horror, a psychological thriller, a slasher...this is a rape-revenge film. And it's a fucking good one.
What I think is so important about this is how it handles that subject matter. Rape in horror films is a difficult one to analyse and judge, because none of us condone it, but we're still willing to say it's necessary in a horror film to showcase a character getting "stronger": in this case, Lizzie and Charlotte's abused past isn't what defines them, in fact, they're only accepting of that trauma once they're out of the Bachoff headspace of achieving perfection, finally able to see Anton for what he is.
One of the best scenes in this film is in the fourth act (titled "Duet") in which Anton not only tries to justify his actions by saying that he made them better people but pleads that he is sick and only needs to get help for the situation to be rectified. In reality, this happens far too often to many women, wherein their abuser or rapist either denies what they've done or twist it to have some kind of meaning: in reality, there is no meaning or just cause for rape, and those responsible should be held accountable, no matter what.
In the end, The Perfection has become a solid favourite from me. I ended up watching it twice in one night because my housemate came home and I begged him to sit and watch it with me. I cannot say enough good things about this film, about how it shows the pressure of an industry hellbent on disciplining its students in inhumane ways, about how rape doesn't empower a woman to be better but only demonstrates how evil men and their backwards logic can be, and about how women in horror films can be queer, people of colour, mentally ill but still survive until the end (and deserve to).
Overall rating: 9/10
- K
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