With the current climate talks in Copenhagen it seems an appropriate time to return to Todd Haynes' harrowing debut Safe which paints a portrait of chemical induced hell in a palette of pastels. Julianne Moore is the protagonist of the film, a 1980s housewife whose days are filled with fruit diets and teal couches and whose nights are sleepless, saturated in television. Moore is stunning as the woman who suffers from an immune disorder that is caused by the pollution and chemicals that inhabit her rich and pampered suburban life. Her voice, in particular, captures the voice of a woman who spends most of her time in silence and is a compliment to her character's vacuous existence.
Haynes lingers on Moore's mundane day-to-day activities like trimming the flower boarder, attending her step class, and getting a perm with close-ups which focuses on a particular chemical cleaner or beauty product that the audience might otherwise ignore. The effect this camera work has is to create an ominous world where even the shampoo in the frame steadily becomes a menacing presence as Moore's character becomes increasingly pale and gaunt. We recognize this world's danger zone of interiors where everything is man made and no character is allowed a natural existence, both literally and figuratively. Though Moore passively accepts her responsibilities as a rich housewife, her beige and salmon decorating scheme becomes a metaphor for her character's immune deficiency. Nothing is vibrant in this world; everything is a whiter shade of pale.
This brilliant and chilling film about a character's isolating illness is as resonant today as it was when it was made in 1995. To watch it in the midst of environmental debates causes the viewer to hope that we will do more than, as the New York Times wrote, "'take note' of the pact shaped by five major nations." Let's avoid what Britney Spears sings in "Toxic": a "taste of a poison paradise."
Image courtesy of stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com
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