Babadook provides simplistic suspense

The Babadook, an Australian horror film directed by Jennifer Kent, was released in the United States this past November. The film is centered around the relationship between a widow, Amelia, and her young son Samuel.

Samuel appears to be a troubled child; he has temper tantrums in the classroom and does not have any school friends. Somewhat of a recluse, he is occupied with making weaponry with which he will combat the monster he vehemently tells his mother about, although she refuses to believe him.

Amelia begins to worry that her son might be mentally unstable and struggles to calm him during fits. She quickly becomes, however, growing more angry each time he acts out.

One evening, Amelia reads Samuel a new picture book he has found on his bookshelf entitled The Babadook. The book chronicles some of the monster stories Samuel has told his mother and she immediately stops reading to him once she realizes.

In the book, the death of their dog and the death of Samuel are outlined. Amelia is their murderer. Frightened and in a state of disbelief, Amelia burns the book, only to find it has been returned to the bookshelf by the following day.

Slowly the single mother begins to lose her own mental stability, struggling to maintain a strong grasp on reality. She begins to hallucinate, and it becomes unclear to the viewer whether Amelia is in fact going insane or whether a very real Babadook monster is taking control over her. The longer Amelia denies that she is beginning to spiral out of control, the stronger the perhaps imaginary Babadook grows.

It is finally revealed that Samuel’s father died in a car accident on his way to the hospital where Amelia would give birth. This loss affects Amelia, who refuses to celebrate Samuel’s birthday as a result.

The blame she places upon her son is manifested as the monster that Samuel is well aware of.

Figuratively, it represents her latent hatred of her son and her inability to be his mother. Amelia is forced to come face-to-face with her hatred by confronting the Babadook and protecting her son.

The final scene of the film shows Samuel and his mother celebrating his birthday. They celebrate outside and Amelia appears to have

returned back to normal. For a moment she leaves the garden to go into the basement of their home. Here she feeds the Babadook. Her resentment of the loss of her husband’s life for that of her son has not completely vanished, but Amelia is learning to cope.

The Babadook is Kent’s first feature film. Trained as an actress, Kent grew tired of being tied to a story she herself did not write nor necessarily relate to. The idea of telling her own story was more appealing. The Babadook was a film the former actress felt she could produce quickly and on a reasonable budget. To learn more about filmmaking, Kent contacted Lars von Trier, who has directed many films including Melancholi, Dogville and Breaking the Waves. When discussing her initial experiences in filmmaking with NYMag, Kent explained her reasons for wanting to shadow the famous director.

”I just wanted to watch a great director at work, to see how he does it. The biggest thing I learned from him was courage. He’s stubborn, and he does what he wants. I needed to see those things up close. And also to see that he was a human being, not some god. It was the best film school I could ever have,” Kent told NYMag.

The film does not offer a particularly unusual or fantastical story. Its ending is not surprising and neither is the path it takes to get there. That being said, the decision to play with the naturally intimate relationship between a mother and son creates an immediate and natural unease. The audience is forced to confront an intrinsic belief that’s turned completely on its head.

Stylistically the film is also not out of the ordinary. It’s easy to watch with shots that are rather simple. Clean framing and cuts allow for few chaotic scenes. For this reason its critical acclaim is merited. It’s unusual for a suspense film to be so honest and direct with the viewer. The film allows the audience to consider for themselves what may be occurring thematically as the camera itself knows just as much as they. The special effects used in the film are also sparing, again making the film more realistic than others in the suspense drama.

An interesting aspect of the cinematography of the Babadook is its emulation of some of the techniques used in children’s books. This is fitting as one of the central plot points is the introduction of the monster through a bedtime story. The camera draws the eye to the pale blues and pinks in the surroundings. When Samuel and his mother sit outside at the end of the film, it feels very much like a typical birthday party. The clothes the characters wear also have a pasty tone. Compared to bold reds and blues, these pastel colors appear faint and almost surreal.

Like in a children’s book, the imagination is left to decide whether the Babadook is actually real or if it’s a figment of the Samuel and Amelia’s imaginations. When asked by Empire Magazine about the fairytale aspect of her film, Kent cited notable director Guillermo del Toro’s philosophy.

“I heard a talk from Guillermo del Toro around the time he made Pan’s Labyrinth, and he was talking about horror and fairytales,” Kent said. “He was saying that there are two kinds of fairytales: There are ones that are cautionary tales designed to frighten children into being good. Then there’s the other kind, the ones he likes, that really say to people, ‘The world is chaos. Welcome to it. Accept it!’ For me, the second type is also the kind I love, that embraces chaos and isn’t afraid to look at taboos. In Babadook, it’s a big taboo to question motherhood. When I looked for films or literature that did so, I was shocked at how little there was, so it made sense to put it in a horror context rather than a straight drama context.”

The Babadook highlights the fact that the mind has the ability to create its very own personal monsters. Is it ridiculous to call such imaginary beings real? Perhaps the line is not so easy to draw. Fans of the Shining or The Others may enjoy watching The Babadook.