As a film-maker, Canadian actress Sarah Polley is
predominantly attracted towards works that explore the slippery slopes of
memory and fantasy. Polley’s deeply immersive debut Away from Her (2006), her audacious second film Take this Waltz (2011), and stupendous auto-biographical documentary
Stories We Tell (2012) recurrently touched upon the themes of long-term relationship
and how it could change a person’s perception of life, including love and sex.
The narratives are perfectly perched to scrutinize the characters’ reality and imagination, unreliability of memory without ever losing its ambiguity. At its best, the
three meditative pieces are soulful study of female restlessness or the deep
female desire of re-inventing self-identity in a society that demands them to
rigorously confirm to the preconceived gender roles. One of Polley’s dream
projects has always been to adapt the celebrated Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood’s
1996 historical fiction Alias Grace.
The novel is about Grace Marks, a 19th-century
Irish-Canadian servant who at 16 years of age allegedly helped to murder the
housemaid and owner of the farm where she worked. Thirty eight year old Sarah
Polley read the novel at the time of its release (when she was 17) and
naturally as a famous young actor with no mother she instantly related to the
plight of the celebrated murderess. The novel chiefly examines the rift between
the image Grace projected of herself and the image others had about her. Sarah
Polley, who had played her first serious adult role in the same year in Atom
Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter, was also gnawed by the state of flux in
self-identity. Polley’s later-day heroines (including her own mother in Stories We Tell) were born
from this relentless search for the self. She had sought for Alias Grace' movie-rights back when she was eighteen. After two decades, Polley’s dream
project was realized in the form of TV mini-series (with the help of Netflix) with a top-notch ensemble
cast (which includes the great Canadian director David Cronenberg). However,
Sarah Polley restricted herself to writing and producing duties and passed on
the directorial torch to fellow Canadian director Mary Harron (I Shot Andy Warhol, American
Psycho).
Director Harron perfectly marriages Atwood’s piercing
yet equivocal prose with visceral images that’s entirely devoid of romanticized
nostalgia of the Victorian Era. Furthermore, Alias Grace is the second Margaret
Atwood adaptation of the year, following the Emmy Award-winning The Handmaid’s Tale, a
dystopian sci-fi series whose arrival is seen timely for the current American
political climate. Similarly, Alias Grace, although one of least adaptable
novels of Atwood, is also a relevant tale which reflects upon the buried
feminine rage. The mini-series unfolds between mid and late 19th
century, the time when the fairer sex are expected to affirm
to the standards of utmost femininity. Seen from a female perspective and that
too from an immigrant female perspective, the era despite being bathed in warm
hues looks horrifying and the well-spring of unspeakable abuses. Alias Grace opens
with the close-up shot of protagonist Grace Marks (Sarah Gadon), in her early 30s, cloaked
in grey-blue top, head covered by a white-bonnet and her beautiful grey-blue
eyes’ incisive gaze switches from one expression to another, according to the
rhythm of her inner narration and thoughts. Grace’s voice-over narrates, “I
think of all the things that have been written about me…that I am of a sullen
disposition with a quarrelsome temper, that I have the appearance of a person
rather above my humble station……..that I am cunning and devious, that I am soft
in the head and little better than an idiot.” Truer to her name, she is as graceful in conducting herself which
wholly contradicts the accrued label of ‘celebrated murderess’.
In 1843, 16 year
old Grace Marks, who emigrated from Ireland to Canada, is convicted of murdering
her employer, Thomas Kinnear (Paul Gross), and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery
(Anna Paquin). Grace is handed-down a life sentence and spent most of her
prison life at Ontario’s Kingston Penitentiary, apart from the brief excruciating
stay at a mental asylum. In 1858, Dr. Simon Jordan (Edward Holcroft), a
practitioner in mental health issues is brought to examine Grace Marks by an
empathetic reverend (David Cronenberg) who hopes to exonerate Grace based on
the doctor’s report. Although, she has confessed at the trial, Grace says she
only vaguely remembers the details of the murders and that most of her
confession is engineered by the lawyer. Grace works at the Governor’s house,
next to prison, in the day and is exhibited as an oddity to elevate the
curiosity of upper-class women. Later, Dr. Jordan begins conducts his session
with Grace at the governor’s house. She sits in a straitlaced posture, her hand weaving a quilt as her mouth weaves a personal tale of oppression and abuse.
There’s a sense of power and potency in the way Grace
recollects her story, starting from the calamitous journey from Ireland to
Canada. It’s as if the prolonged years of loneliness and emotional detachment at the prison
had given her all the time to weave the perfectly balanced story. The young woman’s life
history is riddled with traumatic experiences and tragedies. Every man in her life –
from alcoholic father to the rich employer to the servants and asylum workers
and police – has either desired or directly molested Grace. She remarks that one
of the duties of being a maid is to avoid the advances of gentlemen. One of the significant event which has haunted Grace for years is the terrible death of her
beloved, energetic friend Mary Whitney (Rebecca Liddiard). Through the
meticulously detailed recollection of the past, she earnestly elicits the
knight-in-the-shining-armor tendencies of Dr. Jordan. On one hand, Dr. Jordan
(and we the viewers) wonders whether she is sincere or highly manipulative,
while on the other hand he is increasingly besotted by her matter-of-fact
narration and projection of sexual purity. Gradually, the series expands beyond
the questions of ‘who is the guilty party’ or ‘what is the truth’ and rather
explores how Grace intends to shape herself to live in the Victorian world
where men process women through the image she showcases or suggests.
Alias Grace moves with subtle, restrained frequency which
may frustrate viewers seeking a thrilling true-crime story. The mini-series is
basically a hushed exploration of the themes of sexual abuse, objectification of
women, white male privilege, etc; a lot of which seems as sadly relevant as it
was in the 19th cenutry. The tale also jibes at the way we are programmed to
judge women and doubt their inner feelings as deceitful (Polley’s Stories We Tell is
also about the way we judge a person through others' collective memory). From the
stylistic and writing viewpoint, Mary Harron-Sarah Polley team takes its time
to unfold the narrative, emphasizing on each details. Harron’s framing devices
shows fine restraint in depicting the brutal violence. I particularly liked the
disorienting close-up shots of the doctor and Grace in the long-session, depicting how they occupy a different world. Gradually, as the session livens
up, we see more of the shot-reverse-shot and mid or long-shots of them both in
a single frame. Yet, Harron constantly hints at the impregnable barrier between
them, probably due to the image they both strictly adapt which is partly
thwarted when the doctor dreams of intimately cajoling Grace.
Ultimately, the series wholly rests on the shoulders of brilliant
actress Sarah Gadon. Her facial expressions often carry a blankness which
pushes us to project our perceptions on Grace Marks. The performance is so attuned at times that it’s hard to say if her words and gestures suggest
good-intentions or pure malice. That uncertainty is what’s so fascinating and
thrilling about her acting. The mini-series does seem to culminate with a satisfying
solution, if not one beneficial to Grace Marks. However, if looked closely the
ending is unmistakably grim. Grace is free from the bars of prison but at the
same times she is domesticated by a land-owner (an old friend) who eagerly
listens to her painful past and secrets before possessing her body. The
question of whether Grace will ever be allowed to assume control of body and mind still
hangs in the air. And, only a resounding chorus of no arises from deep within
our conscience. Eventually, Alias Grace is a piercing tragedy about two women
(Grace and Nancy) diffused with hate and fear by the unforgiving
societal order around them. It’s a slow-burn and ponderous drama compared to
the other Margaret Atwood adaptation (Handmaid’s tale) which was much-expansive and
openly incendiary.
Trailer
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