The Tall Man, or: Moral complexes and creating a sense of entrapment

The Tall Man (2012)

Directed by Pascal Laugier

***SPOILERS***

There’s no denying Pascal Laugier can offer up a hefty slice of social commentary. In Martyrs, violence surrounds and is forced upon oppressed female minorities, done so (no less) by suburbanites looking down upon these girls and utilizing them for their own gain. The idea to completely alienate a minority results in the ultimate “transcendence” when Anna travels to the "great beyond" and then is subsequently skinned. Laugier found a vicious and touching balance with his extreme violence in Martyrs, and much of it had to do with how Anna’s love for Lucie transcended these suburbanites' own twisted game. Perhaps what made Martyrs feel so humane was its fastidious attention to Lucie and Anna (and the lightest touch on its larger social commentary on class warfare), who together worked within themselves to push forward and solve Lucie’s beguiling problem. Laugier was extremely intimate with both his narrative and camera, best displayed in a shot where Anna comforts a poor tortured girl in a bathtub, which can more or less be seen as Anna’s own sick way of caring for Lucie through a girl inconspicuously linked to her past.

Perhaps this is what makes Martyrs infinitely more touching and intriguing than The Tall Man. While Lucie and Anna dictated the story in Martyrs, The Tall Man seems entirely more consumed with its own moral complexes. And certainly, from what I can round up, that’s been the biggest compliment to Laugier’s latest work in the blogosphere: he explores an interesting theme. Which he does—I mean, there must be the slightest inkling in the back of every viewer’s mind wondering if Julia's (Jessica Biel) plight is just. Stealing children from their broken homes and transferring them into wealthy metropolitan families, there’s the ever-so-slight twinge that a child’s environment (and ultimate future) matters more than the love of an oft-times neglecting parent.

Such a question already exists within another debate, involving the Child Protection Services and its mission to extract children from abusive homes. The welfare of a child is called into question, with news stories of mothers not allowing their children to be medicated complicating such a debate. But The Tall Man concerns itself with the emotional and atmospheric side of child abuse, which is much harder to dissect and dictate than physical abuse. In the case of Cold Rock (the town featured in The Tall Man), children exist in a town that’s “been dead for six years” (according to Jenny (Jodelle Ferland)). They live in rough, impoverished conditions, free of government aid or a fit medical unit. The children are practically groomed to remain in the doomed town and grow up like their parents, probably attaching themselves to an abusive partner and never freeing themselves of such seclusion—or, perhaps in Julia’s mind, substantially more likely to become poor as adults. A better future for these children seems to be her driving motivation.

I’m also guessing that Julia doesn’t expect the Child Protection Services to A) pay close enough attention to Cold Rock to notice, or B) have the actual authority to intervene in this particular case. The CPS of California lists seven steps to warrant an in-person response to retrieving a child from his or her home:

• Accept the case
• Intervene in the crisis, if required
• Apply Family Preservation and Support Services for some families
• Assess or identify problems, gather facts and clarify the problem
• Plan and provide services, set goals, identify resources and timeframes
• Document the case
• Terminate the case or transfer it to another program

The intricacy of such proceedings continues onward, such as there being “approximately 12 months of services are provided to children who remain safely in the home while the family receives services,” to a bulleted list of what California law defines as “abuse,” to the 18 months a child must remain in foster homes, which includes the possible chance of reunification. And as Laugier takes the time to point out the neglect Cold Rock receives from the outside world, it’s clear that change must occur from within.

Living in Cold Rock and witnessing its horrors, Julia very much feels obligated to the children. This is where the combat of morals comes into play. If the children aren’t physically being abused (and outside of a slap to Jenny, it seems as though most of them aren’t), shouldn’t that be enough? As Jenny is our main case study, we can see that outside of this moment of physical abuse, she certainly experiences components of neglect, isolation, and irresponsibility on her parents’ part, which is best exemplified through her inability to speak, representing her detachment from not only her family, but also the town of Cold Rock and society as a whole. One has to wonder how effective the CPS could even be in emotionally abusive cases (since it would be much harder to prove than physical abuse), especially when dealing with an entire town that’s innately emotionally abusive to the children because of its dire state. There’s certainly a case here, as emotional abuse can cause just as many future problems as physical abuse, including emotional, behavioral, social, and physical ramifications. And since the availability of support is limited, through not only the CPS, but also government aid and a prevalent face in the news circuit, these consequences would be heightened.

The moral complexities are drawn between the parents of Cold Rock and Julia. This is especially burdening for Julia because of Cold Rock’s neglecting position, which has allowed the adults to bond and form a tightly knit group, where each member depends on one another and would never accuse of poor parenting. So with these moral complexities dominating the story, the question inevitably arises: who is right, and who is wrong? Of course it’s not important, and Laugier is adept in never answering that question. Laugier is competent enough to present such moral complexities, explore how it effects the individuals, and allow for questions and doubts to arise from each party—the film even ends with Jenny asking herself if she made the correct decision in leaving her home.

Of course the answer isn’t the goal, but instead what filters through the question. So it’s not a matter of who’s right or wrong, but instead: is there humanity behind these morals? Innately, yes. Of course these mothers and fathers wish to retrieve their children. But do these adults’ plights exist on the same level as Anna’s love for Lucie in Martyrs? As a parent’s love for a child is inarguably linked and passionate (even for Jenny’s emotionally abusive mother), the reasonable answer is, once again, yes. But since the focus is on Julia, it’s her love and dedication to these children’s future that we compare with Anna’s love for Lucie. Julia cares for her “son”, whom she actually kidnapped from a Cold Rock resident and continued to care for secretly within her home. Even more poignant is the moment she revives a child just after birth. Behind a window, vision blurred and provided with nothing but the grunts of Julia’s efforts, we experience her reviving a child and cradling it in her arms. The mother ships the child away (against Julia’s medial advice), providing a pathway for the irresponsibility complex Julia witnesses in Cold Rock day in and day out. Because of this, we must wonder of Julia’s situation involving her kidnapped son: is her love any less legitimate because the child isn’t hers? Does the ability to care for a child transcend the intrinsic love a parent holds for a child?

Carrying forward with the lightest touch possible, there seems to be another chance for Laugier to present the touching, emotionally tugging side of such a grim situation. With the moral complexities in succinct order, the social commentary in The Tall Man is much more pronounced than it is in Martyrs. And the fact that such social commentary is never “sophisticated” or academically explored may very well be a good thing—after all, it’s entrapped setting that made Martyrs such an affectionate experience and transcend its own social commentary. But because such morals are more pronounced in The Tall Man, it burdens the humane factor of the story even more. Laugier owns no responsibility in announcing a winner or providing a distinct hero, but instead in building the atmosphere that suffocates the town of Cold Rock, the children within, and Julia’s own fears regarding the children’s futures—and, in turn, lending relevant emotional weight each of the party’s morals.

Laugier is already treading dangerous waters with his standoffish approach. There’s only the slightest hint of Anna’s love for Lucie, but it’s intricately explored throughout the film after Lucie commits suicide, lending it a tragic aura. While its apparent in the bathtub scene, it becomes wholly heartbreaking when Anna transcends reality by accepting advice from Lucie’s ghost. While Lucie and her random tortured companion witness hallucinations that speak of their darkest fears, Anna literally experiences her worst fear without the suburbanites’ help: a world without the woman she loves. This is what makes her vision of Lucie so harrowingly haunting and lovely, as fear doesn’t manifest in her transcendence, but instead a hopeful yearning for her friend.

In The Tall Man, it’s hard to grasp the emotional core of Julia’s plight. Her reasons are as equally justified as the parents' (since no clear winner is declared), solely because she believes in them wholeheartedly. It’d be too easy to berate Laugier’s all-but-absent attention to the poor parents’ side of the story, as their situation is A) undeniably and innately awful, and B) well, they’re not exactly the main focus. Although they each offer a side of the moral complex, Julia’s methods are out in left field, thus exploring her reasoning is all the more important. Only a woman with a beguiled and troubled past could commit such acts—let alone attach a moral reason to kidnapping. But how or when is such a past explored? She speaks briefly of her husband’s role in transporting the children, but never once does Laugier take the time to give substance to her story. In an effort to explore the social implications of such a heinous act, he doesn’t present the proper pathos that was apparent and integral to Anna’s mission in Martyrs. I’ve read several complaints of Martyrs, all of which mention the lack of humanity in such a cruel film. While Laugier does have a light touch, Anna’s love was abundant, and it could be seen in her commitment to her friend—even after she blasted away an entire family with her shotgun, Anna remained by Lucie's side, abandoning her own moral compass. In The Tall Man, I would argue that the touch is far too light…to the point of not existing. Julia’s back-story and reasoning for kidnapping is lackadaisically presented in order to establish the two sides of debate. We believe her, but we also believe the parents, because, well, they believe they’re right.

In addition to the crumbling core of the narrative, Laugier’s sinister touch behind the camera seems lost. Although the awfulness of Martyrs (you know, skinning a human being) is practically nonexistent in The Tall Man (it’s not even a “horror” film, in my opinion), Laugier still owes a debt to his characters in building the atmosphere. Constantly contained indoors—whether in a bloodstained home full of bodies or a dimly lit prison cell—Anna’s ability to transcend reality in Martyrs was the result of her claustrophobic surroundings. Shut out from the outside world, Anna was forced to look within herself and abandon reality to become a martyr. In what turns out to be a strikingly similar theme, the residents of Cold Rock are trapped in their own world as well. For Martyrs, Laugier was certainly on the top of his game: the sheer affection and closeness of Anna’s bathtub scene was enough to capture the touchiness and depth of her love for Lucie, amplified tenfold with each screw she pulled from the poor tortured girl’s skull. Working in an open environment in The Tall Man, Laugier reaches for new methods to induce claustrophobia. Unfortunately, those methods rely solely on narration and television news reports, depicting the dire state of the town and the hopelessness the parents feel for their children. The mere fact that Cold Rock appeared on the news at all seems to contradict the neglected state of the small town, but beyond such a trivial fact, Laugier rarely delves into the personal lives of the various families of Cold Rock in the same manner he did so in Martyrs. Jenny witnesses her mother being beaten, and then is subsequently slapped herself, but this is meant to be her reasoning for escape. While a justifiable reason (if it is a repeating occurrence—we never know), it’s hard to form a physical and relevant emotional attachment without texture.

Essentially, Laugier presents a classic case of right vs. wrong, where the right side cannot exist without reservations, and the wrong side seems to carry an equal level of responsibility. Lending texture to the moral complex at hand would involve creating a sense of entrapment and inescapability—the necessity for an outside force to take hold. While such a need is apparent, the “human” side of each argument just literally becomes comprised of humans. One human offers up their side of the debate, and one human offers up another, and it's all filtered through the thinly veiled disguise known as poor character development. People will inevitably accuse Laugier of conventions (the cloak-cladded “tall man” and recycled, elongated chase sequences), and his defenders will announce how he transcends such conventions with small snippets of humanity. But really, Laugier skimps on the atmosphere surrounding and suffocating its constituents. Without texture, there only exists a debate between right and wrong, and The Tall Man doesn’t need to exist for it to occur.