NOPE and the Art of Splitting The Semiotic Difference (Patreon)

Jordan Peele made one of the best first features of all time (a category for which there is some great competition). But Get Out is an essential work. A visceral, often funny horror movie with a laser-like focus on theme that managed to tap right into the social zeitgeist. And it’s one of those movies that hits you so squarely with all these little perfect semiotic details that just add to the coherency of the messaging. There’s a reason that “little” genre movie rocketed right into Oscar contention and it deserved everything it got, if not more. But in the wake of its success, Peele was faced with that deeply existential question of artistry, “where should I go from here?” Technically speaking he had the freedom to make all kinds of things. But it seems he was not just interested in staying within genre works, but within horror, too… And he wasn’t afraid to start getting weird.

His follow-up, Us, is a film I like, but have never written about because, quite honestly, I’m still trying to figure out what it all adds up to. Where Get Out hits these perfect notes of thematic clarity and social import (which I believe is the reason for its critical mega-success), Us was far more content to play it cryptic. It’s filled top to bottom with terrific performances and eerie imagery, but for all its underground doppelgängers, jumpsuits, and rabbits galore, the film is also characterized by a withholding nature that goes right into the DNA of the story itself. Dramatically-speaking, the decision to wait until the very last second to reveal Lupita’s switcheroo is perhaps the oddest one. Not just because it’s something that most of the audience can predict from the “we just want our daughter back” line, but in refusing to acknowledge the switch before the third act confrontations, it just fosters a lack of meaning-making within the confrontation themselves. It really feels as if the film is genuinely afraid to explore the switching act, along with how the family members would even feel about such an event occurring. Honestly? I’m not even sure what the film is really interested in, either. Thus, we are left with a semiotic playground of a movie where it’s easy to pick up little details and make projections, but every essay I’ve read still ends up feeling a loose connection of interesting ideas, much like the movie itself. Granted, there’s nothing really wrong with that! It’s fun to write and argue about, but the withholding crypticness that fails to give us that same “diamond bullet to the brain” feeling that came with his first feature. And when it comes to his latest third effort, I was deeply curious which direction he’d go in…

Turns out, NOPE splits the difference quite beautifully.

But on another level, this is a deeply weird movie. Sure, the scares and thrills of this movie operate with impeccable precision (the way the ship MOVES alone is worth the price of admission), but there are so many times in the first half where you are unsettled by its weird tone and hypnotic imagery, along with characters whose oddball behavior doesn’t exactly play clear at first. Thus, you spend so much of the film asking “what’s that person even thinking?” and it becomes easy to worry that we’re going to be in store for another cryptic playground movie. For the audience, it’s really the deeper question of “Okay Peele, where are you going with all this?” Turns out the answers are refreshingly simple and completely satisfying. But getting into it requires five paragraphs of spoilers!

*spoiler talk*

So our heroes spend their time being hunted by a UFO that’s stalking their family farm. And yet, we spend so much of the first half dealing so much with wild animals, whether it's taming horses or recounting the story of a chimp that went berserk on set. We’re left asking, what’s the connection here? Then it hits us with this forehead slap moment. It’s not a UFO or even a ship. It’s an animal. From there, everything starts firing. Of course a horse trainer becomes our hero. Of course every lesson starts paying-off and the final confrontations play out in rousing fashion. Earlier in the film we are treated to the horrors of its inner workings (digesting into blood and expelling inedible material), but as the ship begins literally unfolding, we become privy to its outer workings of this organic, somewhat incomprehensible alien being. I know I keep using the word “hypnotic,” but it fits so damn well. I love the design, which is reminiscent of so many sea creatures, as if half mollusk, half jellyfish. Capable of becoming a kind of billowy, cloud-like, shimmering yet dirty ecru cosmic spirit, that projects these green, geometric sensors. There’s something so primordial about it, yet beyond us in a fifth dimensional way. It leaves us so curious, terrified, yet equally in awe. So how can OJ communicate with it through body language alone? And at the center of their struggle is a simple, but elegant thought about the modern world: how do you not command, but try to understand and respect nature? The question, of course, gives way to a deeper commentary about filmmaking itself…

Like Inception before it, there is a nice little meta through-line of “it’s a film about filmmaking” at play here. Not in a way that feels oppressive or overtaking, but there’s a reason “Haywood’s Hollywood Horses” with the industry in such a deep and historical way. Because Hollywood has had a long history of animal abuses, along with an unsuredness of what ethical role there should be in the hyper-controlled world of film sets. I mean, a lot of us have been on sets where the highest paid actor (daily rate) is a cat. There’s a kind of callousness that comes out of that, even a weird amount of resentment at the lack of control and inability to have a dialogue with the living being in question. But, as the film makes abundantly clear, you have to understand what you don’t understand. But instead, so many figures become transfixed by the idea of “capturing” it. Even for our heroes, it’s purely motivated by getting that “Oprah” money and proving this alien thing exists, but we get three other versions of this same instinct.

First, there’s Angel, the bored Fry’s Electronics guy who peddles in conspiracy and heartache, so desperately looking for some kind of amazement and only finding terror. The second deals with Steve Yuen’s character, a child actor turned small, western-themed carnival entrepreneur. Turns out he is someone who experienced a horrific incident in which a “Gordy,” the chimp from his sitcom one day became aggressive on set and attacked the cast with bloody horror. Clearly traumatized by the event, Yuen’s character seems to have this calm juxtaposition where he has pushed it down and is even fetishizing the event in question (complete with secret room of memorabilia from it). This is part of why he too has become hypnotized by the potential of the UFO and offering up horses as food to a crowd’s content. It’s all a part of mastering the thing that haunts, a way of trying to incarcerate, control, the beasts of the world around us. And it is a denial that costs him (and others) dearly. Lastly, there is the cinematographer, Antler’s Holst. He’s hilarious in the way he captures every bored, European cinematographer who is just completely over it - and yet his character can’t stop staring at hours of animals eating each other. While he does get the shots of a life-time, he seems to have this deep understanding of the push-pull of that fixation. He hauntingly tells us, “we don’t deserve the impossible” and lets himself get taken into the gaping maw, camera still rolling. This so aptly characterizes that way we are enamored with capturing what may kill us, not just in the sense that he’s deeply aware of that point, but that it’s his outright intention. Put gnostically, no one gets to see the face of god without passing on.

But in the end, it’s not just Hollywood, but the way humanity regards nature itself. It’s terrifying, but we’re all playing god with what we think we can and ignore and / or control. It’s a theme, laser-targeted in simplicity, but brought to life with vivid imagination. And there’s so many little moments and sequences that stand out, especially for the breadth of weirdness. I mean, there’s a hilarious monologue about Chris Kattan. A Scorpion King reference becomes a payoff. And the alien fake-out in the barn had the guy next to me practically jumping out of his seat. Even I was like “wait, is this gonna be the movie!?!? Is THIS gonna be the movie????” But of course it was something so much more abstract than little green men. And at its emotional core, NOPE is ultimately a nice little human story of two siblings and a seeming divide between them. And while I hope Keke Palmer is cast in literally every movie, this is actually one of my favorite Kaluuya performances, too.

Because he’s playing the modern version of the old ranch hand. He’s the “strong silent type,” but not in a way that feels as if it's reaching for nostalgia or overtly-masculine BS. The film instead dives into how he’s a deeply shy person, unsure of his role and his inability to integrate into modern Hollywood settings. He doesn’t know if he can live up to the folksy mystique of his father (the great Keith David). For while OJ inherited his rustic-ness and know-how, it’s his sister who got the gift of gab. But underneath his exterior, you get punctuated moments of humanity of excitement (the beat with the repeated low fives was exceptional). But what defines OJ at all times is his respect, appreciation, and FEAR of the nature around him. It’s the titular “nope” that speaks to all his moments where he’s not going to engage the way others might. And if you know anything about the history of cowboys, you know that the archetype was a Hollywood fiction from white America. And that cowboys were mostly black and latino coming out of the vaquero tradition in Mexico. Thus, it’s fitting that the final image speaks to just that simple truth. It’s him posing there, the grand cowboy upon his steed, clad in a glowing orange Scorpion King crew sweatshirt, bordered by a fake Western town that depicts something that’s no longer here, and maybe never really existed. And yet, it fills us with nothing but a deep and utter respect…

For the real cowboys who are still here.

* End Spoiler Talk*

I think what Jordan Peele is doing, and more importantly continuing to *get* to do is critical. It’s not just about infusing horror filmmaking with eager audiences and a wider breadth of cultural representation. That’s just the mere beginning of it. Because what he’s really getting to do is work with a big wide genre canvas that dive into semiotics, resulting in idea-driven films that are terrifically entertaining, unafraid to be weird, and yet navigate matters of social cognizance with seeming ease. But here’s a hint: it’s not easy. It’s exceptionally difficult. And part of what makes the work continue to be essential.

Which just makes me all the more thankful he’s doing it.

<3HULK