film analysis: nope (2022) by jordan peele
this is my digestions of NOPE (2022), directed by Jordan Peele, which we watched on a Sunday evening at home, in Istanbul. spoilers for sure.
a preface: on writing about films worth watching
I've been watching a lot of sci-fi films lately, mostly because of K, whose favorite genre is (from my observations) alien invasion/robot apocalypse. personally, I was never enticed by end-of-world scenarios, but I do like cinematic beauty, puzzle narratives, complex stories that prompt further thinking and reading - this is how I don't feel like I just wasted two hours in front of a screen.
whenever I get excited about a film, my brain is hungry for further analysis and debate. reading articles online usually disappoint - I feel like they shrink the expansive ambiguity of a film into a basic trope, or rudimentary criticism that completely misses the point. and since, for me, watching more than one film a week means that the plot lines all blur together (and I wake up with story hangovers), I've decided to explore film writing myself.
I'll be recording my notes in this journal, as something between an inspiration log, and a thinking-out-loud analysis. I will only write about films I want to keep thinking about - those are the films worth watching. today, I'm writing about NOPE (2022), which K selected for us to watch on a Sunday afternoon.
this is a Jordan Peele film
first things first: Nope is a Jordan Peele film. he's one of those directors whose films I would 100% watch without hesitation -- but would need to prepare myself accordingly. it's not that they're outright scary, per se. psychological horror isn't so transparent. it's never delivered straight.
Jordan Peele films feel like: deep social commentary wrapped in psychological horror, packaged in a vibe of quirky indie, almost-comedy. they have a feeling of lightness, of life-as-normal, while behind the scenes, there is a feeling of something lurking. you spend the entire movie slightly uncomfortable, waiting.
compared to Get Out (2017) and Us (2019) -- both films which disturbed me for days -- Nope is calmer; more even-toned. it starts out feeling realistic and naturalistic (almost like an artsy western in which very little happens), until the surrealism sets in -- and then it's not calm. that's when the characters start to shake their heads and say "Nope." "Nope." as in: I'm out. the problem is that they can't get out. they can't leave their own homes.
a UFO x monster film
at its core, Nope is a sci-fi, UFO x monster film.
the plot is not complicated.
in a family horse farm in California, a brother and sister discover an extraterrestrial creature that hunts humans and animals by turning off all electricity, stirring up dust clouds, beaming down, and sucking them into its mouth. it spits out its non-digested waste - hots and flags and horse statues - like used machinery parts.
the creature is disc-shaped and quiet, reminiscent of something scary and unnamed from the deep sea, resembling (at best) like a stingray, except with no eyes and no teeth. it's vicious and seemingly innocuous, at the same time. when not hunting, it cammoflogues itself as an immobile cloud; a cloud which makes you think of government surveillance - a cloud that occasionally comes out to hunt and devour you alive, before it disappears again.
alien monster as metaphor
not all monster films are metaphors, but this one -- typical of a Jordan Peele film -- clearly felt like one. so, then, the question is this:
what is a looming, seemingly all-powerful monster that attacks and consumes only those who look at it?
while this is a characteristic of wild animals -- for whom eye contact feels like an aggressive challenge -- my first reaction is that it's a metaphor of oppressive systems, of tyranny or dictatorship -- or toxic cultures that keep you with your head down, eyes turned away, banking on the possibility of surviving unseen.
then, in its final scenes, the monster unfolds like a carnivorous leaf, or a Georgia O'Keefe flower, green trailing things fluttering in the sky, expansive and almost beautiful, its center mouth resembling a small rectangle: like the viewfinder of a camera, opening and closing. if you are seen, you will be captured. if you are captured, you will be gone. the monster is a camera that consumes, and the social forces that feed it.
spectacle culture: real animals vs. fake show-biz
I read somewhere that Jordan Peele described this film as being about spectacle and exploitation. and so, just as the main driving motivation of the characters is to capture the monster on film, the monster itself is a metaphor for show business, the culture of Hollywood, of performance for spectacle - and of machines wielded by those in power, objectifying and disempowering its subjects for the consumption of others. the film introduces this at the very beginning -- the black jockey on the horse, whose clips created the first film segment, but whose name nobody remembers.
in this sense, the motivations of Em (to be the first to film the UFO, to make money off of it, to be on Oprah) -- and of OJ (to keep the family farm alive, to honor his father) as well as their fierce protection over one another -- their success and survival at the end of the film is what inverts the power dynamic, at least in metaphorical terms. the old cinamotographer Holst has to die from his own brazen stupidity, and Em has to be the one to take the photo of Jean Jacket (the UFO) and be the one to blow up it with an absurd giant theme park balloon.
this dichotamy between "real" and "show/spectacle" at the beginning of the film -- between OJ, who doesn't pretend, can't give the spiel in front of the all-white filming crew, who's invested in the hard labor of working with animals -- against the spectacle culture of Hollywood, twice represented by the commercial, and by Jupe's strange western theme park.
OJ is the only one who doesn't seem to care. he doesn't care about filming the UFO. and yet, he refuses to escape, and abandon his horses. by the end of the film, it has to be OJ who looks at the monster in the eye. there was no other way. the most heroic moment was watching him ride along the vast dusty lands, chasing and being chased by the UFO, while the cinamatographer is hand-cranking the camera. he felt like a modern reincarnation of his ancestor - only that he had more power and agency. we are watching him on film, being filmed, and chased by a monster who represents this culture of what spectacle can do.
gordy the chimp; stories within stories
for me, the scariest part of the film was watching the story of Gordy - the chimp actor, recalled in flashback by Jupe -- who turns his birthday party into a violent, six minutes of mauling. Jupe recounts the story to Em and OJ as if it was amusing and funny, a good dinner story, deserving of airtime as an SNL skit, when, in fact, the flashback shows him terrified, his face speckled with blood, hiding under a table. his trauma is real and frozen in time, though buried and varnished under his stories and momentary fame.
somehow, Gordy's segment feels like a strange, mythical episode -- as a reference point to what's happening with the UFO, and, on a smaller magnitude, with Lucky, the horse, disturbed by his own reflection while filming the commercial.
I've asked myself: what is the point of Gordy? I think: to draw contrast between the uncontrollable nature of animals; the "wild" in wild animals; and by extension, in humans -- the rawness of terror and trauma (for example, with Jupe) -- with the act of making a show, a spectacle, a profitable performance or memoirbilia room out of it. to me, Gordy's show feels like a exploitative perversion of nature -- to force a chimp to perform on TV -- and what happens, as a result.
in the face of terrible danger, animals will fight, freeze, or run. humans are the only ones sick enough to take photos in hopes of fame, to crowd around watching, to enjoy spectacle as a sport, to sell it to the masses, to try and get rich off of it. I think the implications of this go far beyond a UFO - the same force is what powers the news channels, enables bystanders, feed celebrity culture, and social media addictions. we're too busy dwelling in flattened, consumerized stories to inhabit our own bodies and lives. in this sense, perhaps the title of the film - "Nope" is a simple rejection of all that. as in: nope, I'd rather carry on tending to my horses, than deal with this monster created by humanity. unfortunately, though, this usually isn't an option.
summary log
rating: 7.5/10
filed under: neo-western, sci-fi, monster, isolated lands, indie, surrealist, quiet, quirky, eerie, happy ending, sibling bonds, animal trauma
you'd like this film if you: enjoy a different take on sci-fi, and/or if you like Jordan Peele films, which means you like thinking about all the meanings and possibilities.
