Kill James Bond! - S3E20.5: The Wonder [PREVIEW]

Episode Date: June 6, 2024

This week, we once again enter the November Zone as we watch Sebastián Lelio's The Wonder. A movie about an english nurse tasked with observing a young irish girl who has survived without food for four months, but more than that, a movie about stories. ----- FREE PALESTINE Hey, Devon here. Give money to people crowdfunding for passage out of Rafah first and foremost. While the crossing might be closed, the situation is changing by the day and being able to afford passage out when the crossing reopens is an immense comfort. then purchase ESIMs, then donate to this link if you feel you need a big name attached to the fund to trust it. Please don't only donate money. You have to do other things now. https://www.map.org.uk/donate/donate ----- Consider supporting us on our reasonably-priced patreon! https://www.patreon.com/killjamesbond ------ *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ Kill James Bond is hosted by Alice Caldwell-Kelly, Abigail Thorn, and Devon. You can find us at https://killjamesbond.com

We're gonna do an intro where we all try to do the accent, folks. Alright, let's get ready for that. Uh huh, yeah, no, Jesus. I didn't write one, don't worry. Alright, perfect. If we have local recordings going, I have local recordings going, I have the ZenCaster going, I will count us in. Three, two, one, mark.

Useful. One mark. Beautiful. Hello and welcome to another bonus episode of Kill James Bond. I am November Kelly. I am joined as always by my friends Abigail, Thorne and Devon. Hello! This is a podcast you don't really know us. It's a parasocial relationship. This was, this is not a conversation you're a part of. Or is it? Do you hear me? Distancing you, listener. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a distance, but from nothing's effect.

Actually, can we just leave in all of the stuff that we were doing before we did the like, sync point and everything, just to really con- show you- you can see us construct the architecture around it. Yeah, so this is, this is my bonus pick, and I picked a film called The Wonder, that I really like. This is one of those things where you'll become closer to me as a person, having listened to my thoughts about it, but I was also really, really curious to see what my two best friends thought about it. And I think this is a movie that really rewards

being talked about by a philosopher and a scientist by training, right? Yeah, and an actor too. Thank you. It's fucking Brecht. It's Brecht shit. We're doing Brecht shit. Yes. They're befremdinging your ass on's Brecht shit, we're doing Brecht shit. Yes.

The Vefremdunging for your ass on Brechtian Twitter. We're getting Brechtian. I guess I am a scientist by training, I forget about that sometimes. Yes you are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why we have a science-based system on this planet. Oh yeah. It's not a philosophy-based system.

You literally taught science, you taught, like, biology. Yes, that is true. I taught biology to A level. Yeah. Oh yeah, I remember. You taught them that there were two sexes only, that they're immutable, yeah? That's right, that's right. That's right.

And so naturally, a movie about science and about children and about biology, you know, this has some implications, I think. Yeah. This is a movie by a Chilean director called Sebastián Lelio. I really like a lot of his work. However, for some reason I'm really into Chilean films, like, I have no idea why. I really liked his movie Gloria. But he also did a transgender social issue movie.

Yes, he did. Called A Fantastic Woman. He won an Oscar for that, didn't he? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, this is good. The thing about A Fantastic Woman. He won an Oscar for that, didn't he? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, this is good. The thing about A Fantastic Woman is, I would say, if you are a cis person, watch it. If you are a trans person, you will learn nothing new, but you will also be re-traumatized, as was my experience.

Yes, that's a very fair review. It's a rough watch, and yeah, it did a lot materially for trans rights in Chile, so we appreciate him for that, but I would kind of give it a miss if you wanna have a relaxing time. But yeah, I'm fond of this director, I'm fond of this screenwriter as well, Alice Burch, who also wrote Lady Macbeth, also with Florence Pugh. So like, I have high expectations for this, and it's sort of like, in a setting that I like.

But we begin with a brilliant piece of... I guess we should explain a bit of Brecht, right? We should explain a Vfremdungs effect, right? So, Vfremdungs effect means distancing effect. What it means is, Bertolt Brecht, the German 20th century playwright, is telling you while you are watching a play, hey, you are watching a play right now. You are being reminded that this is an artificial construction, and you're being reminded that

it's not real life, you should not suspend your disbelief, and instead you should engage with it on a more conscious level, right? And so the opening shots of the wonder are the set of the wonder, from the outside. Niamh It's worth mentioning too that Brecht was explicitly Marxist and his development of these techniques was aimed at getting people to achieve class consciousness. A common Brechtian effect might be to, instead of having a table on the stage, you would have a piece of cardboard with the word table written on it. So it's constantly reminding you that you're watching a play. And what he wanted to happen from that is that people

would begin to question the stories that they are told and the ways in which they are told them. But yeah, he was explicitly trying to do like class consciousness and we can debate whether or not he was like really successful in doing that. But that's where the idea comes from. ALICE Absolutely. And this is also the first point at which the film is, let's say, a little bit deceptive, right? Because you have an opening narration by an as-yet-unintroduced character who talks about the value

of stories, right, and how people across different times and cultures use stories to make sense of their lives, their environments. And a story is fundamentally a question of belief, right, and the big line of this monologue, as you're seeing the outside of the set, is we are nothing without stories, and so we invite you to believe in this one. And this is a movie about belief, but it is inviting you to believe in something while using the tools of sort of like, distancing you from it, right? Yes, you're not even on set at the point where they're like, we invite you to believe in this story.

It invites you to believe in something that it will show you is not true. Mmhm. Yes. And also, interestingly, I mean, this monologue specifically breaks the fourth wall, the opening line is, this is the opening of a film called The Wonder. ALICE I love this type of shit, I love it, I cannot get enough of it. NICOLA Yeah.

And then, so, we turn around and then the camera starts travelling into the set, and we hear that it's 1860... ALICE 1862, it is 1862. NICOLA 1862. ALICE 1862, it is 1862. 1862? As they say in an unusually both sides line, the Irish hold the English responsible for the Great Famine. Yep. I would say I also hold the English responsible for the Great Famine, and that I'm aware that

we did it. History, like, holds the English responsible. That is a fact, yeah. Yeah, the! like, holds the English responsible. RILEY That is a fact, yeah. RILEY Yeah, the books tend to hold the English responsible. ALICE This is a kind of key piece of context for this, is that every Irish person that you will see in the film The Wonder is the survivor of a genocide, right, or an attempted genocide. And this is going to play a part in their beliefs, their stories, and their

values, right? And the movie doesn't hammer you over the head with this, in fact, that's why I think it soft-pedals it with the Irish hold the English responsible for the famine, right? Yes, cause it's quite subtle for the rest of the movie, like, it's just attitudes, like it's completely subsumed into their characters that they don't trust. So no one ever actually like, expressly says it. So it is useful to have the like, internal monologue be like, no, no, no, just to be clear, like, we fucked with these guys for quite some time.

Yeah. They're really mad about it. This is an English nurse being sent over to Ireland. And they explicitly say that. So Florence Pugh is our English nurse, who I just call Florence Pugh. And she goes to this inn in Ireland where she's been sent, and the first thing the owner of the inn says is, are you the English nurse? So like, they never let her fucking forget it. And his wife is like, very very cold to her, she's shown to her room, she's been sent here on a mission, we don't

yet know what it is. ALICE I should also say about the sets, everything from like the first train carriage she's in to this inn, right, is oppressively dark. It's like very dark, it's very smoky, it's very close, and also interesting to contrast because you've seen the outside of this set, which is, you know, it's in a studio, it's very clean, it's very well lit. This reminds me, as a depiction of poverty specifically, a lot of the book Fan Shen by William Hinton, Riley and I talked about it on one of the Left on Red bonuses to Trash Future, where it's like, the sort of cumulative effects of generations of poverty are, you know, you as you sort of like, outside Western observer to the Chinese Revolution,

or in this case, English nurse in a kind of very severely rational uniform-like blue dress, just like, kind of stick your head into like, a hole, basically, like an entirely like, black and brown and like, filthy and like, very very close and oppressive hovel, basically. And it makes no ostensible judgement on that, but it's very striking visually. And this is gonna continue, this is gonna ramp up. There's a line that stands out to me as she's eating breakfast with the innkeeper's family the following morning, where there are many children around the table, and one of the children asks her, have you come to experiment on us?

And she goes, no. And we get this moment like, they're not entirely sure whether or not to believe it. And this movie, I think has a lot to say, firstly about religion, but on a deeper level, I think it has a lot to say about children and the way society treats children.

100%. Which we will fucking get to. But first, she's summoned out of breakfast to meet the committee Yeah, so he comes in and goes you got to come out to the shed We've got all our best character actors out there. Yeah, Kieran Hines is here. Toby Jones is here Dermot Crowley is here, Toby Jones is like, let's go! One, two, three guys I love to see like you've got them together. It's fantastic

Yeah, so it is her, a nun, and this committee of men. And the committee, self-appointed, there's a priest, Kieran Hines, there's a doctor, Toby Jones, the like, local aristocrat, which is Dermot Curly, and this innkeeper. It might be, apparently, I'm actually not sure. To be honest, I'm assuming you're right just based on past experience with you. I wouldn't do this. If we disagree about something, I usually go, no, no, I've got this one wrong. So she and this nun, Sister Michael, are there to watch a girl, Anna O'Donnell,

because Anna O'Donnell does not eat. And she has not eaten, no one has seen her eat for four months. The last thing she ate was the Eucharist, and then she has been fasting ever since. RILEY Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, that is quite enough of that. I can't let you listen to a second more of that without you heading on over to patreon.com slash kill James Bond all one word and signing up today for as little as five pounds a month. Five pounds a month. Did you see that like the Tesco big tub of mango is like a meal deal main now? Genuinely unbelievable. Like a just

just a tub of mango, like a tub of mixed fruits, you know forest fruits is a main. What is happening to this country? But anyway for about the same price as a Tesco meal deal consisting of one large tub of mango, one small tub of mango, and one mango tango. You can subscribe to Kill James Bond.