i watched the movie last night... hopy shit
i really really like how the backrooms depictss mental health and falling into a pattern of abusive behavior. especially with clark. oh my god. clark was done SO WELL. very good impressive performance. but i really liked how with clarks writing he is sympathetic. and you sort of can tell yes, he is at fault in his messy ex situation. but you can also see that he feels exploited and it feels very sympathetic to his troubles. love the line from his early therapy sessions about him not being lonely, but being alone. because this whole movie is about him being vastly alone in the backrooms. augh. and speaking of the backrooms
i am interpreting them as serving as a metaphorical representation of the cycles clark repeats related to his mental health. mary establishes the window to the outdoors as a path out of the repitition. clark finds the backrooms (his troubles and dark mental state) and obsessively begins to explore and interact with it. he sees this as his window- despite the fact that the complex is neverending and any windows or doors only lead to more yellow hallways. i feel like this concept is especially shown in the scene where it pans down from a young mary seeing the window to the dining room. it just keeps spiraling and repeating.
clark's repetitive behaviors harm others around him. he gets his employees killed when he brings them to the backrooms. or, essentially, he harms two people when he involves them in his mental health and his pattern. I think it's notable that Kat is the one to be the most visibly disturbed and overtly invested in getting the fuck out of the backrooms when we know clark's past conflicts have primarily been with his wife and involved emotionally violent conversations. like, theres definitely a theme of misogyny and domestic violence happening here too.
which, that theme becomes very overt when mary enters the complex and meets up with clark. the dinner table scene is so much. oh my god. it recontextualizes clark's previous therapy sessions and relationships with his ex SO WELL. mary is restrained which is like. dude. you could definitely read concerning implications into clark's speech to his ex wife previously, because even if he feels exploited by her there is also an aspect where like. he knows she is financially dependent on him. although she is also an independent woman who was able to kick him out of his own house, he definitely had financial power over her. and in this scene mary realizes that clark's behavior may have been more harmful than what she previously thought, because now she can DEFINITELY tell that he's doing insane harmful shit.
i love the momengt where mary twists her head to knock the wig/scalp off. oh my god, just so much in this scene alone. crux of the entire movie. i love it because mary is refusing to participate in a situation that clark controls. and then she gives him terrible fucking mental health advice. she tells him he fucking sucks and is hurting people. he tells her he feels happy and comfortable. she tells him that he should do what makes him comfortable.
i genuinely started crying at this scene because i relate a lot to it. like, it is an awful thing. it can feel incredibly comforting to confront darker parts of your mental health. like maybe its realizing an experience was traumatic. but it can be awful to get stuck in that feeling because as good as it can feel to realize you're in pain that's not necessarily going to stop you from acting out in certain ways. and it can harm others. and then i also relate to it in the sense that ive been on the other end of that and i know it is incredibly hard to work with someone who refuses to take responsibilities for their own actions.
this is the moment that causes everything to go even more horribly wrong. first off, the female distorted woman runs away. back to the themes of misogyny and kat wanting to leave.... cap'n clark comes in, which i was NOT expecting and it was a reveal i really liked. clark informs his monster that they dont have to change, and then it eats him. rip clark. you destroyed yourself. oops!
going back to the theme of destroying the people around you the first thing that we see dying in the movie (and the first dead thing clark finds) are seagulls. seagulls, from the sea. yk what else is on the sea. a very spooky fuckass pirate.
mary escapes cap'n clark by whacking it with her trauma rock. this whole movie shes been carrying it with her. she actually saves it from getting lost when her old house is being torn down. and she consistently touches it and retraces it. she destroys her symbol of trauma because as much as it still haunts her and pains her constantly she can feel that pain and also break into a new path where she can protect herself.
so basically. tl;dr. the backrooms is very good. and the actors did an INSANE job. like genuinely their performances felt very real and haunting in many scenes. it was a great pairup and ejiofor's performance as clark just made the entire movie function so well. insane. what did you guys think? are you also exploding? because i am oh my gofododd fsj dsfjnmfdsjhjadfnhjnadmnjadskjkfsnkjgrwfdskjakndsjkjAAAAAAA!!!!!
