MANDY (2018): A Thrilling Ode To Grief

Introduction

Mandy (2018) is a fantasy/horror movie directed by Panos Cosmatos (Beyond The Black Rainbow) and produced by XYZ Films (The Invitation, Color Out Of Space), Piccadilly Pictures (We Need To Talk About Kevin), and SpectreVision, Elijah Wood’s (The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy) production company. The film is a radically different take on grieving.

Mandy takes place in 1983, and upon the film’s opening we hear President Reagan talking on the radio. The music of The Carpenters fills the background. Weirdly imposing skies immerse the viewer in a very specific tone. The imminent possibility of tragedy is always present in the air.

Premise

The tragedy in Mandy comes in the shape of cult leader, Jeremiah Sand (Linus Roache), who sets his sight on Mandy (Andrea Riseborough), a sensitive soul immersed in her own deep internal world. By the power God chose to provide to him, Jeremiah decides to take her. In a clear demonstration of the faculty of cult of personality- though weaker than true creativity- he gets what he wants.

However, by laughing at him instead, Mandy shows Sand a new reality in which he loses his power over her. Mandy provokes rage and madness from Jeremiah. In turn, he makes his cult burn her alive in front of her boyfriend, Red Miller (portrayed by an over-the-top Nicolas Cage). Thus, the film turns on a dime, giving way to Mandy‘s off-the-rails second half.

Mandy’s narrative is divided into three chapters: The Shadow Mountains, The Children of the New Dawn, and the third and final one, Mandy. Despite the chapter headings, the movie clearly ends up being separated into two halves, each with different rules and a particular personality.

Tragedy, Grief and Violence

With agony, wrath and grief being Red’s emotional repertoire, he inaugurates a world that won’t ever be the same without Mandy in it. Red’s new reality is punctuated by mundane “Cheddar Goblin” advertising on TV and other signs that the real world will not stop for Red’s loss and grief. He starts the process of turning into the worlds’ new inquisitor.

It’s in the bathroom that Red has his existential mind transformation via a
beautifull, lingering sequence of Cage losing his mind. The Oscar winning actor goes off the rails emitting a humorous rage. Soon, Red starts the process of hunting down Mandy’s death perpetuators.

This massacre is composed of a mix of powerful weapons and maniacal action, leading to incredible revenge by chainsaw battles, deep LSD trips, and a wicked axe made by Red’s hand. It’s a fantastic weapon, and a reflection of Red’s soul. It’s crafted from the rage of the loss that is now turning Red into a puppet of destruction.

Revenge and Bikers

Red’s world is destroyed, and he’s going to destroy all the little pieces left. He’s on a descent into hell with every evil persona he kills. Mandy is ever present on Red’s journey to destruction. During the revenge spree, Cage’s character finds himself fighting a biker gang called the “Black Skulls.”

These bikers are a mix between the characters portrayed in Mad Max (1979) and the cenobites from Hellraiser (1987). They are dressed in leather, half-human and half-demon; a physical representation of lust, pleasure and pain, the weirdest of landscapes, and even the appearance of a tiger.

Analysis

The transitions in Mandy are presented by Cosmatos as a soft and slow blink of the eye. We get a chance to take a good glance at every part of the scenery, which helps set the pace for the tone and rhythm of the weirdness starting to unfold. The film gets to define a world in which the view is modified by the mental states of the characters.

Every alteration of the subconscious synchronizes with the visual way of telling the argument. From the very beginning of the film, the perception of symbolism and the sensitivity of the characters on screen are clearly translated to the spectator. There’s a mystical atmosphere that fills the room, little by little.

The audience gets to witness a relationship as powerful as the old gods. Mandy and Red teach what their love is, and how it works. It’s a love that is built and reflected by deep conversations and art manifestations based on the couple’s complete devotion to the home they built and what that represents to Red.

Review

Mandy has an immaculate score by Jóhann Jóhannsson, who manages to transcend the 80’s synthesizer by building one of the most complex sounds on film from the last decade. The result is used as guidance for the tragedy and solitude seen onscreen. It also happens to be one of Jóhannsson’s final works.

The film’s score is juxtaposed perfectly with the beautiful photography by Benjamin
Loeb. He makes an exceptional effort to fill the eye with crafty camera angles, one of
Cosmatos’s most valuable tools. This is mixed with animation techniques and elegant, out of this world, vibrant colors.

Cosmatos decides to take his time, allowing us to feel the relationship’s dynamic. Yet he keeps us interested and on a clear trajectory towards the tragedy that will eventually come. When it does, the burrow that Red and Mandy have built now stops being a safe place.

Casting

Red’s hallucinations of his love’s death are done in amazing animation sequences. The audience is shown that Mandy is still there as a loved one. Roache does a stellar job at building a Jeremiah Sand that is full of depth. The actor understands the character, and builds a portrait of a cult leader that is far from stereotypical. Roache creates a well-rounded and complete character which he fully owns and embraces.

Andrea Riseborough builds, step by step, a complex artist lost in an inner world. A character so strong that even with death in front of her she finds a way to step forward. She avoids giving Roache what he wants, instead becoming a victorious soul who overcomes the enemy. Mandy transcends reality to become a goddess of a new world established by the violent nature of the environment.

Red, a character whose life is destroyed when his most beloved is taken from him is perfectly and bravely portrayed by an insane Nicolas Cage. As the film progresses and his grief turns him into a monster, Red slips further from a humanity that existed in Mandy’s embrace. The woman who was the center of Red’s world, becomes the center of his entire fictional universe.

The world that is created in Mandy is further completed by additional clever and thoughtful casting. It helps to have Richard Break, the iconic Bill Duke, Olwen Fouéré, and other interesting faces outlining the population of this mystical chemical drug world.

Directing

The son of director Georges Pan Cosmatos (Rambo II, Cobra, Tombstone), Panos Cosmatos wanted to create a wholly original film, thereby adding to his family’s legacy and making his own mark in the action film genre. Cinematographer Benjamin Loeb stated in a 2018 interview:

“When we began to discuss the film, I realized that Panos already had a very well-defined image of what his film would look like, with many references drawn from 1980’s action films…Hitcher, Black Rain, Cobra, and Days of Thunder were some of the films that I never imagined I’d imitate or make adaptations of. Especially in a style and employing themes that are themselves distant from my earlier work.”

Conclusion

Red’s journey starts as the loud avenger, and finds its conclusion with Red lost in misery and grief in an eternally violent and non-loving world. Mandy ends with a statement on the possibilities of what losing a loved one provokes within, leaving us without an orbit.

Red’s path is lost, and via the voice and message of Cosmatos, we are introduced to a hopeless and nihilistic world that is filled with violence. In Mandy, Red’s subconsciousness is the path to redemption, and the inquisitor being a condemned soul.

More Cinema Scholars Reviews:

NO SUDDEN MOVE (2021) – Soderbergh’s Latest

THE GOONIES (1985): A Cinema Scholars Retrospective Review