Aesthetics Help the Girl [God Help the Girl, Murdoch, 2014]

"Your breasts are exquisite, and this dress looks like a potato sack, But you are not a potato."

Teenage angst is made cuddly and endearing in Stuart Murdoch's directorial debut musical God Help the Girl. The fact that we are not rolling our eyes every minute or so and yelling "oh shut up you are like 16" is in no small part due to its twee-ness: the film doesn't take itself too seriously (oops Youth) and the characters' imperfections lend the film a certain authenticity. The film and characters' embracing of the "underdog" label persuades the viewer to negate realistic stakes in exchange for a sweet journey with the tender.

Whether it's part of twee or not, my biggest impression with Murdoch's film is its visual aesthetic. On first glance, visual choices, specifically in art direction and cinematography, are quite contradictory to its pursuit of underdog authenticity. It seems to be in this awkward bind, unsure where to stand on the scale. 

Ignoring twee for a brief moment, God Help the Girl doesn't quite fit the traditional aesthetic scale. It doesn't have fancy crane shots or perfectly-choreographed oners of The Great Beauty. In an interview with The Boston Globe, DP Giles Nuttgen said that the crew chose to shoot on 16mm anamorphic to maintain a grainy documentary feel. Yet, despite the almost exclusive use of handheld shots, the cinematography isn't exactly Bicycle Thieves. It's stylishly lit, well composed, and not devoid of lens flares (yes, that's a criteria). We alternate between fly-on-the-wall documentation of the trio's indolent conversations, and 50+ shots coverage of dance scores. And Glasgow, well, just looks too liveable.

The contradiction extends to art direction too. The characters, despite supposedly being "uncool", are undeniably stylish and attractive. There is idiosyncrasy in each character's wardrobe, an idiosyncrasy whose cost far exceeds their supposed economical and social status as underdogs. And it's not hard to spot how crafted each scene is. Costumes and scenery always function together in harmonious color pallets; even the most beat-down of places sharing cohesiveness with styling. 

Together, these choices are baffling. On one hand, there is a drive for authenticity and "dispensing of the [polished] cool." Handheld shots, image quality, and location choices reflect a "sub-current" environment that is in rebellion (or rather, disengagement) with the conventional glamour and attractiveness. On the other, there is still an artistic style. There is a careful crafting of the image that suggests an attempt to define another form of beauty. It isn't so much a rejection of visual tastes so much the assertion of a specific alternative taste.

And I suppose that is the taste of twee. To call it the movement of underdogs would be a misnomer. There is a very specific aesthetic of the underdog that it exalts, a sort of in-between of the glamorized and the pedestrian, the dorky and tender, but never bland. Do i like it? Yes. Going beyond just the meticulous art direction, I have to give credit to Murdoch for creating beauty for where popularly there is none. But it is worrying that such creation comes with unrealistic aesthetics of its own. I can't help feeling that to give in to twee isn't so much a revolution of vulnerability into strength, but a sugarcoat denial of it; that to accept twee is the untransformative swapping of one set of expectations for another.  

[Note to self: If image quality can't be pitch perfect, embrace it as part of the style and work other elements around (artistic grain ex); always get B-roll of extras, especially in dance scene; build costume colors off color elements already in scene, or vice versa.]