Safe (1995)

Through the years, American filmmaker Todd Haynes (Velvet Goldmine, Far From Heaven, I’m Not There, Carol)  has created an amazing filmography with own characteristics. Through various genres, he has addressed the figure of “the outsider”- an idea that has permeated all of Haynes’ cinema, whose main theme is the conflict between the inside and the outside. This tension between the introversion and the extroversion is the cornerstone that shapes the behavior of Haynes’ characters, whose desires are almost subversive in the context in which they are created. 
 
In 1995, Haynes directed Safe, an exceptional and highly enigmatic film, difficult to classify, rigorous in its form and construction, and also anarchic in its consequences. The story unfolds the life of Carol (Julianne Moore) and George White (Xander Berkeley), who are happily married and live with
live with George’s little son Rory in San Fernando Valley, California. Carol has an extremely relaxed socio-economic and wealthy position, she lives in a new, beautiful, spacious and comfortable house surrounded by a big garden.

Carol is introduced as a person who is completely lost. She is constantly disconnected from herself, her family and her surroundings. She just follows the routine of her upper middle class life, but never engages in anything with passion. Her emotions are contained. Carol describes herself as a housewife, and yet we never see her participating in any activity related to the organization of her house with real commitment. She is almost never at home, her routine oscillates between aerobics classes taken with a lack of enthusiasm, and daily lunches with her friends. She has no opinions of her own and constantly falls into manipulation.

Some small incidents – jokes, excessive smoke from a cargo truck, the purchase of furniture- begin to awake a strange illness inside her. One day, Carol suffers a coughing fit while driving, she begins to have migraines, lack of sex appetite, and extreme fatigue. Initially, these signs and symptoms appears to be normal, as her doctor insists that there’s nothing to worry about. But soon, Carol’s health starts to deteriorate brutally, as severing courses of nosebleeds and constant vomiting develop into anxiety attacks and disturbing seizures. The film gradually turns into an intense and mysterious psychological drama about an illness related to the lack of immunity against environmental pollution. Her unknown health
problem leads Carol to consult an allergist and a psychiatrist, without resulting in a specific diagnosis.
 
The failure of conventional medicine prompts her to contact a weird
character named Peter Dunning (Peter Friedman), a carrier of HIV. Peter turns out to be a demagogue and a charlatan, who practices alternative medicine and runs a village of chalets in the area of Wrenwood, New Mexico. He welcomes those affected by environmental or unknown diseases. He transmits confidence, serenity and hope; but Carol’s sickness and the affections of the community’s members don’t improve at all. Away from her husband who visits her regularly, Carol begins to deteriorate physically and mentally inside this disturbing and ‘safe’ village. 
 
Todd Haynes crafts a thought-provoking and marvelous parable about the risks and irreversible damages that the progressive contamination of the planet can cause on human health. This film is also a complex and difficult analysis of the fears that plague the new societies. Starting from the vital anguish of a wealthy class woman and stable social position, Haynes dissects the steps of psychic self-destruction, based on a strange disease that causes psychosomatic reactions to pollution and chemicals of our era. The film also portrays a social scope on the diseases of the new millennium (anxiety, depression, AIDS, and most recently COVID-19/Coronavirus).

Throughout history, we have seen countless examples that involve fear of contact between people, as well as racism. In medieval Europe, Jews were blamed for the Black Plague that killed millions of people. In nineteenth-century New Orleans, black people were blamed for the Yellow Fever. In the 1980s, homosexuals were blamed for spreading AIDS. There’s a parallel between the fear that the white community in the San Fernando Valley in Safe has of immigrants who are “invading” the area (the subject is highlighted during a conversation during dinner about Rory’s duties), and the disease that this same community is causing Carol. The film is about people being afraid of others, and people being afraid of the unknown (technology, chemicals) and what the repercussions are on communities and big cities.

In technical matters, the film is very effective: in addition to the abundance of focused shots, the images constantly show us the interactions of the characters (especially Carol) with the environment that surrounds them: the viewer feels the pollution and disorder of an enormous city like Los Angeles. Then, images delve into those famous luxurious surroundings that are located in the suburbs of this city, offering us various spaces of hygiene and excessive artificiality in which Carol moves when her crises get worse. Ed Tomney‘s soundtrack also helps to craft a truly horrifying atmosphere, you can hear a great influence from the music of Angelo Badalamenti (Twin Peaks). The music is composed of dark, brooding synthesizers and tragic piano crescendos, as well as intoxicating vibraphone echoes. It all translates into a musical combination that will leave your mind intoxicated.

Safe is a much more intricate film than it seems. The story leaves responses to problems that are never fully defined as “real” or “fictitious”. It’s true that there is a huge percentage of population with autoimmune diseases like Systemic lupus erythematosus, Rheumatoid arthritis, Psoriasis, Myasthenia gravis), but what the film ends up questioning are the methods to fight these and all kinds of rare diseases. The real horror finally concentrates on the suffocating emptiness and monotony of Carol’s existence. Nevertheless, Safe doesn’t give immediate answers, but strongly resonates after it leaves the screen.

by Octavio Carbajal Gonzalez