People Get Lost At Saltburn: A Video Essay

okay oh god oh no please not the drain not the drain oh in a world full of cash grabby reboots and phoned in Marvel movies giant oh look at I find more and more that I'm drawn to and delighted by any film that is strange or at the very least somewhat original I respect commitment to a Vibe and so it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that I really enjoyed saltburn but a lot of people didn't so let's talk about it saltburn is a 2023 psychological Thriller and dark comedy written and directed by Emerald Fel best known for writing and directing promising young women we were kids if I hear that one more time it stars Barry kyogen who played Dominic in the Banshees of in Sharon you probably wouldn't never want to I don't know fall in love with a boy like me would you no Dominic I don't think think so love there goes that dream as Oliver quick a poor scholarship student who becomes enamored with his wealthy classmate Felix Katen played by Jacob a Lordi who you may recognize from Euphoria or the kissing booth the film takes place in 2006 to 2007 at Oxford University and at saltburn the wealthy country estate of the catten family it's an unsettling twisty erotic film that effectively subverts genre tropes and expectations and almost makes you pity the awful cat and family it's a whirlwind of love lust pining scheming and transgression all wrapped up in a deliciously elevated midat Tumblr aesthetic with a smattering of iconic 2000's Fashions despite its Vibes forward approach saltburn features some surprisingly deep symbolism and themes so let's work our way through the peculiar maze that is this divisive film as we unpack it I went into salurn with very little prior information and if you haven't seen it I would recommend you do the same because I am about to spoil everything and the movie is a lot more fun if you don't know where they're going with it right away also content warning for violence death and other mature themes the initial conceit of saltburn is deceptively simple an awkward lower-class boy befriends and becomes captivated by a handsome wealthy classmate as he's introduced to a world of wealth and privilege that he longs to be a part of it feels like a movie we've seen a thousand times Regina's like the Barbie doll I never had I'd never seen anybody So Glamorous the weird thing about hanging out with Regina was that I could hate and at the same time I still wanted her to like me same with Gretchen the meaner Regina was to her the more Gretchen tried to win Regina back do you think he'll be jealous honestly I don't think I'll even [ __ ] register and yet from the beginning there's something off about Oliver the film opens with a voiceover as Oliver explains insistently that he loved Felix but he wasn't in love with him I wasn't in love with him I know I thought I was but I wasn't yeah okay sure buddy and of course it's all set to a pining idyllic montage and this gives us a very important piece of information right away Oliver is a lying liar face Who Lies the Montage is immediately followed by oli's arrival at Oxford from his very first moments on campus he's a bit of an outcast the closest thing he has to a friend is Michael I'm Michael Gaby I'm a genius this incredibly intense math kid ask me some it's not like I don't believe you please come on no I believe ask me something then Michael has no filter and calls things as he sees them NFI me and you not [ __ ] invited he's honestly a bit of a dick poor lonely Oliver watches the cool kids from afar but his prospects improve when he bumps into Felix who is moping about his bike having a flat tire he's worried about being late to class so Oliver lends him his bike yeah I'm already up for skying last week so which Felix thanks him profusely for I love I love you I love you I love you seriously thank you so much so kind later Felix cheerfully greets him at the pub oh there he is Ollie Oliver Oliver come here me and Ollie ditches Michael immediately while Felix seems to like Oliver he's the only one no one wants to sit next to [ __ ] Oliver why not cuz he's a scholarship boy who buys his clothes from oxan his friends especially his cousin Farley played by Archie MC look down on him hey your around man go B I should go to bed wait no no no no no no you can't sneak your way out of the ground Farley constantly makes snide comments to put Oliver in his place yeah the sleeves are too long always check the sleeves from the moment he first lays eyes on him he seems to have a problem with him though by the end of the film it's hard to blame him throughout the movie It's implied that Oliver is just Felix's charity case of the moment and it's only a matter of time before he tires of him and casts him aside he'll get bored of you boot liquer just as it seems like they were right and Felix is pulling away uh I've got some revising to do I think I might too I might catch you later yeah Oliver finds out his father died he tells Felix who reacts kindly what's happened and shares a family funeral ritual with him so in my family we have this tradition right when somebody dies we write their name on a stone and we Chuck it in the river it's the thought that counts you know the first time I felt the inside my mom's red I was eight my dad told me I had to stick my fingers in to make her sick Oliver confides the rest of his troubled home life to Felix so home doesn't mean the same for me as it does for you Felix who invites him to spend the summer at his family estate saltburn so he won't have to go home well why don't you come home with me come to Soul B Oliver agrees and next thing we know he's arriving at the gates of this absurd Bridgerton looking Mansion under the disapproving Gaze of Duncan the veteran head Butler who also has an instant disdain for him you're early got the earlier train well do let us know next time you see the gates were not [Music] open Felix introduces both us and olly to saltburn with a tour of the house though the camera stays focused on Felix rather than the Magnificent surroundings just like oli's attention does he tells Olie they'll be sharing a bathroom oh by the way we're going to be sharing a bathroom hope you don't mind otherwise you're being mil into the house which comes into play later in a memorable way [Music] but we'll get to that after settling in Olie seeks out the cat and family and overhears them discussing his tragic backstory is that right he had to put his fingers down his mother's throat to make F that's private stuff well you told us of which Felix has spared no detail they immediately switch gears when he enters the room no we were just talking about you don't be silly Harley you just make up most awful things of course we weren't and the family welcomes him to saltburn hello Oliver darling Oh what beautiful eyes along with fellow charity cases Farley and poor dear Pamela this is my dear friend Pamela who's been staying with us hey played by Carrie Mulligan who also played Cassie in promising young woman the family is charming despite their obvious superficiality yeah I told you it wasn't a MinGa oh but darling you're kind about everyone you can't be trusted that's the thing about this family is that we all think we're armed against it we all think we're not going to fall for this sort of thing and then the moment you meet them they just take your power away and that's what elsabeth Katen does so effectively with her kind of like beam of attention darning tell me about your mother how is she bearing up still drinking stop elth seems particularly taken with Oliver's tale of Woe I've lost so many friends to addiction so so many dear dear friends it's the root of poor P's Horrors too I'm afraid we also meet the patriarch of the family Sir James played by Richard E Grant do stop poor boys only just arrived Oliver how good to finally meet you and Felix's sister venisha played by Alison Oliver who looks at olly like she wants to eat him the family surrounds him in a vulture moment as finel describes it there's a sort of vulture moment when they're all on him all the time desperate to get information about his tragic past you know they've all got a fetish for broken Birds they've all got a savior complex nothing shocks me Oliver absolutely nothing tell me everything both Felix and elth insist that the vibe is relaxed no just be yourself I love you it's relaxed I promise oh God don't with the S no no no we can't stand anything like that here but it's the kind of place where people dress for dinner dress for dinner yeah is like it's like black tie that night olly sees venisha outside his window they have a sweet moment and he gives her a blanket leaving himself seemingly vulnerable she tells him I'm cold blooded we're all cold blooded haven't you noticed but he disagrees you're up cold blooded your family so kind to me vanisha leaves him with a reminder that he's not the first friend Felix has brought home to saltburn you're so um real I think I like you even more than last year's one despite an awkward exchange over some eggs at breakfast is everything okay uh of course yeah just um run eggs I get a bit sick from them so sorry Oliver lands on his feet and begins to adapt to life at saltburn we get a montage of him enjoying his time with Felix and the others yes this movie has so many montages there are also some little moments where he impresses the family like with the bit with the paly plates paly plates do you mean burnard paly the 16th century Hugo stamis which we see he skillfully man factured yes do you know him I've always loved his work but I've never seen anything of his in real life and we're reminded that Olly is a creepy little weirdo when we catch him spying on Felix in the bath while he's enjoying some alone time everyone focuses on what happens immediately after the spying and justifiably so but I think the way that Felix is framed as Oliver the steam the sweat the little hairs on his neck it's sensual but we also feel like we should look away it's the male gaze but directed towards another man after Felix finishes and goes to bed olly descends on the bathtub and slurps up his cloudy bath water listen I get what they're trying to get across here and I'm not even mad about the bath water but tonging the drain is where I draw the line finel said in an interview that she views this scene as deeply erotic rather than shocking and gross okay like yes drinking someone's bath water is a meme on Extreme desire sure but it's also totally gross and there's still an element of violation and transgression to it this is not a healthy normal sort of love from this point we see Oliver take more control over his Dynamic with the family starting with elth when they're alone and waiting for everyone else he makes a pass at her because you're so [ __ ] beautiful but when she deflects he pivots immediately and asks about Pamela who's no longer at saltburn what do you think uh Pamela will be wearing tonight what oh Pamela's not here he assuages El Beth's guilt over turning poor dear Pamela away I know she's had a hiest time in the past few years but honestly she did go on about it all of it was true by implying that Pamela was lying about the perilousness of her situation the stories to they seemed a bit inconsistent at times I thought you noticed it too oh yes I had absolutely elth instantly latches onto his interpretation I was feeling quite guilty about it this afternoon but you're absolutely right there was actually something quite Sinister about her because it allows her to feel good about herself Ela is fascinating because she Revels in gossiping about the intimate details of people's lives have to admit she's very beautiful but has any ever really been a curse I mean the men Oliver you wouldn't believe it the latest one is some ghastly Russian billionaire and she'd been held up here for months hiding from him strangers friends even her own daughter and then there's all the stuff with the food what stuff fingers for Pudding we thought she'd grow out of it but she couches everything in faint concern she has an aversion to ugliness both emotional and visual I have a complete and utter horror of ugliness ever since I was very young I don't know why Always preferring to conceal and avoid that night Oliver has an encounter with venisha when she appears outside his window again this time the dynamic totally shifts Oliver is confident Comm demanding there's even this bit where he like tries to daddydom her out of an eating disorder so tomorrow you're going to eat and then you're going to stay at the table I hate it she tries to discourage him from eating her out it's not the right time of the month there something you think I'm worried about but he's not perturbed it's lucky for you I'm a vampire real Edward cenow with this guy I've never wanted a human's blood so much in my life and he's back in the tub in another moment of transgression as he submerges his Blood Stained mouth cool Co cool the next morning venisha doesn't stay at the table as instructed obviously Oliver has clearly had less influence than he thought El Beth declares they should throw a fancy dress party for Oliver's birthday and they settle on A Midsummer Night's Dream for the theme I can my suit elth Farley tries to drive a wedge between Felix and olly by telling him about venisha you stupid little boy when Felix asks him about it it's just slightly bad for him that's all that's bad for him what do you think getting with Venicia Ollie Ollie just flat out denies it finy said you two were practically eating each other oh and you believe him me and Venicia come on and Felix believes him oh thank God Felix reveals another friend fell out of his good graces after having a thing with venisha you know I thought we had another Eddy situation and Oliver steers clear of her the the next time she appears outside his window poor dear Pamela dies off screen God I wish we didn't have to go to London I didn't know you going to London Pamela's funeral and elisabeth's reaction is fair on brand for her I'm died she do anything for attention it turns out Pamela wasn't exaggerating after all we met him we have him he was just so lovely at first and all of his business partners started sort of falling out of Windows and she also clearly predicted her own demise daddy always said that end up at the some of the [Music] TS one evening some of Sir james' friends the Henry's because so many of them are called Henry dad's friends they're all called Henry not all of them just most come over for a dinner party and we get another small moment where it's clear he doesn't understand how things are done with these people me first you're on my left of course Oliver struggles to fit in again save me there's a great scene where he tries to approach Farley by taking advantage of an argument he witnessed between him and Felix about money I mean you do know how this looks making me come to you with a begging Bowl what are you implying I think you know what I'm implying and uses it to try to Cozy up to him well I know you're going through a hot time at home I know how that feels Farley isn't falling for it though and embarrasses him by getting him to sing rent by the Pet Shop Boys during karaoke I love you you pay my rent although olly does turn it around on him a bit too this is your song as well FY come finish it you took me to a that night he sneaks into Farley's room to threaten him in a sexually charged encounter are you going to behave him no on Farley no don't make me ask again man he's a weird little dude but Farley seems to be into it I'm scaroused although Farley succumbing to Oliver even for a second does feel a bit out of character with everything leading up to this point so far the next morning Farley is accused of allegedly emailing Sobe's to try and sell one of the paly plates he trying to n something what are you talking about the family is furious and sends him away with Farley gone Oliver is feeling pretty comfortable at saltburn on his birthday Felix proposes a road trip morning birthday boy get dressed we're going on a road trip and he's elated until he realizes they're on route to his home where discovers Olly is a pathological liar when they pull up to a very nice well-kept house and olie's sweet mom and very alive dad come to the door to greet them this scene is absolutely excruciating as alli's parents go on and on about all the obvious lies he's told them about Oxford he the top scholar at Oxford the top scholar God he's so modest you know I I had no idea and Felix begins to process the extent of alli's manipulation to Felix's credit he doesn't rat Ollie out to his parents or to the cens can you not tell your family please of course not [ __ ] hell it's dark enough as it is but he is disgusted with him and wants nothing more to do with him it's just a stupid thing it's [ __ ] weird is what it is M honestly I don't even know where to start I mean you're a [ __ ] liar Ollie Ollie begs his forgiveness but Felix tells him to go home after the party Felix please let me just explain I think the best thing is that you go home after your party saltburn makes numerous literary references throughout the film sounds like an even one of them character is based in my family actually particularly to Greek mythology and Shakespeare the latter is given an nod during the tour shakes folio and of course with the theme of Oliver's party which is predictably lavish with over-the-top decorations Moody lighting and loads of people none of whom Oliver knows he's dressed in a puckish Ensemble with antlers which may also reference another film where Barry kogan plays a weird little creep undermining a wealthy family the killing of a sacred deer I personally wasn't a fan but it's objectively well crafted and he is great in it it's the only thing I can think of as close to J referencing A Midsummer Night's Dream is a particularly interesting choice considering that it's thought to have been written to be presented during a wedding as part of an aristocratic Carnival the Wikipedia page for the play includes a quote from David WS that states the audience who saw the play in the public theater in the months that followed became vicarious participants in an aristocratic Festival from which they were physically excluded stating that it demonstrates how closely the play is integrated with a historically specific upper class celebration this mirrors Oliver's provisional inclusion in the world of the cat and family though he isn't experiencing it vicariously he is still excluded an outsider looking in who will never actually belong this is crystallized in a conversation with Farley who Oliver is shocked to see has been welcomed back to saltburn when he appears next to him dressed as bottom complete with a donkey mask have they seen you yet got go ballistic they invited me he tells olly he'll never be able to return to saltburn because this place you know it's not for you and that he'll never be able to recapture this summer with Felix Oliver is once in a lifetime golden Big Boy Summer but you don't get it back as if proving farly right there's a particularly brutal moment where everyone sings happy birthday but no one remembers who the party is for happy birday [ __ ] I can't remember say olly finds Felix who is wearing wings that look strikingly like the ones that Juliet wears in baz lerman's 1996 film and begs him to talk to him he can't ignore me forever I can try Felix we need to talk but Felix is not having It Felix come on man try to you [ __ ] off somebody else this is the moment that hardens oli's resolve and leads to the downfall of the caten family interspersed throughout the film are shots of saltburn intricate hedge maze which dominates a portion of the grounds behind the house it's really important to me that it was a real workable maze I read about a man named Adrien Fischer who's the world's foremost and I think only maze designer I just had two stipulations there were two ways of getting into the center of the maze one should be the hardest maze he's ever designed and then the other is the cheats route at its Center is a towering Minotaur statue Oliver tracks down Felix again beneath the statue and drunkenly pleads with him one last time get the [ __ ] away from me look I just gave you what you wanted everyone puts on a show for Felix but Felix makes it clear he will never forgive him not how much I [ __ ] know you I don't know what you are but I do know you you make my [ __ ] bloodle Oliver leaves seemingly dejected I think you should go to bed I don't care what you think anymore the next morning Felix's body is found in the [Music] Maze We don't ever really see it just the top of his head and his wings but somehow he looks so small sir James's reaction to the Discovery is particularly heartbreaking just need to get him warmed up phis darling where's your jumper some have read Oliver as a representation of the minitar in Greek myth the minitar is a half bull half man spawned by the God's revenge on King MOS of creit when they had his wife procreate with a prize bull he refused to give an offering the minitar kills young men and women who are sent into the maze as sacrifices this sounds more like Felix with his parade of downtrodden friends he trapes us through saltburn and then casts aside Oliver reads to me as Theus who slays the minitar although he is certainly no hero in the aftermath we see the different ways the family reacts to Felix's death elth and Sir James handle it in a very English way Oliver darling why didn't you tell us about last night last night did you have a lovely Time by trying to have lunch as if nothing has happened I don't normally like chocolate cake yes it can be gling can't it although there are these horrible sad comedic moments where Duncan interrupts because the police can't find their way through the maze they keep getting lost in the Maze may I send one of the gardens to assist or he needs to close the curtains while the coroner moves the body what no may I be permitted to close the curtains the coroner's outside yes thank you there's a bit where he struggles with the drapes while trying to get them closed cold hands apparently you have to have cold hands mm i' I've s b it doesn't melt the family is frustrated with him them just get them clothed for Christ sake yes sir he apologizes and for a moment we see his grief all over his face as he tries to remain composed I'm so sorry I'm so sorry it is a beautiful performance by Paul ree you know he would have been there for whole of Felix's life and me and Paul talked a lot about how much he loved him everyone tries to ignore the sick squeaking of the gurnie as it passes Farley has a bit of a breakdown we haven't finished lunch you want me just eat it like nothing's happening what else is there to do darling which sets Sir James off will you be quiet sit down and eat the bloody pie you're not the only person here with feelings none of us wants your bloody American feelings Farley turns on Oliver and asks what he's still doing there I think it's delicious what the [ __ ] are you still doing here wa does no one else find it weird and Oliver gets him kicked out again this time presumably for Good by revealing he was on drugs when Felix died I would feel guilty too guilty was the one racking up lines the night someone died Venicia numbly guzzles wine as the scene unfolds such follow is wrong yes no I wouldn't mention this to the police that's all you'll get ever again I think venisha represents ariadne minos's daughter and the sister of the Minotaur Who falls in love with Theus but is ultimately abandoned by him sir James represents King MOS who is betrayed by Theus who takes both the minitar and ariadne from him Beth likely represents pacif sorry if I'm pronouncing that wrong minos's wife who is often framed as being cursed by Beauty which nicely relates to El Beth's distaste for anything she deems as ugly I have a complete and utter horror of ugliness ever since I was very young I don't know why to the extent that she represses and twists anything negative I think it was a hit don't you darling Oh yes a Triumph yes the house look good didn't it [Music] beautiful after Farley is banished Oliver and the family attend a funeral for Felix and they throw a stone in the water for him presumably after everyone else has gone home Oliver has a moment alone with Felix's grave it's a gesture that's sad futle and even pathetic as Emerald Fel describes it it's intended to mirror a scene in weathering Heights where Heathcliff digs down to Katherine's grave in an act of Gothic romance steeped in death desperation and need later Oliver retrieves Felix's Stone from the water in another attempt to possess him things move pretty quickly after the funeral elth asks Oliver to stay you're not going anywhere Oliver telling I was just going upstairs you're not leaving San even though his ongoing Presence at saltburn feels more inappropriate by the minute Oliver walks in on venisha in the bath and she lets him know that she sees him I saw you sobbing in the church at the funeral I watched you weeping away and I just felt so sorry for you and I remembered she reminds him he only actually knew Felix for like 6 months you hardly knew him you have nothing to do with him with us with her and she tells him he's like a moth drawn to shining pting up against the window she smells Felix's aftershave on him and says oh my God you ate him right up and you lak the [ __ ] plate which reminds us of all 's earlier proclamation of vampirism it's luy for you H vampire the next morning we see venisha in a tub full of blood which I'm not going to show because it's pretty graphic but it adds to the vampire element and how blood was Central to their initial encounter as well with venisha gone Sir James asks Oliver to leave I think it's time Oliver you to go home discreetly tonight it would be best if the family was able to grieve in private and he refuses just don't think I can leave her in this thing you won't go I don't see how I come taking advantage of El's desire to keep him around how much will you to leave and never come back to cease all contact with my wife why because we all have to move on it's not until Sir James offers him a check that we see olly finally leave saltburn inauspiciously through the servants entrance we cut to a few years later sometime after the pandemic began based on the masked waiter in the background Ollie sits in a trendy Cafe working on his laptop and by totally random chance bumps into elth as they greet each other we're also shown Oliver reading sir James's obituary I read the news about Sir James I'm so dreadfully sorry I was surprised he waited so long elth is pleased to see him and invites him back to saltburn come up and stay get salurn cast is clear now isn't it we cut to a few months later and find out that the voiceover has actually been Oliver confessing to elth who is now withered and barely resembles the flighty former model from the start of the film she too has been consumed I loved them by God I loved them sometimes I and we get a final Montage showing all the deceptive things Oliver has done up to this point before he pulls the plug I hate look and you made it so [Music] easy some of it was obvious in the Moment Like setting up Farley but the real stunner is the r reveal that he popped Felix's bike tire to manufacture their first meeting I think this can be interpreted in two ways either olly was always out for blood and this was his plan from the start or it was just an attempt to manufacture a connection with Felix that spun out of control As He piled on lies and manipulations to keep him interested and then became enraged when it all came crashing down final's intention was the ladder which makes sense considering Oliver didn't start killing people until he was absolutely certain that Felix wasn't going to forgive him everything after words is an effort to possess Felix and the cens it's very if I can't have you no one can the film ends with Oliver dancing naked through the house to murder on the dance floor in a long take that inverts the tour from the start of the [Music] movie ultimately Farley was right that Oliver could never recreate the summer he spent at saltburn with Felix almost a ship of thesia situation in that the house is the same and not the same he's alone in a vast empty mansion with only memories of the time he spent there with Felix his obsession has amounted to a hollow reminder of what he actually wanted but could never have connection I've seen a lot of criticism leveled at saltburn claiming it's style over substance and doesn't have enough to say and while I can agree this movie isn't for everyone I think the emphasis on style is intentional because this is a film about our obsession with beauty our kind of fetishization of like stuff like Oliver we're supposed to be caught up in the beguiling shallow world of saltburn we are supposed to love the cat and family you know he's all way into this world and so it was important for us the audience to desire and understand and love this family this person this place as much as Oliver did and I think the thing is with the caten family Felix included is that they had to have this sort of completely disarm and charm oh but then of course common people came out and everybody thought it was written about me which was completely mortifying but but she came from Greece she had a thirst for knowledge it couldn't have been me i' never wanted to know anything despite what terrible people they are do you have cufflinks though no that's right we'll get it sorted I'll uh I'll get you some Felix does something shitty or callous or capricious or spoiled or misogynistic or gross every scene and people leave the theater and say he's so nice he was so nice and you're like but he wasn't and part of that is understanding why Oliver is so seduced by them he's not nice he's just beautiful the visuals also aren't without purpose often tying into larger themes kind of push in through um Felix Snogging a girl and it's a sort of Red Room s side lit from one practical light and it's got this kind of still life arranged around them almost you know like these sort of beautiful little glinting things that you might have in any of those sort of Renaissance paintings but then when you look closely all the things that are picking up the light are Red Bull cans and old packets of crisps and it's sort of junk but but altogether it makes something beautiful and composed I think that's the thing of film making that's so thrilling is that you know you look once and it's beautiful and you look again and it's disgusting for example there's a reference to a story about a sighting of Percy Shell's doppelganger appearing in front of a window right before he drowned shell walked past the window and waved at her so she waved back before she realized that Shel was in Italy I drown and a doppelganger of Felix walks past the window behind him we see mirrors and Reflections used frequently throughout the film to show doppelgangers of Oli in the different versions he presents to people versus his true self windows and watching someone through them as an expressure of voyerism also come up frequently but also represents alli's nature as an outsider on the other side of the glass looking in the Lush cinematography and detailed set design highlights the ju position between the mundane stuff of living intermixed with the luxurious historic surroundings always which is my obsession is gobbins the stuff of life like the Clutter of life that even if you live in a house like this you have finel deliberately wanted to create the impression that there was a messy C ual to the way people with this kind of wealth inhabit their surroundings cigarettes always everyone's chain smoking Diet Coke empty there's nothing to me that's more satisfying than seeing like this tapestry which is £30,000 worth of kind of Flemish tapestry and then [ __ ] in front of it that's how something becomes alive because they have nothing to prove we see this in things like Felix's messy dorm room at Oxford or the fly paper hanging in the chandeliers at saltburn despite the messiness every frame of this film could be a painting saltburn is also a character in and of itself even the name sounds evocative and costic and a saltburn is something that can actually happen to you the house is beautiful and imposing in a way that feels like it'll swallow you up it's also built for voyerism as old British country houses like these are designed for staff to always be on the fringes to anticipate the residents needs how these houses operate is there are you know there eyes everywhere and that's why it's kind of so thrilling it's why it's got this sort of inbuilt voyerism there's only ever an illusion of privacy so what happens is your bag's unpacked by one of the maids it's the sort of little details of how the house works you know and then anything that she finds in there will make its way probably to Duncan a lot of thought went into ensuring that we see the scale of the house this is a really really good example of why the aspect ratio works you can see the height of this the house is very tall and square we didn't want to be cutting off all the beautiful frescos on the ceilings the square ratio made us made it just much easier to shoot just from a practical Point finel specifically sought out an estate that hadn't been filmed before and stumbled on the perfect house on her first day of location scouting this house has never been seen in anything ever there were no photographs of it on the internet she fell in love with it when she saw expensive marble busts that the owners used to keep hats on the moment I knew that this was saltburn was that they had hats on the busts which do appear in the film as well it gives us the austere old money vibe that suffocates you and sneers at attempts to imitate it while still somehow feeling lived in this is partially expressed through Felix's tour which is riddled with personal details and anecdotes red staircase accidentally think of my cousin here but is mostly dismissive of the rich history of the house GES to Granny hi granny actually the bed's still has some of him the spunk on it it's just not interesting to him because he's always surrounded by it uh dead dead relies Daddy's old Teddy Shakespeare's folio and M the same thing is expressed in the costuming by Sophie canal with Felix it was just this idea that he's the worst dressed person in the world because he's so handsome he actually doesn't need to dress well Felix day today is casual with slouchy Ralph laurent's wrinkled linen shirts and a Liv strong bracelet as he walks around saltburn bare fo so he's always wearing actually he looks as of course completely adorable in an enormous lemon yellow wrinkled um shirt which I think you know he's probably just had underneath his bed he's generally poorly dressed and rumpled because again he's never had to make an effort this contrasts with alli's slightly too new preppy AC ademic style that feels like he bought a whole new wardrobe all at once he never looks comfortable or at ease the way Felix does the rest of the cast is a treasure Trove of perfectly recreated o Trends from the little mini dresses we often see venisha and Annabelle wearing to El Beth's designer Bohemian style they searched high and low for authentic pieces digging in the backs of people's closets and hunting things down on eBay resulting in a look that evokes the era perfectly we also see this contrast during the party scene where Sir James pairs seemingly historic armor pieces with an ordinary modern suit while Elis Beth is dressed in a gold Valentino gown as Titania the queen of the fairies although someone on Twitter pointed out it's actually from the 2018 collection during that scene Olie is wearing a coat that elth would have picked out for him embroidered with oak leaves and secret moths to reference phoenicia's later comments the inclusion of antlers likely is also there to symbolize Oliver's presentation as prey despite his nature of being a predator and we see this in the way he's shot throughout the movie at the start of the film Olie is often shot in a way that makes him seem small insignificant but as the film goes on the Angles and the way in which we see Olli shifts completely Felix's costume is extremely low effort just like everything he wears just a pair of store-bought Juliet wings with a tank top and what looks like Hollister or abber cromie jeans although the wings may also reference Icarus who flew too close to the Sun causing his wax wings to melt and send him plummeting back to earth like Felix does when he discovers Ali's deception I can see why some people hate this movie and its unpleasant emptiness and weird erotic moments I can also understand that it almost seems like we're supposed to be on the Caton's side and that rubs a lot of people the wrong way from the beginning Oliver obviously doesn't like Felix doesn't like Farley doesn't like the kind of thing that they represent their entitle it was really important that when we met Felix that suddenly we all had the same experience of oh he's really nice you know there's a kind of against our will feeling of falling for him too personally the way I see it Oliver is the kind of psychopath that manages to get rich by doing whatever it takes accidents of a people like you for the rest of us there's work and unlike you I actually know how to work he has a shallow affect and lacks any real ability to connect with people constantly trying to give them what he thinks they want the cens have been so wealthy and so privileged for so long they don't see him coming and you made it so easy spoiled dog sleeping Bell up no natural predators and their inability to really engage with reality prevents them from doing anything to stop him before it's too late I don't see it as a cautionary tale about the middle class but rather a warning that wealth and status and its Pursuit create the worst version of people a vacuous and contagious emptiness that eats everyone it touches From the Inside Out saltburn is by no means a masterpiece but there's a mid ODS trashiness and absurdity to it that makes it irresistible to me so you always have that feeling that you know that you're in a painting but you're in the world of kind of 20072 that it's always well what I always felt was it it always needed to be beautiful but also a bit [ __ ] the soundtrack though on the nose at times is a fun burst of nostalgia and is complimented by a score by Anthony Willis inspired by the British coronation [Music] hymn it's a film with a lot of love attention to detail and tongue-in-cheek pretentiousness with a silliness that braces unabashedly whether you love it or hate it it's doubtful you'll forget it but that's just my opinion what did you think about saltburn let me know in the comments down below like share and subscribe for more videos see you next time beer Zay

Channel: Ren Rants

Views: 13,055

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Id: clJV5uQwx5s

Length: 38min 48sec (2328 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 26 2024