Haywire

The only aspect of Haywire that dampens my enthusiasm after watching it is the fact that the very existence of Soderbergh’s film reminds me how much the action genre has been degraded in Hollywood and elsewhere over the past two decades. When an action thriller in which the main character is a woman who, however, does not have to balance her active role in the narrative and her physical dominance in the action scenes through stylisation into a fetishistic object, is made by a director who is said to combine commercial and artistic tendencies in his work and who is considered to be unique in the contemporary film industry, it is more than an alarming message about the current norm against which the given film is defined. Gone are the days when action B-movies were seemingly made on an assembly line in Hong Kong, momentarily making minor stars out of female athletes and stuntwomen (Yukari Oshima, Michiko Nishiwaki, Cynthia Rothrock), and where a condition for achieving stardom was not only good looks, but also physical fitness (Michelle Yeoh, Moon Lee and Cynthia Khan had undergone many years of dance training).  The main attractions of those films were the actresses’ physical fitness and their willingness to do all of the stunts themselves. Therefore, various attempts to revitalise or recall this production method in the new millennium teeming with digital effects and dainty models seem extremely counterproductive. The situation in Hollywood is even more dire. Though everybody will recall Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hamilton, it is necessary to recognise that, outside of James Cameron’s iconic films, they didn’t get cast as action heroines anywhere else. Contemporary action films feature model-thin actresses like Milla Jovovich, while stronger, physically fit actresses, athletes and stuntwomen (e.g. Michelle Rodriguez and Zoe Bell) are relegated to supporting roles or “honorary” cameo roles. Gender-based interpretations can hardly be avoided when action heroines can exist only if they simultaneously allow themselves to be dominated by the male gaze as fetishised objects. Haywire (and Soderbergh’s other two films based on the combination of a subject and a performer in a similar environment, The Girlfriend Experience and Magic Mike) clearly demonstrates how much can be added to a film when the action heroine is played by a woman who is truly physically capable and can actually handle all of the action scenes without the use of filmmaking illusions. At the same time, unfortunately, the film’s tepid reception also illustrated the extent to which today’s viewers are accustomed to the contemporary trend consisting in the immersive falsity of the chaotic style used in all current action blockbusters. What was inventive in The Bourne Supremacy unfortunately became a scourge that overwhelmed all contemporary production. The reasons for the proliferation of this style are clear at first glance: it enables films to give the impression of dynamic action while faking depth by engaging performers whose qualities are primarily related to acting, not physical ability (breaking movement down into a mass of miniature fragments so that even the most physically unfit actor can look like an action hero), as well as dramatic directors (action scenes today are allegedly shot mainly by the second unit; with the exception of Michael Bay, there are no A-list directors who specialise in action movies and have their own style). The action film has reached an absurd stage where the audience cannot appreciate the physical attractions that ruled the genre from the 1970s to the end of the millennium, but instead demands a chaotic mish-mash that evokes the impression of insanely dynamic action and money shots enhanced through camerawork and digital effects. Soderbergh points out the audience’s dependence on cinematic deception when, instead of creating chaos through editing and camerawork with raging music, he uses slow motion to show the grace and effectiveness of physical combat in extraordinarily long shots without music. Haywire thus stands apart not only from fake blockbusters, but also from B-movies that, in opposition to the mainstream, are built on the physical skills of the actors and contact action, but often excessively weigh that attraction down with ostentatious visual quirks. At first glance, Haywire seems like an ordinary film, but it is very sad that today it is in fact a completely exceptional work. (2013-09-15) (less) (more)