Why incredible films can and should be pretty
When I first saw Agnes, portrayed by Jessie Buckley, in a scarlet dress curled amongst the roots of that gnarled old tree, I was blown away. This was going to be an incredibly visually exciting film.
I had listened to an interview with Chloé Zhao before seeing the film in the cinema, where she talked about her relationship to colour as a director. She explained about her Chinese heritage and her decision to assign Agnes and William chakra colours; Agnes would be red and William would be blue. And as I sat in the front row (so close I was transported into Zhao’s world) I noticed the way colour theory aided the story telling and visual communication of the film.
Chakras are energy sources stemming from Buddhist and Hindu culture. William Shakespeare’s blue is symbolic of the upper chakra and intellectualism. His grey-blue clothes reflect the English sky, connecting him to Agnes’ hawk and his eventual move to London. However, if you have read or watched Hamnet, you’ll see how his intellectualism means he lives in his head, a contrast to Agnes’ physicality and passion.
Zhao visualises this contrast by clothing Agnes in a deep red, representative of the root chakra, the beating heart, the lava at the centre of the earth. She is fiery and in touch with her femininity. This red reflects the pain we watch her endure, reminding us of menstrual blood and the violence that comes with being a woman and a mother. At no point in the film does she blend in with her surroundings. Zhao makes it clear that this woman is always completely herself but is not closed off to the world around her. Despite the contrast between the red dress and the green forest, Agnes is deeply connected to the natural world. Colour theory means that these colours are complimentary and, despite their positions opposite each other on the colour wheel, just work — much like the nature of Agnes and William’s relationship. When Agnes travels to London to see Hamlet, she stands out amongst William’s blue and grey crowd, but she is still part of it. She reaches out her hand to the actor on stage and everyone follows – this crowd is bonded by their emotional reaction to theatre. Zhao uses colour and cinematic shots to show the beauty in the colliding of worlds.
So often I watch visually stunning movies, where not a lot happens plot-wise, and so often the stills from blockbuster, plot-twist, big budget movies are not as cinematic as I would like. Hamnet does not compromise on either— its stills look like carefully composed photographs. The story-telling, acting and emotion were not lost in the attempt to make the shots beautiful, and every shot was beautiful.
Good films can and should be pretty, and Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet is a testament to that.
“Jessie Buckley at the Toronto International Film Festival 01 (cropped)” by Jay Dixit is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
