#MondayMovies: Marcus Anthony Thomas
Marcus Anthony Thomas
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
-Viktor Frankl
For those not familiar with him, Viktor Frankl was a neurologist, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor who lost his entire family in the concentration camps. His magnum opus, Man’s Search for Meaning, written after counseling fellow prisoners in Auschwitz (many on their way to the gas chambers), may be controversial if released into our world today. For better or for worse, In this current moment, the concept of being triggered and having little control over our reactions to extermal stimuli is widely accepted. Frankl on the other hand - in the face of unimaginable horror - ultimately believed that our suffering is our responsibility. That we choose our reaction to life’s many trials, no matter how terrible they may be.
Man’s Search and Frankl immediately came to mind after watching Marcus Anthony Thonas’ fantastic short film The Retreat. The film follows Mia, a young woman who is struggling to cope with the aftermath of a traumatic event. She can’t sleep. She can’t eat. She can’t live. In her desperation she seeks out the help of a highly secretive retreat lead by a shadowy female figure who claims to have the solution to all of her problems.
Thomas is a writer and director based in Northamptonshire, England and is drawn to, what he calls, films on the “darker end of the spectrum.”
“When I say the darker end of the spectrum, it could just be in terms of subject matter rather than genre as I’m happy to work across them. I’ve previously done comedies, thrillers, horror, sci-fi, drama and documentary…”
Well, The Retreat certainly is not light fair. Rather it is a genrefied look at how our resentment, righteous or otherwise, ultimately only causes more pain. Not just to those we feel resentful towards, but mainly to ourselves. Forgiveness, although not always the most immediately satisfying, oftentimes is the only way to break the cycle of suffering a wrongdoer inflicts. Where do the ideas of forgiveness belong in a culture that views certain people as “irredeemable?” How does accountability exist in a time where the blame game is played on a daily basis?
What is the purpose of a revenge story in 2021? Instead of rooting for the protagonist to get even and destroy the people who have wronged them, maybe it is to question that part of ourselves that thinks others aren’t deserving of our compassion. Maybe instead of rooting for the wronged hero, we instead view their crusade with a skeptical eye, knowing full well that no serenity can be found through hate.
Some food for thought served in delicious thriller fashion from Thomas, who certainly has an incredible future ahead of him.
Where to Watch
See what movies inspired him below!
Brothers
Thomas creates the perfect amount of mystery and intrigue with the movie, giving us just enough information to keep us engaged. This short from Robert Eggers was “a bit of a starting point. It is incredibly simple.”
“You get a very limited look at the scenario and the characters, and your mind does a lot to fill in the gaps. This does a lot to create an interesting, dark world and tone that allows the audience to think anything is possible.”
The Retreat definitely exists in a pretty insane bizarro world, but Thomas’ surreal and stylistic tone allow us to suspend our disbelief.
“I think I wanted to develop a story with a writer and one morning the concept popped into my head... ‘A retreat that uses revenge as a form of therapy’... and then I pitched that to the writer, Tom Van Overloop, and from there our minds began racing with all of the possibilities it opened up. If you have an idea and it gives birth to another 50 little ideas, then it is probably one worth pursuing.”
I don’t know how many of those little ideas made it into the movie, but this certainly explains why it feels so full. When a concept or strong theme supports the world it is felt through every moment, every frame, every breath.
Where to watch
i saw the devil
“I think as children we are taught about the concept of right and wrong, and we carry this binary concept where someone is either good or bad throughout the rest of our lives, when the truth is life is much more grey. Good people can do bad things and vice versa, it all depends on circumstance.
“This movie fucking wild and the moral ambiguity of the film is very interesting. We follow a main character who becomes corrupted by the act of revenge and as we follow the ‘protagonist’ on their journey, we are forced to question at what point is it enough? Will the act of revenge itself ever be enough?”
WHERE TO WATCH
old boy
“Some of my favorite films focus on the act of revenge so I thought I would turn my hand to the subject in some form.”
Why is the revenge flick such a fun ride as an audience? The beautiful rage fantasy that has us carrying out our own form of justice to all of those we believe wronged us. A strange phenomenon that these resentments translate themselves into a very specific story structure…one that this movie examines in a far more introspective and theoretical light (though blood and guts are certainly still part of the deal.)
It makes sense then that one of the masterworks of revenge movies was a huge inspiration to Thomas.
“Old Boy is one of my favorite films of all time. I think watching it had a profound effect on me and my relationship toward cinema, so it was an influence in as much as it helped shape my thoughts on film and it is inherently about the act of revenge.”
Where to wATCH
IDA
“One of the references for the visual style of the film. I’ve never worked with a 4:3 aspect ratio and we made a conscious choice not to move the camera unless we absolutely had to. So the visual style and use of negative space in the frame is something we gleaned from Ida.”