Film Fest 919: VOX LUX: Disturbing, Dazzling Tale Of A Pop Star’s Rise

Awards season has only just begun, but I’m fairly certain that one of my favorite activities of the year will be explaining Vox Lux to my friends who have no clue what it is. I’m just assuming the description of “pop star movie with multiple mass shootings” will turn people off.

And maybe it should? Watching Vox Lux was one of those weird experiences where I spent a good bit of the runtime wondering what other people in the theater could possibly be thinking. Were they seeing this? Did they have any clue what they were getting into? Were they as impressed and terrified as I was? It’s kind of an unbelievable movie, and it’s guaranteed to provoke some passionate responses, both from supporters and detractors. After all, being provocative is basically this film’s modus operandi.

As someone who is undeniably susceptible to movies with a penchant for the extreme, I must admit that Vox Lux bowled me over. It begins with probably the most disturbing sequence I’ve seen this year, and yet it continues to compel for nearly two hours after that. Even as things gets a bit too heavy-handed for the film’s own good, writer/director Brady Corbet‘s mastery of style and mood never ceases to amaze. It’s a gripping, maybe even masterful film, exploring the contradictions of this moment in history with an eye for the absurd and reaching a delightfully preposterous conclusion in the process. I’m not sure how seriously we’re supposed to take all of Vox Lux‘s boundless audacity, but that same audacity makes it impossible to look away.

Tragic Stardom In The 21st Century

The story of Celeste begins in the late 1990s with a haunting prologue, at a time when the future pop star is just a teenage girl (played by Raffey Cassidy). One day at school, a young boy with a gun shows up and walks right into her classroom. He shoots the teacher, yelling at everyone to get back against the wall. Celeste tries to reason with him. For a moment, he seems receptive, even taking out the black contact lenses and remarking that he’s already killed enough people today. Celeste says that she’ll wait with him for the police to arrive. When he asks what they’ll do as they wait, the budding star says they’ll pray together.

Almost instantly, the shooter opens fire.

When the SWAT team arrives, there are bodies everywhere inside the classroom (including the shooter). Celeste herself clings to life; she’s rushed to a hospital, where she’s saved at the 11th hour. At a vigil for the victims of the massacre, Celeste performs a song in honor of the friends and classmates lost to this senseless violence.

Overnight, the young girl becomes a sensation, as the nation projects their grief onto this brave victim and moving performer. Celeste is recruited by a music manager (Jude Law), and she becomes an international pop star beloved by millions. Yet the tragedy of that fateful day still hangs over her whole life, and the continual decline of America marks another blow to her spirit.

Cut to (roughly) the present day. We witness another shooting, this time on a beach in Europe. What does this have to do with Celeste? Well, the shooters decided to wear masks from one of the singer’s most famous videos. Was it intended as an attack on her music? A reference to her rise to popularity in the wake of tragedy? Nobody knows. Celeste is now an adult (Natalie Portman) with a child of her own (also played by Cassidy), and let’s just say the last few years haven’t been too kind to our protagonist. She’s on the cusp of a rebirth, but personal squabbles and more spiritual issues might just get in the way.

A Wild Blend Of Violence, Celebrity & Politics

If you weren’t already familiar with Vox Lux, you’re probably wondering what exactly it’s even trying to do. It’s the kind of movie that seems like it could go off the rails pretty quickly. But it doesn’t. In short, Corbet has made an almost unfathomably pessimistic fable about the deep bond between tragedy, the media, and stardom in an age of religious emptiness, using Celeste’s journey as an eerie, hyperbolic extension of the American culture of violence and carnage. It’s victim as celebrity and celebrity as victim, stuck in an endless cycle of rebirth with no real progress happening in the meantime.

The star persona of Celeste is born from great anguish, and the system destroys her until any semblance of personality has been consumed entirely. This consumption is apparent in the performances of Raffey Cassidy and Natalie Portman, who are working at such vastly different pitches that it seems like they’re virtually two separate characters. Cassidy‘s Celeste (let’s put aside her equally strong take on Albertine, Celeste’s daughter, who almost seems like the living embodiment of what Celeste left behind in childhood) is soft-spoken and kindhearted, essentially just a child forced to deal with grueling physical and emotional pain. We see that grief deepen and manifest in new, more troublesome ways as the film continues, but Cassidy remains committed to a gentle, reflective key.

When Portman enters, the kindness and empathy of Celeste evaporates. The Oscar winner employs a heavy accent and an effortlessly cool sense of swagger, creating the image of the pop star as a cynical, nasty product of the business. She also doesn’t have a good thing to say about anyone, especially her once-beloved sister (Stacy Martin).  Portman‘s performance is almost all mannerisms and bravado, but I think that’s kind of the point. Celeste is now an idea rather than a person; she lost her heart and soul in the decade we skipped.

This is pop music as mass delusion, a perpetual distraction gifted to an unsuspecting victim from Satan himself (I’m not kidding, this is one of the film’s points). If it all sounds a little ridiculous, well, I won’t deny that. Vox Lux‘s absurd, pitch black treatment of its basic premise is destined to be off-putting, but its scathing ambition as a work of social analysis and provocation is nearly overwhelming. Even in just 110 minutes, the film covers a lot of ground, taking aim at institutions and cultural touchstones with perverse glee.

Brilliant Filmmaking By Brady Corbet

Vox Lux is also a work of profound dread. The threat of violence looms large over every second of the film, from the paralyzing opening scene to the gonzo concert finale. Going in, I was aware that the story somehow involved a school shooting, but I had no idea what would be shown and what would be implied. And while there’s very little actual bloodshed, Corbet‘s treatment of the scene is blunt and forcefully effective; he doesn’t turn his camera away from the aftermath or the extreme terror of a lone gunman. It’s the rare opening sequence so harrowing that its impact is felt in every subsequent scene.

This is another way of saying that Corbet is the real star of Vox Lux. Sure, Portman steals the show with her no-holds-barred performance, but the director’s perspective is omnipresent, possibly even personified by voiceover from Willem Dafoe. At just 30 years old, Corbet is already something of a genius behind the camera, staging scenes with an eye for precise formal brilliance and maximum impact.

Perhaps best of all, Corbet knows how to slowly craft an unsettling, quietly frightening atmosphere. Nothing ever sits right in Vox Lux; the film feels both otherworldly and disturbingly recognizable, happening in a grounded realm just outside our grasp. The director gets an assist from composer Scott Walker and cinematographer Lol Crawley, both of whom are indispensable in the combination and collision of pop imagery and icy slices of Americana. The chapter structure, the assortment of directorial influences, the meticulously distant filmmaking – Corbet‘s each and every move only pulls us further into his grasp.

Vox Lux: Conclusion

Vox Lux is a weighty experience guaranteed to take a toll on viewers, both from its philosophical musings and its uncompromising look at 21st century violence. But even as I pushed through my last day at Film Fest 919, the hypnotic effect of Corbet‘s sophomore outing kept me under its spell. This is a dazzling film, functioning best as a weird and incisive summary of the odd century we live in, as interpreted by a budding directorial icon. I won’t pretend that it’s any kind of definitive work, but it’s mesmerizing and haunting nonetheless, firing on all cylinders from start to finish. I could have kept watching for hours.

But good luck to NEON in their quest to sell this as an Oscar contender. They’ll need it.

Are you excited for Vox Lux? Were you a fan of The Childhood of a Leader, Brady Corbet’s first feature? Let us know in the comments below!

Vox Lux screened on October 7 at Film Fest 919 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It will be released in the US on December 7, 2018. For full international release information, click here.