This was such a great watch as a woman myself. It really captured a feeling that is felt in real life but captured in an entertaining way. Great movie and I usually really dislike body horror!
Loved this movie. One of my favorites of the year. Coralie Fargeat is an amazing filmmaker. Enjoyed hearing her talk about the movie. Thank you for posting this interview.
I think every woman should watch this. It really resonated. I went with my spouse who sort of got it. However, afterwards I was able to explain a lot of the metaphors to my husband.
The fact you had to explain the metaphors to your husband is the problem with this film. As women, we get it. We understand this experience. I didn't really learn anything new or mind blowing from this film. Instead we got gratuitous scenes of assess in our faces for probably 30 minutes of the film, with really not much substance behind the characters at all. No humanity or exploration of who they are as people. We shouldn't have to explain this to men, a good film with such subject matters at the centre of it would have done that itself.
Fargeat sounds like an insightful, philosophical cinephile, and she is a gifted visual storyteller. I agree with Fargeat's criticisms of a society that objectifies and sexualizes people (especially women) and that has the wrong reaction to our inevitable mortality though, as a Catholic, I reach her conclusions from a different route than her feminism. For that reason, one criticism that I have with her brilliant and perceptive film is that in addressing the relationship of beauty to aging, her film seems to focus only on physical beauty and ignores the importance of spiritual or inner beauty. Her film is a powerful indictment of society's obsession with youthful, physical beauty, and it rightly advocates for appreciating the different forms of physical beauty as humans pass through the stages of life. It is good that Elisabeth comes to accept herself as she is (even in monstrous form) because the body does deteriorate and it is unhealthy to ignore or fight that reality, but Elisabeth fails to learn that we should never accept our souls as they are because there is always room for improvement as we strive to conform to the image of Christ. Fortunately, spiritual beauty never fades, and God gives us the grace to attain it -- the struggle for virtue is not ours to undertake alone.
Yet all the film does is sexualize women... Mostly Qualley, who seems to get her "big break" from being butt naked in half of the movie; very much like Lily Rose Depp in The Idol. If that's feminism, we're fucked. We are fucked already, she just rubs it in.
Love the podcast content but…why is the Mubi jingle continually playing over the voices in the beginning…? Just a small nitpick. I LOVE this movie. Saw it thrice 👏🏼😊
I struggled to draw anything profound out of The Substance. I left the viewing feeling like I'd just watched an elaborately produced bikini commercial. The film doesn't say anything particularly interesting about desire, age or femininity. I really detest films which shove lots of flesh down your throat, and then pretend to have some grand pretext for debauching your imagination. 'The Substance' is a very close cousin of the 'X/Maxxxine' movies, which combine absolutely irrational scenarios with a script that has been lifted from an 'Archie' comic. The fact that some of this film's most ardent critics are intelligent young women, really says something too. If you look at Rodin's famous sculpture of the aging beauty, it says infinitely more about women and ageing, than this cheap sex-ploitation film.
100% agree. As a woman, this taught me nothing new. A film truly wanting to address this topic in a meaningful way would have given the characters some more depth, some more humanity, because that's a woman's reality. I think the film is actually quite pretentious and I find it unbelievable it won best screenplay. Where's the interesting writing in this movie? I also thought the treatment of the monster was almost humiliating. Doesn't that kind of defeat the point of the film? Felt very empty to me.
Thank you. I'm mortified by the amount of people who applaud this movie that's nothing but "feminist". Utterly disgusting. And I'm not talking about the gore...
@@LuaBloe Thank you, Lua. Women of all backgrounds should be taking up arms, against these smug and insidious attacks on their womanhood, which got rolling with 'Last Tango in Paris' (1973). Pax vobiscum, Tristan.
How exatcly does she "rip beauty standards" when half of this crappy shite is showing M. Qualley's body ???? I don't get it. It's a sexist, machist movie, claiming it's feminist is a gross insult.
Best movie of the year in an amazing year of film so far.
This was such a great watch as a woman myself. It really captured a feeling that is felt in real life but captured in an entertaining way. Great movie and I usually really dislike body horror!
Tell me spoilers
Loved this movie. One of my favorites of the year. Coralie Fargeat is an amazing filmmaker. Enjoyed hearing her talk about the movie. Thank you for posting this interview.
Keep your eye on this woman, she’s going to be a major force in filmmaking
A very impressive movie and she’s going to be a major force in movies
Loved The Substance, just amazing.
Thank you Coralie, you rock!
I think every woman should watch this. It really resonated. I went with my spouse who sort of got it. However, afterwards I was able to explain a lot of the metaphors to my husband.
The fact you had to explain the metaphors to your husband is the problem with this film.
As women, we get it. We understand this experience. I didn't really learn anything new or mind blowing from this film. Instead we got gratuitous scenes of assess in our faces for probably 30 minutes of the film, with really not much substance behind the characters at all. No humanity or exploration of who they are as people. We shouldn't have to explain this to men, a good film with such subject matters at the centre of it would have done that itself.
Fargeat sounds like an insightful, philosophical cinephile, and she is a gifted visual storyteller. I agree with Fargeat's criticisms of a society that objectifies and sexualizes people (especially women) and that has the wrong reaction to our inevitable mortality though, as a Catholic, I reach her conclusions from a different route than her feminism.
For that reason, one criticism that I have with her brilliant and perceptive film is that in addressing the relationship of beauty to aging, her film seems to focus only on physical beauty and ignores the importance of spiritual or inner beauty.
Her film is a powerful indictment of society's obsession with youthful, physical beauty, and it rightly advocates for appreciating the different forms of physical beauty as humans pass through the stages of life. It is good that Elisabeth comes to accept herself as she is (even in monstrous form) because the body does deteriorate and it is unhealthy to ignore or fight that reality, but Elisabeth fails to learn that we should never accept our souls as they are because there is always room for improvement as we strive to conform to the image of Christ. Fortunately, spiritual beauty never fades, and God gives us the grace to attain it -- the struggle for virtue is not ours to undertake alone.
Yet all the film does is sexualize women... Mostly Qualley, who seems to get her "big break" from being butt naked in half of the movie; very much like Lily Rose Depp in The Idol. If that's feminism, we're fucked. We are fucked already, she just rubs it in.
Love the podcast content but…why is the Mubi jingle continually playing over the voices in the beginning…? Just a small nitpick.
I LOVE this movie. Saw it thrice 👏🏼😊
I wonder if she was inspired by the Norwegian film from 2022 "Sick of Myself" for this film?
Good episode, perhaps not the best host for it (respectfully, do not mean to be hateful).
so is MUBI getting it?
in spanish plissssssss
I struggled to draw anything profound out of The Substance. I left the viewing feeling like I'd just watched an elaborately produced bikini commercial. The film doesn't say anything particularly interesting about desire, age or femininity. I really detest films which shove lots of flesh down your throat, and then pretend to have some grand pretext for debauching your imagination. 'The Substance' is a very close cousin of the 'X/Maxxxine' movies, which combine absolutely irrational scenarios with a script that has been lifted from an 'Archie' comic. The fact that some of this film's most ardent critics are intelligent young women, really says something too. If you look at Rodin's famous sculpture of the aging beauty, it says infinitely more about women and ageing, than this cheap sex-ploitation film.
100% agree. As a woman, this taught me nothing new. A film truly wanting to address this topic in a meaningful way would have given the characters some more depth, some more humanity, because that's a woman's reality. I think the film is actually quite pretentious and I find it unbelievable it won best screenplay. Where's the interesting writing in this movie?
I also thought the treatment of the monster was almost humiliating. Doesn't that kind of defeat the point of the film? Felt very empty to me.
Thank you. I'm mortified by the amount of people who applaud this movie that's nothing but "feminist". Utterly disgusting. And I'm not talking about the gore...
@@LuaBloe Thank you, Lua. Women of all backgrounds should be taking up arms, against these smug and insidious attacks on their womanhood, which got rolling with 'Last Tango in Paris' (1973). Pax vobiscum, Tristan.
How exatcly does she "rip beauty standards" when half of this crappy shite is showing M. Qualley's body ???? I don't get it. It's a sexist, machist movie, claiming it's feminist is a gross insult.
you did not understand the movie