Safe

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

 

Safe (1995), written and directed by Todd Haynes, has an ironic title since the main character can’t find anywhere that she finds to be truly safe. Julianne Moore plays Carol White, the last name suggesting someone bland, but which also points to her Caucasian, entitled, upper-class demographic. The actress said she used a quiet, high-pitched voice suggesting Carol couldn’t breathe, which may imply she is being deprived spiritually and physically of life. The weak voice also shows her character has no ballast in her world to anchor her. She lives in California's San Fernando Valley. She doesn’t work, has a stepson, not a natural child, and lives in her husband’s house. It’s like she is a ghost who tried to attach to life through things, not people, or any interests of depth, and is more interested in superficial activities, such as decorating her house. She begins to suffer ailments that are undiagnosable, and her dismissive doctor suggests it must be something psychiatric. She gets an attack when she has another woman’s child sitting on her lap, which could suggest her lack of family ties to ground her. The film allows for various takes on what is happening concerning people with these strange ailments and how they deal with their situation, and those who cope or exploit the situation of the afflicted.

 

The first sound of the film is Carol sneezing as she and her husband, Greg (Xander Berkeley), return from an outing. It foreshadows all that is to come and plants the seed of suspicion as to whether this suburban affluent paradise is sustainable. When she and her husband have sex, she looks distant and is obviously not engaged in passionate intimacy. She later has a reaction to aerosol sprays her husband uses and vomits. We also have views of electrical wire towers everywhere. Roger Ebert said there are several scenes where there is, “a low-level hum on the soundtrack … It suggests that malevolent machinery of some sort is always at work somewhere nearby. Air conditioning, perhaps, or electrical motors, or idling engines, sending gases and waste products into the air. The effect is to make the movie’s environment quietly menacing.”

 As Carol becomes weaker and sicker, she finds that she may be part of the population that has a controversial diagnosis of multiple chemical sensitivity. According to IMDb, symptoms include, “fatigue, headaches, nausea, and dizziness.” She gets a nosebleed while being exposed to chemicals at her hairdresser. Can that be psychosomatic or is it a symptom of an actual physical ailment? Early on, Greg is unsympathetic as he acts selfish like an adolescent who becomes angry that his girl has headaches and will not have sex with him. The result is to blame the victim for the problem. Carol eventually has trouble breathing and pulls around an oxygen tank that she uses to help her respiration. She changes her diet and other habits but to no avail. 

 At this point the film seems to be dwelling on the effects created by the abuse of the ecological system. In a formula-driven story, the audience would expect that the cause of Carol’s disease will be discovered, she will be vindicated for insisting her illness was real, and maybe get better, while the polluters will be punished. But, as Ebert says, Haynes, “has something more insidious up his sleeve.” The film starts to explore how Carol and others who share her predicament deal with their problems. Instead of socially and politically trying to rectify environmental problems, she adopts the California way of dealing with things, which is to use money to go to a retreat, a new-age type of place that urges that individuals look inward to solve their ills. The place she retreats to (because what she and others like her do is withdraw from the world) is called Wrenwood, a remote place away from city life which is supposedly devoid of pollutants. 

 Wrenwood is run by Peter Dunning (Peter Friedman), who is HIV positive and also claims to have environmental sensitivity. He seems reliable based on his experience of being initially dismissed as an AIDS victim. But, instead of channeling the attendees' energy to fight for acknowledgment of their illnesses, he blames the individual for getting sick by not having the right positive frame of mind to strengthen the immune system. The result is to attach guilt to those who are ill. At one point Peter is talking to Carol and the leader points out a coyote looking at them. The image appears to be symbolic, showing Peter as the animal preying on these lost souls since cults recruit those who feel they are social outcasts. 

 

Ebert says Carol may be “responsible for aspects of her illness. Her life and world are portrayed as so empty, so pointless, that perhaps she has grown allergic as a form of protest. In that case the spa won’t help either, because it is simply a new form of the same spoiled lifestyle.” Ebert, thus, suggests that she may be “poisoning herself,” and “maybe the blissful group leaders at the spa are doing to her mind what pollution did to her lungs.” 

 

So, despite the avoidance of chemical products by wearing cotton clothing and eating and drinking organic substances, Carol continues to feel sick. A visitation from her family is detached and she has no friends who visit her, implying her life was and is a lonely one. There is a momentary connection with a male member in this community, but the film again subverts expectations when he and Carol appear ready to become intimate and the man abruptly leaves her standing alone. She moves into an igloo-like sterile dwelling that was occupied by a man who recently died, not a good omen for Carol. She first removes herself from her privileged community and then further exiles herself from the outcast spa compound. 

 

The movie ends with her secluded in the curved housing which suggests a womb, implying Carol’s regression to an almost prenatal existence. She looks into a mirror and says, “I love you,” but her sad face undermines her declaration. We are left with an unresolved conclusion as to what are the causes of Carol’s ailments and if she will ever be reborn into a healthy world.

The next film is Fried Green Tomatoes.