"The director Robert Eggers designed the film to be interpreted two ways: literally, as if the family were besieged by real witches and Satanic forces, or figuratively, as if the family has succumbed to a shared psychosis due to their strained circumstances and beliefs. There are small hints throughout the film that could serve as reasonable causes behind the events, beyond the obvious supernatural, such as contaminated food causing hallucinations, repressed sexual desires, and extreme isolation. The director stated it is up to the viewer to decide which interpretation is correct."
Cinematography Appreciation - The Vvitch (2015) dir. Robert Eggers
'Bong [Joon-ho] says he chose this kind of home, not uncommon in his native South Korea, for them because it is realistic, but also because “it really reflects the psyche of the Kim family. ... You’re still half overground, so there’s this hope and this sense that you still have access to sunlight and you haven’t completely fallen to the basement yet. It’s this weird mixture of hope and this fear that you can fall even lower. I think that really corresponds to how the protagonists feel.”' (Architectural Digest)
️THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT IN MEDIA (🧱)
PARASITE (2019), dir. Bong Joon-ho
— and Seoul's banjiha ("semi-underground") apartments
CITYSCAPES in film
Local Hero (1983) dir. Bill Forsyth
Tampopo (1985) dir. Juzo Itami
Gloria (1980) dir. John Cassavetes
Paris, Texas (1984) dir. Wim Wenders
Three Colours: Blue (1993) dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski
"It's not as if is she were a maniac, a raving thing. She just goes - a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?"
Cinematography Appreciation - Psycho (1960) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
"This pretentious ponderous collection of religious rock psalms is enough to prompt the question, 'What day did the Lord create Spinal Tap, and couldn't he have rested on that day too?'"
"It became clear that we weren’t going to actually find anywhere or want to find anywhere that really looked like Sandringham,” [Guy Hendrix Dyas (Production Designer)] says of the Norfolk, England, estate where the royal family spends several days during the Christmas holidays. Ultimately, for the exterior, he selected Nordkirchen Castle in the North Rhine-Westphalia state of Germany. “We wanted this opulent and austere space that on perhaps the first look gave you sort of the ‘wow factor’ of how royalty live. … But at the same time, underneath that thin surface, we wanted a feeling of anguish and isolation and sadness." (THR)
THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT IN MEDIA (🧱)
SPENCER (2021), dir. Pablo Larrain
— and Nordkirchen Castle as the Sandringham Estate