This is the primary premise of David Mamet’s recent startlingly good film, Redbelt. Using the form of a classic Hollywood Film Noir, with many of the players and settings of 1997′s The Spanish Prisoner, Mamet manages to have it both ways. He creates an emotionally satisfying sports movie while subverting and exposing some of the crippling cliches of American sports culture.
The idea of “escape” is itself subversive. The opening scene of the the film introduces a Brazilian jujitsu center run by a young master. We watch a fight between two students, one with one arm tied behind his back, while the master yells “Find the escape! There is always an escape.” Although the handicapped fighter loses this match, the jaded viewer is unsurprised to see him win a rematch.
However, escape is not what you hear football players and coaches talking about at halftime. They speak of victory and momentum and teamwork. Nor is it a phrase you see printed on recycled paper cards and posted in the innumerable yoga studios across the country, which have a not so subtle underlying message to “breathe” “accept” and go with the flow of life. Escape is something else- isn’t it like running away? No manly man or transcended woman would vow to escape a situation.
Mamet, through his main character the jujitsu teacher Mike Terry, also makes a distinction between fight and competition. Fight is what you do, and it is about you, competition is about other people. Competition is irrelevant. In this context, escape can be seen as transcendence. Terry himself gets confused- is escape turning away from the competition? Or is it fighting through?
The demonstration of the trickiness of defining escape is done by the riveting actress Emily Mortimer. She is unstable and vulnerable and dangerous- her first scene shows her driving through the rain in search for a pharmacy. Is she a mother looking for medicine for her sick child? Or is she a junkie? How are we meant to receive her character? Mamet does not allow us to get comfortable.
When Mortimer goes to the studio for a lesson in basic self defense, she tries to walk out halfway through. “I was raped. At knifepoint. I can’t do this.” she says flinching, clearly terrified of being so close to a man. “Thanks, but I can’t.” We see that she has tried a few methods of escape, pills and holding herself back from situations. But before she can walk out, the jujitsu master grabs her and demonstrates how to truly break the hold if she were ever to be in that situation again. It is clear that since she was raped she has been stuck in that position and true escape is now hers.
With lesser talent this whole movie could be deeply insulting and dull. The victim becomes the victor.
Yawn. J-Lo boxing her way to self-respect. Balls of Fury. But the depth and complexity of the characters and Mamet’s examination of human fight vs. flight make this movie exceptional.
I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about escape. Friends, TV shows, movies, advertising campaigns repeat the mantra that “you can’t run away from your problems” and, according to my tea bag this morning “Act, don’t react.” I worried that in leaving Brooklyn I was running away, quitting before the job was done, or more importantly that people would think I was running away or quitting. This was combined with the fear that I was making a false escape and wherever I went I would feel exactly the same but more lonely.
This move has given me a lot more space in every direction. The bones of my worries were carefully wrapped, packed and moved to my new home, but I no longer feel trapped in a chokehold. I can shift the grip from around my neck and pivot so the bulk and energy of my opponent is used against itself.
