MovieChat Forums > Safe (1995) Discussion > Am I the only One?

Am I the only One?

posted 17 years ago by worf666
21 replies | jump to latest

People, this movie is NOT about enviromental illness. Come on. It is about the illness off her soul. It is not the chemicals, and the place, this cult, is not helping her at all. It is pretty obvious that she is getting worse there. She disconnected from herself, thats why she got ill in the first place. The movie is also a comment on society's superficiality. She is unable to speak about herself, because she has no connection to her self.

Really, I cant believe what people saw in this movie. Like about a new disease of the next century. That would be deppression, but no way enviromentalism or what haynees called it, its a metaphor.

Well anyway, loved the movie, and its interesting to think and be sure to be right about the meaning of a movie, and to fell to be alone with it. I mean come on, even Roger Ebert wrote such a pile of *beep* about this movie, I find brilliantly disturbing. But maybe one can only appreciate it if one has felt isolated himself...

[–] worf666 17 years ago

Hi worf666, here is yourself...
After second viewing and reading about it on the internet, I realized that this movie could also be seen as her illness is real. Wikipedia said it depends on the psyche of the viewer, wether the problem is only in her head or it is real. Wow. what kind of masterpiece would that make the movie.

[–] aaronjasper 17 years ago

Hi Worf,

I'm glad you read more about the film and did more research. Unfortunately, I have direct experience with the illness - My Mother suffers from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) which is an extreme sensitivity to many chemicals (several found in everyday household items). My Mother gets very unwell - severe joint pains, dizziness, chest pains, breathing difficulties, burning mouth and tongue, flu-like symptoms, the list goes on. She has been isolated in her house which has been stripped of all things containing plastics, varnished furnishing etc and I am trying to find her a safe place to live but this is very hard because chemical use is everywhere. This film was rather accurate in the path the MCS sufferers must face - the confusion of feeling so unwell for no apparent reason and the gradual worsening, the medical profession having no solution (they don't know what causes this sensitivity), the lack of acceptance by family and friends who think you are crazy, and the soul destroying isolation which in many cases leads to suicide. It's a tragedy. The best about this movie is that it potentially can raise more awareness in the community.

[–] acefranklin 15 years ago

great post. I actually haven't seen the movie yet, but had to post here because of the coincidence of stumbling across this movie from digg and where i am at right now. I am in Dallas, Texas for treatment for Environmental Illness (AKA Multiple Chemical Sensitivies or MCS, AKA toxic encephalopathy, what Julianne Moore possibly has in the movie). I am a 25 year old male. 5 years ago i lived a normal life, attending school and getting drunk and living life like a normal 20 year old would. But then, inexplicably, i started feeling ill all the time. Had no idea why. Long story short over a period of 5 years I gradually became worse and worse, sicker and sicker. Cut to now, I am so sensitive to minute exposures to ANY chemical, inhalent allergen, or any offending substance (you would be surprised how toxic our world is) that I have to wear a allergy mask 24/7 as to minimize exposure. I have to live in a 'hermetically sealed' environment, completely cleaned of anything that can offgas chemicals (synthetic carpets, formaldehyde in glues of MDF, upholstry, my own damn dog). Treatment is long and drawn out. I take 5-8 allergy shots a day. I have to follow an incredibly strict 4 day rotation diet where you can only eat one food item, and have to wait 4 days to eat it again (so your body doesn't become sensitive to that food, apprently it takes that long to safely process that food). It takes years to get better. This has taken the best years of my life. Before I found this place in Dallas that specializes in this illness, everyone just thought i had the crazies. I myself was baffled and saw dozens of doctors, psychiatrists. I was lucky that I did my own research and found out what I had, otherwise I would still be suffering in ignorance, and likely would have committed suicide by now out of despair. This illness is real. And like aaronjasper says, it is hell. a nightmare to be sure. I am lucky to have found out the cause, otherwise, i would probly be dead right now.

[–] worf666 13 years ago

Thanks for sharing AceFranklin

[–] ewhite44 13 years ago

No reputable doctors believe in this magical disease. There aren't any studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals about it or about how it is in fact a real "illness". You are spouting out non-sense. It can be dangerous. Please reconsider. Think about people who have a real illness, believe it to be something magical, and do not treat the actual illness, but rather the magic ailment they believe themselves' to have, e.g. mental illness mistaken for possession - exorcism instead of psychiatric help.

[–] kendeb-60591 9 years ago

I've read a lot about chemical sensitivity and never came across an account where someone was cured with psychiatry.

[–] tawdry_hepburn 16 years ago

Well, the ending of the movie makes it pretty clear that it's not real. As does the repeated usage of empty space in the frame.

,Said the Shotgun to the Head--
Saul Williams

[–] tbradhansen 17 years ago

When the revolution comes, you will be arrested for those comments, sir. Calling the movie "Safe" brilliant will be a crime in the new republic, punishable by public flogging. You wanna talk alienating? Just wait until the whole town sees me in my shiney new uniform, flogging you.

[–] coye 17 years ago

Maybe you guys missed something!

Personally, I think the idea is ambiguity. There are many things going on here to think about, it certainly very subtle, even tedious at times. I liked this film, as much as it did meander a little too much near the end. It almost felt as though the film was getting as sick as the character by the end.

[–] pas_si_simple 17 years ago

I agree--
this film is about "mental illness" and stress brought on from the lack of reality or anything genuine and then the self-inflicted siphoning off from others/reality/"god". she is getting worse, not better. and it's laughable to think that this is an actual illness for most of the people at the compound.

also its very clear to me that this film is based off or heavily influenced by The Yellow Wallpaper which was all about society telling a woman with so much privilege and want for nothing but genuine human contact descent into insanity and how her mind is her terror...a *beep* of anxiety and panic because of how alone or distant one feels from the world.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] Spiralmug 16 years ago

Alpinebixy, just had to say I had the same experience - I saw bits of this late at night while cat-napping about 10 years ago and always wanted to see it properly, but had no idea what it was called, and Julianne Moore was not such a recognisable face to me then. I was so pleased to discover it again recently.

When I see the scene with Carol half-asleep on the sofa while the program about "deep ecology" is on, it makes me think of myself and this film; missing the chance to properly digest something that's worth thinking about.

[–] jimi99 12 years ago

To borrow an old breath mint ad line, "Stop, you're both right!" Because if the soul is sick and alienated and cut off from expressing feelings, the body will manifest that disfunction with any number of symptoms of illness. Haynes is making more than one statement here, but his main one, as in "Far From Heaven", is that modern American consumerist society is unhealthy and will breed its own diseases and that includes many very real environmental poisons.

"SEDAGIVE?"

[–] dark_j11 16 years ago

I wouldn't even say it is about Carol's illness specifically. Rather, it seems to me to be a comment on the crappiness of vacuous American consumerist society more generally. Carol is just simply the unlucky soul who happens to endure this harrowing hardship.

[–] hawks-bill 16 years ago

I completely agree with the OP and believe that it's this failure to grasp the metaphor at work here which accounts for the gross underrating of this movie by IMDb's users.

This not Haynes's first work to explore alienation and toxic environments. Superstar, about Karen Carpenter, while looking nothing like Safe, is a film in the same mold, philosophically speaking.

[–] Mister_Magoo 16 years ago

Superstar, about Karen Carpenter, while looking nothing like Safe, is a film in the same mold, philosophically speaking

Women who've grown up to revere the concept of a stereotypically 'ideal' woman...at the expense of their true selves?

Personally, I think that's the 'heart' of Carol's tragedy ~ she's been running on automatic pilot, going along with everything that's 'expected' of her, without necessarily feeling a personal connection to the trappings of her 'perfect' life.

the tragedy that some people don't realize that the 'american dream' isn't a "one size fits all" proposition.

[–] hawks-bill 16 years ago

You have 20/20 vision, Mr. Magoo!

[–] eatmepapi 16 years ago

Carol was an empty shell who used her psychosomatic episodes as a way of getting attention and asserting herself in her vapid world of perms and parties. She had no control over anything in her life and couldn't even decide on a diet for herself.

[–] edorapietrafesa 15 years ago

it's a combination of becoming "allergic" to the world because we have become so oversanitized about everything. she might be physically getting sick but it's because she has this sterilized existence and at the same time drives around in pollution, gets perms, eats food not prepared by her that has tons of chemicals in it her body reacts to finally. she is mentally and physically slowly breaking down into a total void and doesn't know how to turn back. her only connection in the entire movie is with james legros' character who she comes close to having actual sex with rather than the joke of a sexual relationship with her husband whom she feels nothing for. she has buried her depression and feeling of void so deep it's coming up through nose bleeds and vomiting and breaking out in sores (you know how some people can relive a past experience and make the burn appear on their skin again just through memory) because her subconscious is an absolute mess and i figure at the "health clinic" she goes to she will just waste away after losing more and more weight from vomiting, eating what she can, and will just die there probably next to that road she wanted to be moved away from because of all the dust. sad existence.

[–] 15 years ago

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[–] TracesOfLove 12 years ago

"People, this movie is NOT about enviromental illness. Come on. It is about the illness off her soul. It is not the chemicals, and the place, this cult, is not helping her at all. It is pretty obvious that she is getting worse there. She disconnected from herself, thats why she got ill in the first place. The movie is also a comment on society's superficiality. She is unable to speak about herself, because she has no connection to her self."

I think the reason so many people think like this is because today this "disease" is an epidemic! I think I may have it despite my own awareness of all this. It's so depressing.

...even in a valley without mountains the wind could still blow.