Pearl was the surprise movie that was announced after X premiered at the South by Southwest Festival. Not only was the film announced as an origin story to Pearl who appears in X, it was already completed. As the story goes X was filmed in New Zealand at the height of the pandemic and Covid restrictions. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre inspired set, house, barn and a guesthouse was already built. Having an already built full-on set was the origin for this origin story. In a two week hotel quarantine stay West came up with the story and script for Pearl. Once again A24 came onboard to make the film.
The film begins as a camera passes through a barn. The barn doors open revealing an idyllic farm pastoral. The music composed by Tyler Bates and Tim Williams is full of wonder and splendor. We see Pearl in her room surrounded by dolls. She is made up, her lips a rich hue of red. She stands. She is Judy Garland. As we learned in X Pearl was/is a dancer. The lights dim in her mind's eye, a spotlight hits her and reflects off of the mirror she stand before. The door opens and the illusion is shattered. It is back to life on the farm. However dreams do not fade, a pitchfork makes a great dancing partner. The cows are a rapt audience.
Pearl maybe look like an innocent farm girl. This is also the Pearl from X. A goose wanders into the barn. The goose is carried out of the barn impaled on Pearl's pitchfork. She carries the goose out to the dock overlooking the lake where Pearl will first spy on Maxine many decades later.
On a side note on the interesting dynamics of film festivals. I watched All Quiet on the Western Front and later Pearl. Both on the same day. Both films take place in 1918. Both films are horrific in their own right. It is an extremely interesting condition of seeing so many films in quick succession. There are emotions, notions and observations that carry over int different pieces you are writing about films on any given festival day.
Along with World War One, another major event was occurring. A pandemic, the Spanish flu. In an exceptional parallel to our times. To escape the hum drum of farm life, an over bearing German mama and her ill Father, Pearl goes to the movie picture house wearing a mask. The other patrons are all masked as well. A news reel shows graphic scenes from WWI. Palace Follies begins to play. Pearl is enraptured by the singing and dancing and the morphine she is sipping on. Pearl meets the projectionist who in turn hands her a little piece of cinema. Then it's back to the corn fields.
Both Pearl and X are definitely part of which is now a trilogy with the announcement of MaXXXine rounding out the last film of the trilogy. Both films stand on their own but there is much more to be gleaned from Pearl having seen X prior. It is compelling from a film making stand point to see two vastly different cinematic styles applied to the same set. There is a great scene with Pearl and the projectionist who shows her a film "nobody has seen yet" that leads in the late 1970s in X.
As the horror in Pearl slowly builds - a Ti West trademark - it pays as much homage to Tobe Hooper as X did with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre so too does Pearl pay homage to Hopper's second film Eaten Alive. Does this mean the third Mia Goth/Ti West film will be an ode to Lifeforce? Only time will tell. Or perhaps being the third film it will be Salem's Lot.
The horror is also the dread of family dynamics. Pearl lost in isolation and reverie. A husband at war who has not been heard from in months. An overbearing Mother who is trying to shelter her. A sick Father. Dreams that will not subside of somewhere faraway on stage in front of an adoring audience. It is a potential suitor turning cold.
Ti West has become much more a stylist in these films, which I dig a lot. He has also grown on me as filmmaker with these last two movies. A lot has been said about Mia Goth and all the positive accolades are very warranted. Mia goes from oh shucks to full on Psycho in the flip of a switch. These films are Pearl and Maxine's world of which Mia brings to grainy 16mm and Technicolor life. West and Goth have become each other's muses.
Mia Goth delivers one of the all time great soliloquies delivered on film. All the world's a stage and all the men and women in Pearl's way are merely victims.
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