![\"Production](\"https:\/\/images.theconversation.com\/files\/746038\/original\/file-20260706-57-o9jlka.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&rect=0%2C418%2C8011%2C4506&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip\")
<\/a><\/p>\n Writer-director Natalie Erika James excels at probing complex female relationships and unstable mental states.
\n Maslow Entertainment<\/p>\n
Some sequences involving food, including the terrific closing credits, also combine beauty, disgust and excess in compelling ways. There has not been so much binge eating in a horror film since the infamous pie eating scene<\/a> in A Ghost Story (2017). <\/p>\n Saccharine is sometimes sensual, sometimes revolting, and sometimes both at the same time. <\/p>\n Society\u2019s \u2018hungry ghost\u2019<\/p>\n Horror can be an ambivalent genre. It is highly effective at addressing cultural fears and anxieties<\/a>, sometimes directly, and frequently through metaphor. At the same time, its imagery can also reinforce fears and negative stereotypes<\/a> in a reactionary manner. <\/p>\n Because of this, Saccharine will be divisive in its treatment of body image, especially fatness and fatphobia<\/a>. <\/p>\n Even though she knows better, as a doctor in training, Hana\u2019s sense of self is tangled up with competing messages about her weight. Some of the film\u2019s characters reiterate that one\u2019s dignity and worth aren\u2019t related to body size; this appears to be the film\u2019s take-home message. <\/p>\n Hana is also bombarded with cultural narratives and inherited beliefs conflating thinness with self-control, self-care, attractiveness and wellbeing; and fat with moral weakness. <\/p>\n Hana is bombarded with cultural narratives that conflate thinness with self-control. It\u2019s clear the corpulent \u201chungry ghost\u201d haunting Hana is a powerful metaphorical expression of her eating disorder that also makes wider social attitudes visible. <\/p>\n At the same time, the film frames fat bodies in ways explicitly designed to evoke fear and disgust in the audience. This includes the ghost of Big Bertha, who at first is only visible as a grotesque distorted image in curved reflective surfaces, but who later stalks Hana aggressively like the unstoppable entity in It Follows (2014).<\/p>\n It is also there in the visual framing of Hana\u2019s isolated father. He sits in the shadows of her parents\u2019 home, too big to comfortably leave the house, a source of family shame. <\/p>\n We may be sharing Hana\u2019s terrifying experience of body dysmorphia \u2013 at her lowest point she lies in a literal pit of trash. But the film also recycles the dehumanising cultural narratives about fatness<\/a> that contribute to it.<\/p>\n Saccharine frequently includes images of and allusions to the Anatomical Venus<\/a>. These life-sized wax models designed by Italian sculptor Clemente Susini between 1780 and 1782, were shaped like beautiful, naked reclining women, complete with long human hair, whose abdomens could be opened to reveal layers of organs.<\/p>\n One of Clemente Susini\u2019s Anatomical Venus wax figures. These unsettling \u201csleeping beauties\u201d reflect a cultural ideal, and invite a disquieting and almost necrophiliac gaze. They posit true feminine perfection is an impossibility only to be found in death \u2013 the ultimate objectification. <\/p>\n Hana\u2019s time in the dissection room, and her obsession with bodies, raises uncomfortable questions about where our cultural norms and knowledge come from, and what their (un)natural end point might be. <\/p>\n Saccharine is ultimately a timely and impactful film, even if its initially tight focus dissipates somewhat by the end. It is a stylish take on female-centric body horror with a distinct vision and sensibility \u2013 although its approach to bodies may leave the viewer queasy. <\/p>\n Saccharine is in cinemas now.<\/p>\n In Australia, if you are experiencing difficulties in your relationships with food and your body, you can contact the Butterfly Foundation\u2019s national helpline<\/a> on 1800 33 4673 (or via their online chat). In New Zealand, you can contact JourneyED<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian supernatural body horror film Saccharine is truly horror for the Ozempic era \u2013 a time when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[146,85,46,397],"class_list":["post-532401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n
\n Maslow Entertainment<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
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