![]() ![]() Aviva’s cousin, Mark Wiener, is an alleged pedophile he is genuinely unpleasant, a misanthrope with a sour, cynical disposition. No stranger to controversy, Solondz does something similarly alienating with the issue of pedophilia. Although audiences probably begin watching the film with their political opinions fixed, Solondz gives us no point of reference, no cause with which we can feel comfortable, no familiarity with the manner in which Palindromes frames the abortion “debate.” Pro-life, then, is not really about life at all if they’re planning an assassination. Down in the Sunshine family basement, she is enabling and complicit as her husband and his cronies plot the murder of a doctor that performs abortions. Mama Sunshine is just as hypocritical, if not more so. Pro-choice, then, is not really about choice at all if Aviva’s not allowed to choose for herself. When Aviva’s frantic mother (Ellen Barkin) tries to coerce her daughter into having an abortion: “It’s a tumor!’ she declares. There is a lot of cruel irony in Palindromes as both Aviva’s pro-choice parents and her pro-life surrogate mother, Mama Sunshine, exhibit hypocrisy. Underneath the surface of their seemingly happy and friendly “outward” dispositions lies something darker, and both seem quite capable of abandoning principles when it suits their personal agenda. ![]() Both Aviva’s mother and Mama Sunshine, although positioned diametrically in regard to the abortion debate, are depicted as essentially the same. These switches illustrate one of the film’s key questions: to what extent do people really change as a result of their life experiences?Īnother way in which Solondz uses the alienation effect occurs through the film’s examination of two incendiary topics: abortion and pedophilia, issues for which a significant number of individuals adhere to entrenched thinking. The physical bodies change quite radically, but the character’s essential personality and identity does not. Although alienating us in one way, this strategy allows us to relate to the protagonist in a completely different way than that to which we might feel accustomed we are forced to acknowledge and focus on internal drives, motivations and other inner characteristics rather than external appearances. Before we can emotionally invest ourselves in Aviva’s experiences, the actors are abruptly switched after each segment, and in some cases through a quick cut and edit within the very same scene. Each sudden change of actor reminds us that we are watching a constructed work of fiction, and it disconnects us from the character by insistently refusing to allow us to become too attached. For the most part, his experiment works, and somehow adds to the film’s poignancy and twisted charm. Solondz mentions that he felt inspired to try this casting of multiple players for a single part after contemplating television shows that sometimes change actors as the series progresses and then go on with production as if nothing at all had changed. What makes Palindromes so startling and confusing on first viewing is that the protagonist, Aviva, is played by many different actors who are of different ages, sizes, races and genders. The alienation effect shatters the illusion that what we are watching is anything real, and in this way, viewers cannot take style or content for granted. Solondz generates alienation by disclosing and making obvious the manipulations, contrivances and fictional qualities of the medium, forcing viewers into an analytical frame of mind that serves to disabuse them of the notion that they are watching a separately compartmentalized narrative. In his 2004 offering, Palindromes, Solondz employs the alienation effect in multiple ways to challenge viewers to look at culturally divisive issues, the characters, and ultimately ourselves, palindromically, from opposing sides. From Welcome to the Dollhouse, with the endearingly relatable underdog Dawn Wiener, to the morally questionable characters of Happiness to the thoroughly idiotic figures of Storytelling, Solondz's ouevre has grown progressively more cynical, more discomfiting and more alienating. Keeping this technique in mind, it seems to fit comfortably with Solondz's filmography. According to Brecht, art should not induce us to feel blindly, but to think critically we should not be entertained or patronized but intellectually challenged. This technique detaches us from any possibility of feeling entertained or aesthetically pleased so that we can assume the role of critically conscious observer. Bertholt Brecht wrote about the alienation effect, a theatrical technique that prevents the audience from losing itself passively within a text or that prevents viewers from becoming too emotionally invested in an actor’s portrayal of a character. ![]()
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