Discuss Giant
Discuss → Movies → Giant → General
Cute or creepy?
posted by rooprectSTAFFMOD on March 25, 2024 at 12:44 AM
When you get right down to it, almost all romcoms are creepy. They’re usually about an obsessive character chasing another in ridiculous ways which, in the real world, would get them slapped with a restraining order if not jail time. Giant is about a security guard who begins obsessively watching a cleaning woman on security cameras, then following her around after hours and watching every aspect of her life. Sounds almost like the plot of a horror story. Major creepsville, eh?
Not really…
What’s interesting is that this movie doesn’t try to play it off as sweet & romantic either. So it’s a trick question; I don’t think the filmmakers want us to think it’s creepy or cute. Instead, I think this movie is about observing others and taking the time to learn about people rather than writing them off as faceless numbers or labels.
There’s a subtle subplot about workers getting laid off for no real reason. There are references to protesting, signing a petition and attending after-hours meetings, and we’re not quite sure what it’s about… but by the end of the movie we figure out that it’s about employees getting fired. The managers & corporate suits evidently see them as disposable numbers to be manipulated like the accounting books.
What this movie does, in the guise of a quirky romcom, is it singles out one of those anonymous numbers, a cleaning lady, and it takes us into her life as we observe her through security screen and ultimately the movie screen which becomes part of the trail. The cleaning lady Julia is being secretly watched by the security guard Jara who is being secretly watched by us.
By the time the movie ends she’s no longer just a cleaning lady but a human being who enjoys bad horror movies, listens to metal, takes karate classes, plays with dogs & loves the beach. We (and Jara) watch her not because we’re being creepy or even cute but simply because she’s interesting and worth getting to know.
The moral of the story is that everyone has a story.
What’s really cool is when the camera cleverly pulls us into the picture. There’s one scene in the lunch room where Jara is staring directly at us (the movie camera) for a long time, almost making us feel uncomfortable as if he can see us. But he can’t any more than Julia can see him when she stares directly into the elevator camera, freaking him out.
There are so many overlapping & intertwining levels of meta, it’s like this movie doesn’t just break the 4th wall but it turns it into a house of mirrors. Gotta hand it to rookie writer/director Adrián Bíniez for pulling off this cleverly layered story all under the guise of a simple romcom about basically stalking someone.
Reply by northcoast
on March 25, 2024 at 7:26 AM
I haven't seen Gigante, but going by your description . . .
I was once talking to a young lady about the courtship of Prince William. About how, when Kate Middleton decided she wanted him, that she found out which University he was attending, proceeded to enroll herself, and then she obtained his course schedule, and attempted, with some success, to enroll in as many of those same classes as she could. She then followed him around campus, learned everything she could about him, and also got into every social event where he was in attendance as was possible for her to get into.
I am reminded of the Police song, "Every Breath You Take". Which, according to Sting, was never intended as the love song that so many contemporary women have taken it to be. Instead, it meant something much darker (and was the interpretation I always understood it as).
Anyway, as we all know, William eventually married Kate. She got her man.
To which this young woman I was talking to replied, in a dead-serious tone:
"It's not stalking, if it works."
Your description of Jara the security guard's observation of his romantic interest brings up interesting questions:
In this, our ever-present CCTV and smartphone-camera age, when is passive observation of someone in a public space considered too far, or creepy? (I'm assuming Jara was not watching the cleaning lady on secret cameras installed in private spaces like restrooms).
Especially when, though we may not know by whom, we can all assume, in our daily public lives in our modern lensed society, that we are constantly being observed? If the cleaning lady knows about the store's security-camera system, is Jara in the wrong for constantly watching her? Is this much different than pre-ever-present lensed times (which I am old enough to remember), in which a worker in a retail environment might gaze dreamily from his workstation at his secret crush coworker while she is working, wondering about a possible future together?
Of course, there is the issue of legality versus ethics. While such "secret" observation of someone in a public space might be legal, it could still be unethical.
Good, thought-provoking review, as usual, rooprect. I always enjoy reading your reviews, even if I've not seen the film in question.
Reply by rooprect
on March 25, 2024 at 9:24 AM
omg That's a brilliant review of the movie from someone who hasn't seen it! I didn't even think of that angle: that these cameras are in plain sight so Julia is aware of possibly being watched. So there's really no crime committed by Jara choosing to focus on her. Even when he follows her around on foot, it's always in public places and he never invades her personal space any more than any other stranger in the crowd.
I kept wondering why I wasn't creeped out by the story, and I think you nailed it. His surveillance of her is totally public.
You raised a great point about how times have changed. These days we assume & expect that there's a camera somewhere recording us whenever we enter a store, a building, or even walking past someone's front door cam. And although this movie doesn't go that deep, we assume that any stranger can look up our public info on the internet like Kate did with Prince William. Maybe this is how 21st century courtship works? Say you meet someone who catches your fancy. You get their name, then what do you do? Look them up on the internet, find their social media and learn all about them.
I think the current generation has already accepted this as part of life. We, the crossovers from pre-internet days (old enough to know the Police song you mentioned lol) might squirm a bit, but these days any time you step outside your front door you're fair game for the cameras. And, true, it aint stalking if it works! 😅