There are countless films that take place during The American Civil War that are from a male perspective. These films tell the horrors of battle, brotherhood amongst soldiers, what it means to be honorable in war, sacrificing your life for your country, etc. There are very few films that take place during this time that are told exclusively through a female perspective. Women are often in the background, waiting at home for their husbands to come home. They are even sometimes only referenced once or twice during the course of a film through letters or pictures. It is rare that women’s roles and emotional and mental struggles during this time in history are explored in this type of storytelling, even less so for women of color, and many actual stories have been lost. The Keeping Room, directed by Daniel Barber and written by Julia Hart, is amongst a select few films that effectively gives women a voice during war time.
Three women, Augusta (Brit Marling), Mad (Muna Otaru), and Louise (Hailee Steinfeld), are left to care for each other and their home during the waning days of the American Civil War. They toil away most days doing hard labor outside in the gardens and fields while waiting for any news about the end of the war and loved ones who have been away. Louise, Augusta’s younger sister, grows more and more frustrated with their situation with each passing day. During one act of rebellion, she goes into the woods alone and is bitten by a raccoon. She becomes very ill, forcing Augusta to go into town in search of medicine to save her sister’s life. Augusta encounters two wandering soldiers at a bar who have broken off from the Union Army. When the soldiers follow Augusta back home later in the night with sinister intentions, the three women are forced to defend both their home and each other.
The Keeping Room carefully crafts a tense and multilayered story about the horrors of war that were oftentimes specific only to women: rogue soldiers wandering through private property who were bored, violent, and sometimes drunk. The majority of the stories we hear about men of this time are usually whitewashed and sanitized. Men are honorable and brave heroes, and we learn about their victories on the battlefield; the history of sexual assault, murder, and destruction of property is often glossed over in both our history books and films about not only the Civil War but all wars. This is probably due to it being a part of “women’s history” and much of women’s history has been lost and was deemed not important enough to keep record of. Rape was also deemed unimportant and thought of differently then–something less serious and pervasive.
A current of tension and dread runs through the center of this film during its entire running time. The women all seem to be tip toeing around one another and yet constantly waiting for something–something to come out of the shadows. The prickle of fear that runs down the length of your spine that occurs while walking to your car alone after dark or when you notice a strange man’s eyes lingering on your every move while in a public place is a feeling all too familiar to almost every woman on earth, and it is the same feeling that radiates through these women’s eyes and breathing on screen. It’s almost as if they’re all tenuously poised to run at any moment.
The film shows the entitlement of predatory men. They think because they see a woman existing in their space, she belongs to them in whatever way they want. They often don’t even think of rape as something that is violent and harmful. One moment that displays this perfectly is during the sexual assault scene. The soldier says, “don’t make me hurt you,” to his victim, but ironically doesn’t understand that he has already hurt her by entering her space when unwanted, laying hands on her without consent, and will continue to hurt her if he goes through with the rape. He doesn’t think he has hurt her and will go on believing he never did because she is not a person but a thing to be dominated and owned for a brief moment in time.
The treatment of both the women acting on screen and the three main characters is where this film really excels. The history of rape scenes in film is a long and messy one. It can often be filmed in a way that sexualizes the experience or the victim can somehow be shown to “enjoy” it. Both Julia Hart and Daniel Barber take care in not letting this happen. It is not depicted in a way that is “sexy.” The camera doesn’t pan slowly across anyone’s body and unnecessary nudity is nonexistent. The victim’s experience is not invalidated or diminished by portraying it as something trivial. Most importantly, the scene doesn’t linger and run too long. In fact, any nudity in the film is realistic and makes sense to the story. None of the women are exploited on film.
While Sofia Coppola’s remake of The Beguiled sidestepped the issue of race by replacing the only African American character in the film with Kirsten Dunst, The Keeping Room does not shy away from America’s dark history. Mad is the family’s slave, and Lousie is resentful of now having to do what would ordinarily be classified as slave labor. She is the most overtly cruel to Mad while Augusta realizes that the time for racial hierarchies is over. If they want to survive, they must work together as equals. Even though Augusta internally wrestles with this new understanding and role of friend, she is patient with Lousie’s petulance and immaturity but quick to correct and teach her that her behavior is hateful and not beneficial to their current reality.
Brit Marling’s performance as Augusta is wonderful in this film. Even with so little dialogue at times, it’s not hard to guess what is going on in her mind because every nuanced emotion and expression plays perfectly across her face. Her performance keeps the story driving forward. The three women have great chemistry on screen as well, and the bond amongst them is evident and only grows stronger as the story unfolds. Both Hailee Steinfeld and Muna Otaru are superb in their roles; the growing closeness between them as the story progresses is heartening to watch. The film takes its time showing how these women watch and observe one another almost like they are always dancing with one another.
The pace of the story never drags despite some moments being more meditative. The dread that hangs in the air pushes the story forward as the viewer is left bracing themselves for what is coming and how it will be resolved. The look and feel of the film give a hot, sticky, dirty, and claustrophobic effect to the viewing experience. It was shot using natural light which adds to the earthy and rustic feel of the film.
The Keeping Room never panders to its audience. There are no hollow “girl power!” moments, and these characters make mistakes and are flawed. The women are doing what needs to be done in the best way they can, and it doesn’t matter how they look while doing it. The film asks the viewer to contemplate the issues of gender and race during the Civil War and how the culture of war set men up to not only kill but to dominate and take whatever they wanted without asking. It does not pull punches. Piecing together both African American and all of women’s history is likely to be a never ending task, but films like these give us a necessary glimpse into the past. It is minimalistic but to the point.
Sometimes we need to question who we idolize. Men are eager to tell old war stories, but why is that? What about women? What would we discover if we listened to their war stories? War was hell for women during this time in a very different way than for their male counterparts, and it was all perpetuated by the culture of war and patriarchy. The monster women were on guard for was often not a faceless enemy staring down the barrel of a gun across a smokey battlefield but instead one that could wear the mask of an honorable and compassionate man to gain entry into their home and space, and they were expected to be hospitable to him. A question that is posed, not only to Mad and Louise by Augusta, but to the audience as well sums it up nicely: “what if we were men?”
The technical overview of the Blu-Ray has been completed by my colleague Dillon Gonzales.
Video Quality
The Keeping Room returns to Blu-Ray in a 1080p presentation that is easy to appreciate from beginning to end. The film operates in a fairly subdued mode with the warm Southern setting not getting many chances to radiate off the screen with its more shadowy palette from the natural lighting to go with the overall mood surrounding the narrative. The beautiful, rural landscape does impress with an incredible amount of detail. From the forests to the house where these women call home, this transfer is rife with distinct textures on display. The colors are natural to the environment with a strong saturation in this transfer. The skin tones look very detailed and natural all around. The white levels are steady without veering into blooming, not to mention the deep blacks that do not appear to suffer from any compression artifacts. There are no instances of intrusive digital noise in the presentation outside of a few brief instances along with some banding. Giant Pictures has done a nice job with this presentation.
Audio Quality
The film comes to Blu-Ray with a striking DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track in the original English. While not an especially talkative film, the dialogue and sound effects are appropriately balanced with the score where nothing gets overpowered in the track. Surround channels get some notable activity from the environmental effects such as insects noises and boards creaking in the house. The movie is pretty subdued when there are no direct showdowns happening which still holds up well. The low end of the track gets to show off when it comes to some gunfire later in the film. The score from Martin Phipps (aka Mearl) complements the atmosphere of the narrative as sounds come through with flawless fidelity. This track gets the job done effectively. There are optional English SDH subtitles provided.
Special Features
- Trailer: The two-minute trailer is provided here.
Final Thoughts
The Keeping Room is a terrific evolution of the wartime genre which goes beyond the frontlines to tell the stories of those impacted by the savagery of the time in a different, but no less dramatic manner. The sensitivity with which the story is explored is all too rare in cinema, but will hopefully become much more commonplace. Screenwriter Julia Hart comes out of the gate swinging with this self-assured script that makes an impact without feeling bloated or unfocused. Brit Marling delivers the type of great performance we have come to expect from her opposite her equally talented co-stars. Giant Pictures and MVD Entertainment have released a Blu-Ray featuring a strong A/V presentation and next to nothing in the way of special features. If you missed this film the first time around, be sure to check it out now. Recommended
The Keeping Room is currently available to purchase on Blu-Ray and DVD.
Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the Blu-Ray.
Disclaimer: Giant Pictures and MVD Entertainment have supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.
When I’m not busy daydreaming or having an existential crisis, I can usually be found watching a movie or TV, listening to music or a podcast, or with my nose in a book.