Peter Jackson – Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Christchurch, a beautiful city of a county which was a colony of England back in the day… New Zealand. There are many lovely parks for walking, biking and for other activities in Christchurch such as Victoria Park where Honora Parker Rieper was murdered by beating her head with an half-brick by her daughter Pauline and her daughter’s friend Juliet in 1954. They were not a hundred percent evil. Pauline gave her mother the last slice of the dessert on the way to killing her, by saying “treat yourself mom”, just like colonizers treating their colonies.
Pauline Parker is a high school student and different than the other girls in the school. She has no friends and seems like she is not keen on having one. She likes opera and admires English culture. She cannot be defined as social or asocial. She just does not like people around her since they are not upper class. She likes Juliet and becomes friends with her since Juliet is from England and they share the similar interests. In Juliet’s first day at school, she corrects the French teacher and Pauline finds it hilarious that Juliet humiliating the teacher. Also Pauline listens to Mario Lanza at home and defines him by using the very words that Juliet said in painting class, “world’s greatest tenor”. We can understand from those words that Pauline likes Juliet. Even their childhood stories are sad and similar. Juliet underlines the beauty behind those similar stories by saying “All the best people have bad chests and bone diseases”. However their stories are different in a way that Juliet’s parents sent her to Bahamas for the “good” of her health, when Pauline’s parents looked after their daughter. This is an example of the difference between their families. Juliet introduces the Forth World to Pauline and she says that she will go there after death. “There will be only music, art and pure enjoyment in the Forth World. James and Mario will be there and there will be no Christians.” says Juliet. Juliet does not believe in religion but Pauline who grew up in New Zealand was believing in heaven and hell. So, we can see that her parents brought her up as a Christian. However the idea of the Forth World fascinates Pauline and she suddenly changes her mind about heaven and hell. The girls make models, write, create, sing, enjoy.
When we look into their families, we can easily see cultural and class differences. Hulmes are the upper class English family that Pauline dreams of becoming a member of. Pauline is happy while spending time with Hulmes. They happily sing in the car. Mrs. Hulme brushes Pauline’s hair and calls her as foster daughter. Pauline imitates their manners and feels ashamed of her own family. Like England imposed English language on the colonies such as New Zealand, Pauline is exposed to British English day by day. She starts talking like Juliet, uses the British slang word “bloody” in her sentences, hopes that she will be like Hulmes by imitating them. She was very ashamed of being called by her middle name Ivonne and father’s job at the dinner. In other words, she felt small in front of Juliet because of her family that she does not even feel that she belongs in. But the girls know that people are not intelligent enough to understand their novels, dreams and fantasies. They cannot even appreciate their genius.
Juliet is anxious about being abandoned which comes from her childhood. When she hears that her parents will go to England for a few weeks, she recalls the past and gets scared of becoming lonely again. Camera shows her sadness by the close shot on her face and her loneliness by distance shots on the hills. But this time, she has Pauline who can wash her loneliness away. Juliet sees the Forth World. They are extremely happy in their fantasies. They do not need anyone but each other.
It is understood that Juliet has tuberculoses on one lung. She is hospitalized and her family does not even cancel the trip. Pauline feels sick too. They write each other letters under the name of Charles and Deborah. They are lost in their fantasy world. Pauline secretly complains about her family by writing that lower classes are dull. We can foresee the murder by looking at Diello killing people in their fantasies and Pauline’s painting about that. Soon, they fantasize that Diello comes to the real life to kill the annoying people.
Pauline tells someone (John) about the Forth World for the first time. She involves John in her fantasies about the Forth World in the absence of Juliet. She calls herself Gina this time and calls John as Nicholas. However she loses the connection to the Forth World during the sexual intercourse with John since he is not the type of person Pauline would be interested in. He is not from England and he does not know about history or arts. The creatures become uglier and Juliet is still in her fantasies.
Mr. Hulme shares his worries about the girls with Pauline’s parents. He thinks that the friendship between them is unhealthy. By saying unhealthy, he means Pauline’s homoerotic interest in Juliet. He only blames Pauline and he suggests that her parents take her to Dr. Bennett, a physician who has expertise in child psychology. Mrs. Parker’s world turns black after that. She starts being an obstacle between Pauline and Juliet. Pauline never knows the truth. She only blames her parents for that and still likes Mr. Hulme. In her eyes, Mr. Hulme is the ideal father figure who is hope-giving towards their dreams. At those times, homosexuality is known as a curable and shameful mental illness in the psychology world. Even Dr. Bennett has hard time calling out the word “homosexuality”. His worry can be seen in the closer-shots on his mouth. It shows us how this word became a taboo. These homophobic tendencies, which spread around colonies by christianity, are surely expected at those times in New Zealand.
Mrs. Hulme has an affaire, symbolizes the freedom, western culture, gives priority to herself, not to her children or her husband, while Mrs. Parker symbolizes a positive mother figure who takes responsibility for her child and stays faithful to her husband. She seems to have authoritarian parenting style, because she puts strict rules and does not take Pauline’s feelings into consideration. She often displays aggressive behaviours rather than explaining the reasons behind the rules. Pauline develops dismissive-avoidant attachment style to her parents, however her attachment to Juliet is not avoidant but obsessive. Mrs. Hulme seems to have uninvolved parenting style. She does not take care of Juliet. And Juliet develops anxious-preoccupied attachment style. She is afraid of losing the ones she loves and she never truly believes that she is loved by others. She gets jealous of Jack and thinks that Pauline did not reply to her last letter because she is not into her anymore. She does not want to be sent to South Africa alone. Juliet’s parents have a great role in her insecure attachments.
Intense relation between Pauline and Juliet were actually just an illusion. They called each other as Charles, Deborah, Gina. They made love but they were not Pauline and Juliet at that time. They always ran after a dream which was to go to California and to become film stars. They would do anything to remove the obstacles that affects their relation, fantasies and dreams in a bad way. The mother was one of the biggest obstacles in their way. The close shots on Pauline’s face showed us the anger in her eyes towards her mother. Mrs. Parker did not allow Pauline to go with Juliet, however her permission was required for Pauline’s passport. As Pauline was only 15, it was actually a very expected act from a mother not letting her daughter go abroad with her friend in pursuit of a dream that regarded as impossible to come true. Pauline had thoughts about killing herself when she thought about separation. They had to fulfill their fantasies in order to live. Unfortunately the girls were ready to remove mother that keeps them from reaching their ideal. If Pauline had not been an anglophile or Juliet had not been afraid of loneliness, the relation between these two girls would never have been so intense, so that Mrs. Parker would not have been murdered. The girls could not be together even in their dreams. Their bad dreams about separation came true in a way that they were put in prison and there was one condition after their release that they will never meet again.
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