The Symbology of the Feminine Fatale

Rating Femme Fatale and re-evaluating Brian de Palma wasn’t very fun. I like de Palma, you see, and I don’t want to downgrade his status from auteur to talented hack. But sometimes these things are necessary as directors let their talent slip.

I have never watched a Brian de Palma film looking for symbolism before, but I think I will have to from now one, because Femme Fatale included some of the most blatant symbolism I have ever seen. And frankly, I feel gypped by it.

Although we don’t quite grasp the importance of the symbolism until the end of the film, it’s all over the place. During one scene, I was really intrigued by the fishtank, which seemed to be overflowing. I couldn’t see the bottom of the tank, however, so I didn’t know if it was purposeful—if there was some kind of recirculating system or something. I kept wondering whether the fish wouldn’t just jump out. At the end, you see the same scene again, and it’s normal now: ah, I said, it was overflowing to show how different everything is in that reality. It also mirrors the bathtub, which was overflowing. And her emotions, which are... you get the point.

Then there are the posters all over Paris, which all include pictures of the main character, along with the words “déjà vu.” How bizarre, I kept thinking. I guess she’s famous (and she is, in the movie). But there’s more to it than that, which I can’t reveal without giving away a bit too much of the plot.

I love symbolism, but in movies like this it seems a bit too much. I remember my English teachers who would variously try to convince us that everything was symbolic of either God, gods, sex, or emotions, depending on which teacher I had. One teacher told us that the river in Heart of Darkness was female and the boat traveling on it was like the sperm trying to reach the grand, final place of the female to implant its imperial seed. We all tittered and made fun of her sexual preoccupations. But Joseph Conrad probably had something like that in mind, although probably not quite so blatant.

But movies aren't imagined in the same way that books are. When I read, I have to picture the characters and events in my mind, whereas in a film, the director has done that for us. Film is mimetic in a way that books are not, and the difference in symbolic effects lies therein.

Real life doesn’t include such symbolism, you see. As a reflection of an imagined reality, films fail to reproduce any semblance of reality when they include symbolism. I wish real life were that way, but it isn’t. I wish I could tell my wife were angry because she is wearing red, but she doesn’t wear red when she’s angry. I wish rivers were really metaphors for the turmoil of society, but they’re actually just rivers. Sometimes a rose is just a rose, sure, but it’s always that way in reality. In a poem, a rose can take on multiple meanings. In real life, it’s just a rose. Sure, we can imbue it with meaning by giving it to someone we love, but then it’s really just, “I love you, so I’m giving you this rose.” If we want to be poetic and score points with the women, we may make up some crap about how the opening petals represent our burgeoning love, but we all know we’re just making that up. It's really just a rose.

In a mimetic visual medium like film, symbols just don’t work as well as they do in books. I still like ‘em, though, and I’m thinking about changing my title to "symbologist." Maybe I can get my PhD in the field and go teach at Harvard…and go on adventures interpreting the sacred feminine...