Safe (1995) - Letterboxd Review

As much as we are presented some level of understanding and guidance in life, the pursuit of contentedness in an isolated society is alienating. Fear of being a burden to everybody around you can inflict self-deterioration and once isolated from your own identify, all that is left is fear.

Centred around a suburban housewife driven to self-destruction by a subservience, there is a dominant feminist theme throughout which remains true and strongly relevant to this day. But as well as this, in an anxiety-ridden contemporary world which wasn't ready for the internet, Safe now has even further relevance across a broader range of spectrums.

Once society has left you alienated, it inevitably falls on the fringes to present some form of solace. This is particularly pertinent in the increasingly divisive age of social media, echo chambers, culture wars, algorithmically personalised media, biased news coverage, conspiracy theories, divisive online influencers, provocative clickbait, communes, self-help gurus, cults etc etc. It's easiest to conform to something and stop listening to anybody else. This of course doesn't provide real help, but when modern life has been structured in such a way, where is there to go?

Conformity makes people unhappy, resentful and is a danger to society. I didn't think that Zelig would be the first comparison which sprung to mind when I began writing this review, but there we go.

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