The Bride! & Fever Ray

 Maggie Gyenllhaal's first major studio feature, The Bride! hit theaters on March 6th, a couple days before International Women's Day. Following 2021's critically acclaimed, The Lost Daughter, The Bride! isn't Maggie's first double winner as both screenplay writer and director. Fittingly released over the weekend of the day which falls on the day that celebrates women every where, the eery, reimangined verison of The Bride of Frankenstein is a story of a feminist uprise of female independence, written and directed by a woman no less. It's cinematic and stylistic. A bit cynical, a little bit gruesome, somewhat spooky with an overall rawness that confronts the constraints of patriarchy realism that have haunted women for forever. 

Supporting the dying art of seeing a movie in the theater by taking myself out on a date to a matinee screening of The Bride! was a delightful treat. In a year's time we got a second helping of a fine gentleman portraying the role of Frankenstein's monster, this time by a long time favorite Christian Bale. The monster, or creature, in Guillermo del Torro's Frankenstein was played by an unrecognizable Jacob Elordi, a performance which garnered the hot young Aussie an Academy Award nomination. At the time of seeing The Bride! I wasn't familiar with the lead actress Jessie Buckley, who later won the Oscar for best actress for her role in Hamnet. I was blown away by her remarkable performance as the split personality of Bride! who was as crass as she was sassy. 

I had heard that Fever Ray,  Karin Drejer spin off solo project of the experimental synth-pop Swedish duo The Knife, had new music featured in the new movie. Sure enough, in February, Fever Ray released two original songs for the soundtrack, "The Lake" and "Wrong Flower". Karin's unique vocals and a creepy cadance similair to that heard from The Knife match the asthetic of The Bride! to a T. Not only did Fever Ray offer two new songs for the movie but Karin also has a cameo appearance in it, performing "The Lake" live in a nightclub scene, which I thought was a fun tie in. Again, their stage persona and general presentation as Fever Ray lend itself swimmingly to the style seen on screen. 

Hauntingly romantic in their own regard, The Bride! and Fever Ray are a testamate to standing to true to who you are regardless of what or who other people want you to be. 

The two new Fever Ray songs can be found on The Bride! soundtrack as well as on their 4 song EP, The Lake/Wrong Flower which features original versions plus cinematic versions of both songs. 

There's buzz swirling that Fever Ray is set to release their 2009 self titled debut album on white vinyl sometime soon. Maybe we'll be saying here comes the Fever Ray for a second time this year.