This review contains descriptions of rape that some readers may find distressing.
The attention garnered by the Netflix series Baby Reindeer stepped up again last week when it received two Golden Globes, adding to its previous haul of six Emmy awards. Much ink has been spilled on this extraordinary series, especially its refusal to be reductive in depicting complex and charged sexual subjects and the groundbreaking nature of its portrayal of male-on-male sexual assault and its consequences. What gets overlooked: Baby Reindeer is a vivid, visceral lesson in how to film a rape scene.
The series tells the story of the complex relationship between Donny—an aspiring, struggling, offbeat, insecure and not particularly funny comic (played by the series’ creator and main character, writer-director Richard Gadd, based on his life) and his stalker, a deeply disturbed but at times profoundly sympathetic young woman. As the story progresses, we witness Donny being groomed over time by his soon-to-be abuser, a TV mogul (Darrien, played by Tom Goodman-Hill), who promises to make Donny a star.
Darrien dangles shiny hopes for success, acceptance, recognition and validation at Donny, while plying him with increasingly stronger drugs. When we get to the harrowing episode four, nothing about the way the assault transpires, and the brutality of the rape, looks the way the rapes of women—cis and trans—have looked for eons in their endless representations in mainstream TV and film productions.
In the mogul’s apartment one night, Donny is fed psychedelics and then, when he becomes freaked out, Darrien gives him a drug that will “calm him,” but actually immobilizes him. Donny falls to the floor. Lying down on his stomach, his long body and legs are stretched out behind him. That is where his abuser is kneeling, behind him, his expression cold and smug. But that is not where the focus is. The camera focuses from the front, right there as Donny’s face fills the screen. It is contorted in pain, anguish and incredulity, in shock—a kind of existential state of horror that this nightmare may never end.
We are focused where rape scene cameras rarely train an immovable focus: on the abused person’s point of view.
Donny’s abuser pulls down Donny’s pants, but we never see Donny’s naked body; his nakedness is never the focus. When penetration begins, when the abuser pushes himself into Donny’s body, when the rape begins, we feel it. The shove from the abuser literally pushes Donny’s body forward, toward us.
And we never see Donny from behind, from the assailant’s vantage point, nor do we see him from above or the side, from the perspective of a voyeur. We are focused where rape scene cameras rarely train an immovable focus: on the abused person’s point of view. The only time we see Donny’s naked body in this episode of Baby Reindeer is right after the rape, when he is in the shower, in agony when the water runs down his body, reaching the wound from the worst abuse, when his body is broken by what has happened and all we can do is cry.
Contrast that scene with the steady stream of the far more common portrayals of rape in narrative film where the point of view is the rapist’s; the vantage point belongs to him, or the voyeur/observer; the only naked body is the victim’s. Exposed as object, that naked body lends a dash of the erotic, a bit of titillation, to what is actually a torture scene.
The intense focus on Donny’s face is the result of the collaboration between cinematographer Krzysztof Trojnar and director of that episode, Weronika Tofilska.
“We were on the same page from the start. Our vision for the look was led by the narrative and the first-person point of view, and we wanted to keep it as subjective as possible,” said Trojnar in an interview for British Cinematographer.
‘Baby Reindeer‘ serves as a model for steering difficult scenes away from the abuser’s point of view, placing the scenes in a space that allows the audience to understand, defend and respect the survivor.
One way they achieved that subjectivity was through camera movement.
“Whenever we are with Richard (Donny) in the real-time narrative,” explained Trojnar, “we’re attached to him as much as we can. It’s about being close to him rather than stepping back and watching it objectively—actually being in the story rather than looking in from the distance. It was all about being with Donny and making him the center of the attention by placing him at the center of the frame.”
Special lenses chosen by the director of photography helped in creating this kind of subjectivity as well, supporting “these central compositions.” The editing came compliments of Peter H. Oliver and Benjamin Gerstein, winners of the Emmy for Outstanding Picture Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie, specifically for Episode 4.
Everything about the filming of this episode—the construction, the point of view, the relentless focus, the utter absence of sensationalism and exploitation—can serve as a valuable lesson in how to film a rape scene. Baby Reindeer serves as a model for steering difficult scenes away from the abuser’s point of view, placing the scenes in a space that allows the audience to understand, defend and respect the survivor.
