Nope

9 / 10

The Haywood family trains horses for film and television shoots on their ranch located in Hollywood. But as a shoot gets scrapped due to one of their horses destroying the set in a nervous moment, Otis Jr. aka OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) are left with no job and near empty pockets. As sharp objects rain down from the sky during a mysterious event in the daylight, which kills their father Otis Sr. and scares the horses to the point of escaping into the wild, the siblings see their heritage in danger and start to invest into surveillance cameras. With the electronic equipment being installed by an UFO fan named Angel Torres, they observe the sky in order to film the mysterious event and hope for a big reward from institutions which could save their ranch and profession. However, the sky-high mystery defeats their plans, as it shuts down every electricity-driven object in the valley and starts to suck in objects and living beings. What looks like a harmless cloud at first, turns out to be a completely unknown entity with its own behavioral pattern which confronts the residents from Agua Dulce with their curiosity for conspiracies and thirst for a brand new spectacle.

Seeing and being seen. Treating and how you’re being treated. During the compelling 130 minutes of Nope, Jordan Peele is more than just an advocate for animal rights and minorities in the media and in general. He tackles conspiracies, sensationalism and questions our viewing and consumption patterns in regards to the tabloid press and social media by making a big leap all the way back to the beginning of motion pictures and ties its essence with the out-of-control, profit-oriented exploitation of a captured entity in this day and age. In the first minutes, he unabashedly shows the following Bible verse Nahum 3:6 to the viewer:” I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile and make you a spectacle.” Accompanied by a dark bass and a destroyed TV set with a blood-soaked monkey moving around a corpse, the stage is set for the conflict between picture, content and recipient. The main attraction of the film is the UFO or the UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) driving the plot with its capability of shutting down electricity and abducting things, animals and people.

The UFO’s reverse card

First, the shape of the UFO is important. Why does it look like a flying saucer? Peele makes room for two possibilities: Either the people view it as a flying saucer or the UFO itself wants to be viewed as a flying saucer because that’s how humans are taught by the word of mouth or conspiracy-focused documentaries. The German electronic music composer and artist Wolfgang Voigt makes an interesting quote regarding the novelty of the mysterious entity: “The new evolves from the old, otherwise it would not be recognizable. That is just the way it is, or else we would not understand it.” The entity takes the shape of the saucer in order to be recognized by humans like a harmless, unique entity. But this impression quickly changes. An encounter with the nature quickly escalates as it starts to abduct and eat animals, humans and things. With this omnivorous behavior, it wants to resemble the people's consumption of every form of entertainment. It literally consumes its victims to give the people on Earth a taste of their own medicine and makes them understand how they treat any living being in the spotlight.

This treatment can also be seen in Steven Yeun’s Jupe, a former TV child actor who nowadays presents shows with horses on his own Western-alien-focused theme park Jupiter’s Claim near the Haywood’s ranch. In a flashback, which recollects the complete event of the very first scene, a young Jupe plays a kid in the fictional sitcom Gordy’s Home. Gordy is played by a real chimpanzee, supposedly trained for the sketch. But a loud pop coming from an exploding balloon drives the chimpanzee mad who goes on a rampage, killing all the actors on set, except for Jupe who hides very anxiously under a table. As Gordy walks around, he discovers him and slowly walks towards the kid. With a long, terrifying stare through a fracture of a tablecloth, Gordy makes clear that this is the mess that the entertainment industry has created with the lack of animal freedom. It’s an intimidating combination of horror and real-life lesson that traumatizes Jupe to this day.

The mutation of the spectacle

The piercing stare, the abduction, the absence of electrical power – each of these moves expresses an act of resistance against entertainment-driven curiosity for the animals and the UFO and turn the spectacle into a monster. While the stare works as a confrontational moment and the abduction as a reflection of the people’s media consumption, the overarching blackout leaves the citizens from Agua Dulce in a vulnerable state and is a radical criticism of the power of smartphones and social media. It represents a deteriorated relationship between picture and creator dating all the way back to the origin of motion picture with Eadweard Muybridge’s The Horse in Motion from the year 1878 which Peele introduces after the Bible verse.

The evolution of photography during the end of the 19th century has led to the mutation of the spectacle which stems from the human’s imagination. Electricity, its utilization for modern gadgets like computers and smartphones and the rise of tabloids accelerate this mutation to the expense of an entity captured in the picture. Jordan Peele portrays a form of innocence originating from the first cameras which simply document processes like a looped ride on a horse or the arrival of a train in France. It’s the reason why Antlers Holst – an expert cinematographer played by Michael Wincott who can be seen in the background of the scrapped set and joins the Haywoods to film the event with his analogue camera – can still operate after the power cut, because his camera doesn’t require a battery and only acts as a documentary device. It’s the person behind the camera and the curiosity triggering the UFO’s consumption.

The consumption of pictures and presentation of content in the media address the sensationalism, a core topic of Nope which Jordan Peele presents in various shapes. One of them is linked with the beginning of motion pictures with the imprisonment of individuals, animals and extra-terrestrials through the camera lens. The frame functions like a two-dimensional cage, but this would question the innocence of cinematography and defeat the purpose of making this film in the first place. This is where the tabloid press chimes into the conflict. In regard to one of Patrice O’Neal’s sketches, instead of acting like a sport fisherman who captures a fish and releases it afterwards, the press and the people of Agua Dulce capture the UFO with their cameras and treat the entity like spectacular food. In a sense, you could say that Peele supports veganism in a metaphorical, consumerist way hidden under the cloak of mysterious horror which contradicts the UFO’s omnivorous behavior, but he puts the mere documentation of the captured entity upfront.

A media-centered form of sensationalism can also be found in the views of Emerald, Angel Torres, Antlers Holst and a motorcyclist. Emerald quickly outlines the impact of filming the UFO with three stages of publicity: The impossible shot, the money shot and the Oprah shot. In other words: The production, publication and marketing of the UFO which is an egotistic-driven exploitation in order to get her 15 minutes of fame. The installer Angel Torres, on the other hand, claims to film the entity as a selfless act in order to warn other people about its existence which is well-intentioned, but he considers the UFO as an enemy. His overwhelming interest for the spectacle also leads to the breach of the Haywood’s privacy which Emerald addresses in an upset manner.

Antlers Holst is actually the person with the highest probability to capture the entity with his old-school camera, but his ambitions resemble an abstract poacher, who collects wildlife footage in order to expand his animal documentary oeuvre. Later in the story, a motorcyclist, who looks like a pseudo Daft Punk member with his chromatic helmet and works for the tabloid TMZ, illegally enters the ranch and almost sabotages the Haywood’s efforts. By operating under the slogan “the show must go on”, he starts filming the UFO at all costs, no matter what happens to him. Every one of the four characters treats the entity like an extra-terrestrial cash cow and are afraid of it, but their greed for the sensation overwhelms any level of anxiety and conscience.

Encountering the unknown

OJ is the only person who analyzes the UFO’s behavior and attempts to sympathize with it. Daniel Kaluuya excellently plays him, but with almost too much confidence and serenity. He feels out of place at a TV set and looks annoyed at anything related to entertainment. Although he trains the horses for this exact purpose, he secretly demands from the TV producers to just use the horse for a given period of time with no sign of harm and then release it back to him, akin to Patrice O’Neal’s analogy with fishing and dating. He later participates in the filming process and realizes that eye contact with the UFO results in abduction and death. This observation describe the tainted relationship between humans and the extra-terrestrial. It finds that the human vision has been manipulated by the press and social media to a point at which any sort of recognition and perception instantly result in exploitation. Combined with fear, anger and curiosity, the spectacle turns into a vicious cycle of entertainment.

The film thrives with the mysterious powers from the extra-terrestrial, but there’s also a great irony embedded between the lines. The presentation ultimately bears the question: Why are cameraman Hoyte van Hoytema or director Jordan Peele not being abducted by the alien? They actually produce a spectacle out of the characters trying to create the impossible shot, the spectacular shot. In this case, they observe the attention-seeking party and rather document the extra-terrestrial’s movements and actions together with the various ways of exploitation done by the people. With Voigt's quote in mind, you can say: The new spectacle evolves from the old, otherwise it wouldn't be recognizable. That's due to the way we crave for the next spectacle or else we would not understand our consumption of it.

By treating the flying saucer like an animal, Jordan Peele has crafted a fantastic, peculiar animal and alien documentary blockbuster which is interwoven with western, horror and thriller elements. He wants the viewers to step back for a moment and think about the ways people consume content and how the media – especially Hollywood regarding the film’s location – can generate attention in dubious ways which harms the welfare of animals, celebrities and the next unknown thing. Nope is a call to clear our media cache, recalibrate our perception of things and endorses factual reporting. As the story unfolds, Peele presents the perversion of the spectacle with the aspirations of the four characters Emerald, Angel, Antlers Holst and the motorcyclist, but also avoids the glorification of the alien by solely showing what happens.

Documentation is the key and the cinematography does an impressive job for that reason. Hoyte van Hoytema produces gripping aerial views of the ranch and the valley with colorful tube men and daunting distance shots of the flying saucer. The sound design is equally impeccable by conveying the violent abduction sequences to the audience. It’s very discomforting and chilling when the alien growls and slowly hovers over the ground or the citizens yell desperately when they are abducted. Michael Abels’ soundtrack is a great companion to the story, but also eases up the tension by creating excitement with playful bells and western influences in between dramatic sequences. The massive presence of cinematography and sound design is not just a simple addition to the film, but functions as a requirement to direct the maximum amount of attention to the obsession and tragic escalation of entertainment.

Review published on 3rd August 2022.