Alias Grace - television miniseries
Directed by Mary Harron
"If we were all on a trial for our thoughts,
we would all be hanged."
Recently I have acquired an affinity for period flicks on Netflix, mostly adaptations of classics. Compared to reading, imagination is restricted but it is easier to get a hang of dressing styles, customs and life during that period of time., Mostly it was about beautiful ladies in heavy dresses doing silly things in search of suitors.
Then I came across Alias Grace, an adaptation of a book in the same name by Margaret Atwood. Margaret Atwood is one of my favourite authors. I love her soulful, philosophical narrative and sentences that sink into the depths of your heart.
Grace Marks, an Irish immigrant in Canada was convicted for a gruesome twin murder of her master Mr. Kinnear and his housekeeper and mistress, Nancy Montgomery in 1843. A beautiful teenager at that time, Grace claimed to have no memory of that day, and remained an enigmatic convict.
Some spiritualists and sympathisers hired a young and upcoming psychiatrist, Simon Jordan to assess Grace's mental state and her
memory of the fateful day. The intention was to get pardon for Grace, because of her miserable background and disturbed mind. But Grace remained the enigmatic celebrated murderess..
To quote her own words,
"All the same, Murderess is a strong word to have attached to you. It has a smell to it, that word---musky and oppressive, like dead flowers in a vase. Sometimes at night I whisper it over to myself: Murderess, Murderess. It rustles, like a taffeta skirt across the floor.”
Along the miserable voyage from Ireland to Canada, Grace had lost her mother, and left with four younger siblings and a drunkard father. Soon after the arrival in Canada she was forced to take up job as a domestic maid in a family in Toronto. That was where she met Mary Whitney a fellow maid and form a strong bond of friendship. Grace looked upto Mary, for guidance, adored her naughtiness and admired her courage and rebellious ideas. Mary died after an abortion attempt that went wrong. Grace was shocked and shattered. She left the mansion and took up employment in Mr. Kinnear's home.
At the time of her mother's death, a woman had remarked about the closed windows. The idea stuck in young Grace's mind that she was upset to find that she had forgotten to open the windows to let Mary's soul out. Afterwards in her delirious sleep she heard Mary's voice asking to let her in.
Afterwards when she got pardoned, she married Jamie, to fulfill Mary's wishes of a home complete with a farm, cows, horses, chicken, a cat and a dog and to fulfill her own dream to have a house of her own.
In the end, Grace sat peacefully in the yard of her home, stiching a quilt adding a piece of Mary's bloodied petticoat, a piece of her own dress during her time in the penitentiary and a piece of Nancy's dress. A colourful symbol of coexistence.
I loved the intriguing case of Alias Grace.
I too was mesmerised by Sarah Gadon's Grace Marks and admired Rebecca Liddiard's Mary Whitney.
The flick gives you a lot to ponder.
Was Grace Marks insane or just a trickster? Was it split personality or amnesia?
Was she actually guilty or just an accomplice or totally innocent?
Who exactly was the murderess? Mary , Grace or Mary alias Grace?
Preetha Raj
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