“Hamnet” tells the emotional story of the death of William Shakespeare’s son, which inspired the renowned tragedy “Hamlet,”. In an interview with the film’s director Chloé Zhao, she shared the symbolism of the costume colors assigned to Shakespeare and his wife Agnes.
Zhao explains that Will, played by Paul Mescal, is fit in blue while Agnes, played by Jessie Buckley, is in red “because blue is the upper chakra so it’s the intellect … and red is the color of the root chakra, it’s the color of the beating heart, so it’s much more in the body.” The use of color to represent chakras offers insight towards how both characters deal with the loss of their son.
Chakras originate as a Tantric tradition, but have evolved and become more widely recognized due to Western interest in yoga as a meditative and physical activity. They are the spiritual centers within the body, each one representing a different piece of identity and human nature.
Due to the spread of this core idea into many cultures, there are varying depictions of the chakras, and there is debate on how many there are and where they’re located. Westernized depictions have seven main chakras along the spine. The root and upper throat chakras that Zhao references are pieces of this seven part system.
The movie’s focus is not on Shakespeare himself, but rather on his wife, Agnes. Buckley’s rich depiction of motherhood through Agnes makes her the center of the film. Cloaked in various reds throughout the film, she represents the Root Chakra. It is said to govern basic human needs like safety and stability and is tied to the primal nature of humankind and our physical survival. Buckley’s passionate performance as Agnes provides a great expression of these qualities.
While most characters appear in drab grays and browns, Agnes starkly contrasts them. As the “beating heart” of the film, the emotions of the story are all guided by her perspective. When she grieves, the audience cries; when she laughs, the audience smiles.
The Upper Throat Chakra, on the other hand, rules communication and self-expression. Seeing as Shakespeare’s plays rely on dialogue, it is the most fitting chakra for Will. In his scripts, there are no props listed, no costumes defined and very few stage directions. His fame and craft never relied on grandiose displays, but rather the writing itself, specifically the spoken word.
This is what is interpreted repeatedly, what evokes the audience’s emotion and intrigue. The Throat Chakra then is an obvious choice for him, but while these traits are easy to tie to William Shakespeare as a playwright, in Hamnet they are directly correlated to his specific response to his son’s death.
Agnes’ grief is portrayed in a very visceral way; when she wakes up to find Hamnet dead, she cries out in anguish and you can feel her sorrow through the screen. On the contrary, Will is not present for Hamnet’s passing and his eventual reaction is not one that makes a great show of his loss. Instead, Will’s expression of grief is the creation of “Hamlet.”
Image from IMDb.
This symbolism is evident within the movie’s depiction of the stage play as well, cloaking the actor playing Hamlet in rich blue through the film. Though he’s supposed to be the one assigned the color, Hamlet’s costume is the most vivid display of the Throat Chakra because he is the tangible expression of Shakespeare’s grief. He is the Throat Chakra personified, not just a character who aligns with it.
Through these two expressions of grief, one can also draw upon the gendered binaries of these characters and what they represent. Will is the intellect where Agnes is the emotion. These align with ideas of the masculine and feminine, but it breaks these boundaries as well by placing power in the woman’s story. It is through the expression of his work that we can guess at Will’s grieving process, but the film is told through Agnes to show just how heartbreaking the loss of Hamnet was for both.
“Hamnet” shows the deeply personal experience of Agnes and Will losing their child. Without Agnes as the central character, this theme would fall flat.
The very use of chakras contributes to the main theme of grief within “Hamnet.” The movie is not so concerned with Shakespeare’s famous work “Hamlet,” but rather the emotional journey that was experienced to create it.
Art is at its core an exercise of feeling. Chakras as pieces of symbolism for this film emphasize these traits of human nature and how ordinary people deal with terrible loss.
Grace Blawie can be reached at [email protected].
