This, my first review will be a little long because of an essay I wanted to tack on at the end. Most reviews will be a little shorter.
Last night I saw Silent Hill, and I noticed a lot of allegorical elements that intrigued me. I decided I wanted to write a review, and a little essay on allegories in general, because for the most part, I had given up on allegories. The review will be spoiler free, but the discussion that follows will have spoilers. I’ll warn you when I get there.
Silent Hill is Christophe Gans’ (Brotherhood of the Wolf) first foray in the world of video game film adaptations. I think there are at least two problems any video game film adaptation has to address. The first is that people do not agree on what an adaptation really is. I know plenty of purists that want no changes made in an adaptation, and that the sole reason of an adaptation is a change of medium. In my opinion, an adaptation is a chance for someone else to tell a story with a different perspective or style. I found Gans reached a nice medium and that he kept a lot of the elements from the original in tact, and his changes were for the better. The second and more specific problem I think video game film adaptations face is that you now have a much shorter window to enforce a suspension of disbelief. For instance, I have played games like Final Fantasy VII, which take around 70 hours to beat. In that time you can tell a very complex and outlandish character-driven story. Now try to compress something like that into a 2 hour film. Unless you are familiar with the story, that suspension of disbelief can be hard to overcome. I think there are two ways to address this. You can either cut sub-stories out and rewrite the story to be more simple and believable, or just trust the audience to understand this problem and hope for the best. This is why I think people who are not familiar with Silent Hill, may find the concept to be a stretch at times. Anyway, enough with generalities lets be more specific.
First, a little plot synopsis. Rose (Radha Mitchell) feels she must take her daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) to a town called Silent Hill, when her daughter continues to scream its name in her night terrors. Right outside Silent Hill, Rose crashes her car, and awakes to find Sharon is missing. She must head into the ghost town of Silent Hill to find her. I remember playing this game when I was in high school with all the lights off at 1’oclock in the morning. It was so terrifying.
As a review, I think Silent Hill was great. I felt Gans trusted the audience a lot more with interpretation than usual. Much like The Ring, you are left in a confused and intrigued state until the plot payoff. Also, Gans did a great job stylistically showing three separate worlds, the real world (not the MTV show), the “light” Silent Hill, and the “dark” Silent Hill. In much the same way Soderbergh used film granularity to differentiate realities in Full Frontal, Gans employs visual cues as to where you are. This not only makes the story easy to follow, it comes as a payoff at the end too. The film says much as a study of judgment and atonement, and what I hope to see in a sequel, a counterpoint of mercy. The film is rich with symbols of these themes, and I will catalogue them in the second part of this review/essay. Finally, this movie had a lot of very disturbing imagery. I saw this as a positive because…well, because it’s a horror movie, it’s supposed to scare you, and it did. However, if you are a featherweight when it comes to blood and gore, just be forewarned, some of these things, you will not be able to “unsee”.
Now don’t get me wrong, the film wasn’t perfect. As no video game movie to date has been able to avoid, there are the obligatory cheesy lines. Sometimes these are a blessing in disguise and provide unintentional comic relief, however in Silent Hill, it makes you feel embarrassed that you’re even watching the film. After escaping mortal danger from a monster, one of the characters says “They say this place is haunted”, to which the other replies “I’d say their right!” Avary wrote some pretty bad dialogue at times and I found it to be a little cheesy, but at least these lines are kind of sparse. The girl who played Sharon was “OK” at best. About halfway through, the plot falls into an almost predictable episodic feel, in much the same way video games can become tedious in repetitive action. I don’t really see this as negative though and I think it was intentional. This episodic feel is inherent to the construction of videogames, and I think this was in reference to that.
Bottom line: great film. You will love it if you liked the games, you might not like it if you have never played the games.
Final Verdict: B
Spoiler Warning: If you haven’t seen Silent Hill, read no further!
Silent Hill contains several allegorical elements and symbols. After having watched The Chronicles of Narnia, I was really turned off by allegory. If a story as a whole is simply an allegory for another story (or faith, depending on your perspective), what is the purpose of an allegory. Anyone can change characters names, environments, and create mirror worlds and now pass it off as enlightened allegory. Silent Hill is different in that it is a juxtaposition of allegorical elements, offering a fresh perspective on how to represent other works. By creating fragments of certain religious allegorical elements and even reversing some of them, Silent Hill shows that you can create a different kind of story. Silent Hill really intrigued me. At times it was bright with intelligence, symbols, and allegory. At other times it was dim with bad dialogue and poor pacing. Could Silent Hill be interpreted as an attack on Christianity, yes, I think it could. But a valid point could be made that it is in support of Christianity. Reversed allegorical elements can have a dualistic interpretation. I think the point is more to get you discussing the different elements. I guess my point is that I don’t have a point, I’m like a little kid pointing his finger saying “Hey! Look at this!”, wondering what everyone else will think.
I think it is interesting to note how much storytelling in our country uses allusions and allegories to God and Jesus Christ. (Narnia, The Matrix, Star Wars). Some people actually interpret this as proof of God’s existence, in that these are natural associations we make from a subconscious knowledge of a creator, but there are a couple problems with this. First of all, is what I call the Babel Fish argument, which I credit to Douglas Adams. In the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, there exists a little fish called the Babel Fish, and when you stick it in your ear you can automatically understand anything said to you regardless of language. The argument goes like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. It’s a joke, and a rather clever one, but it also says a lot. Secondly, I think this can’t be some hidden proof of God’s existence, because what if the Bible is just another allegory. In other words you cannot say the Chronicles of Narnia is a true story because of the allegory used in the Matrix. With all of that said, I’d like to now make a list of all the symbols and allegories I noticed in Silent Hill. This is kind of a rough draft, I may expand it, but most likely I won’t.
- When we first see Sharon in her night terror outside, we see a lighted crucifix in the background.
- Jesus Christ is symbolically referred to as the “Rose of Sharon” in Song of Solomon 2:1. The mother and daughter are Rose and Sharon respectively.
- Sharon/Alessa is represented as three separate parts in much the same way God is represented as a Trinity. Alessa in the hospital bed is how I envision God the Father. Outwardly passive, but inwardly really the one in control of everything. Dark Alessa is how I envision the Holy Spirit, omnipresent. It is Dark Alessa that Rose continually seeks in Silent Hill. Finally Light Alessa, reincarnated as Sharon, is representative of Jesus Christ.
- When Rose meets Alessa, and Alessa hugs her, and enters her, it is symbolic of the sin that was placed upon Christ by God before the crucifixion. (II Corinthians 5:21)
- When Rose returns with Alessa in her, she is stabbed by the priestess. Nothing happens until her blood falls on the ground. "Without shedding of blood is no remission." (Hebrews 9: 22.)
- Several signs showing biblical passages of judgment are outside of the home of the Da Silvas.
- The last name of the family Da Silvas is an anagram for “dis lava”. The City of Dis is a fiery inferno that spews lava in the sixth layer of hell, described in Canto IX of Dante’s Divine Comedy, it sounds very much like Silent Hill:
That color cowardice painted on my face,
When I had seen my leader turned around,
More quickly caused him to repress his pallor.
Attentive he halted, like a man listening,
Because his eyes could not lead him on farther
Through the blackening air and thickening fog.
- Also in that same verse, in the town exists the three Furies of Queen Hecate: Megaera, Alecto, and Tisiphone, in Greek mean respectively, Enemy (Dark Alessa), She Who Does not Sleep (Sharon, has night terrors), and Avenger of Homicides (Hospital Bed Alessa, who I feel was in charge of the avenging of her own death).
- Also prevalent is the juxtaposition of the light and dark as representations of good and evil. Really there is no good and evil in Silent Hill, more like action-reaction or sin-retribution. However, the force the audience ultimately sides with because of innocent origins is represented as dark, while the opposing force, with evil origins is represented as light.
As you all have heard, The Wicker Man hit theaters this weekend. Now before you get your hopes up, this will not be a review of that movie. I have heard from several people it was abysmal, and it even went as low as 12% on the Tomometer. Today, I want to talk to you about the original. With the recent remake, I found myself in multiple conversations with friends about the movie. All of them recommended I see it. That's right, I'm looking at you Josh, Robbie, and Claire.
