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Life of Pi: The Gift of Nothingness

Life of Pi is a 2012 movie about a young Indian boy stranded in a boat at sea with none only than a Bengal Tiger as his companion on his journey. The film tackles several different philosophical ideas, but they are all interwoven to the film’s one core message: How to love yourself just as much as you love all living things.

The film teaches Pi and the audience about the gifts and burdens of being a parent, and the roles that fatherhood and motherhood both carry as a duty to the relationship of the family, as well as what role religion has for Pi in loving himself and others.

Disclaimer

Before I continue, I want to issue a disclaimer. This analysis comes from the eyes of a Christian. I do not wish any ill will on any Atheist, nor am I a carbon copy of what the character of Pi believes and represents. I simply just love a phenomenal film and want to share my love of movies with the world. The religious aspects of this film are represented in Pi’s mind, and don’t necessarily reflect my own.

I would also like to clarify that the various representations of parenthood that I talk about don’t necessarily apply to everyone. Not everyone is going to be a traditional mother or father. None of the philosophies shown in this film are right or wrong. Everyone has different beliefs on life.

If you are an Atheist, I encourage you to leave food for discussion in a comment. That being said, Let’s move on.

Who is Richard Parker?

Life of Pi’s main character is Pi of course, but in my opinion, it is the much more handsome Richard Parker who steals the show. Once he is introduced in the film especially when they become isolated in their boat, everything the film’s been telling you starts to make sense. This is done this way (in a brilliant fashion I might add) because the audience learns just what Pi’s father was trying to teach him parallel to Pi’s own pace. So to explain what Richard Parker represents and what he means to Pi, I have to back up a bit and explain why his father was so hellbent on protecting him from Richard Parker in the first place.

Learning to Reason

Pi’s father didn’t want to keep his son an Atheist, he wanted him to start with logic and reason. Pi kept leaping from one religion to the next blindly because it was something new and foreign to him. In my own experience, I have found myself to leap to a different lifestyle or different belief in various parts of life because I was scared of being nothing. Not having a label on my face that said to the world “I am __” or “I believe in ___” was terrifying to me.

Pi practiced multiple religions because he was afraid of not believing anything at all. Pi does not know how to better himself so he turns to Religion to solve his problems for him.

Reflected Emotions

Pi’s first encounter with real danger was with Richard Parker. Pi and his family own the zoo, so Pi took his brother Ravi to go see the infamous Bengal Tiger, Richard Parker. Pi wanted to show his brother that he could feed the animal without being attacked. So, he grabbed a slab of meat and stuck his hand into the cage demonstrating the power of his faith. Pi believed that the power of his faith could protect him from such danger.

When Pi’s father found his son he stopped him before the inevitable would happen. His father reprimanded him saying that a carnivorous beast like a tiger is an animal and not a friend. He also said that animals do not have souls, that all you will see when looking into their eyes is your own emotions reflected staring back at you.

What he was trying to teach Pi was that it is dangerous to be that naive. It is foolish to love all forms of life and expect that love to be reciprocated by anything with a heartbeat. Expecting love to come from a place filled with darkness will only get you killed.

Learning to Love

When Pi first met his sweetheart Amandi, he was filling in for a drummer to offer background music for a dancing class. In the class, Amandi did something the other’s didn’t. She made gestures in her movements that basically spelled out to “Lotus flower hiding in the forest. Something like a Lotus Flower hiding in the forest doesn’t make sense because a flower so beautiful should be showing off in the open for people to appreciate its beauty.

Amandi introduced Pi to love. Pi had the will to fall in love but not the will to love. He wanted purely the feeling of happiness and bliss when falling in love with a female, or the security and sense of purpose of practice of Religion. This simply goes back to Pi’s habit of looking for external sources to feel whole.

However, Amandi is different. She knows that she shouldn’t give out her love and trust like a flyer because that has to be earned. It would be dangerous and naive to expect that everyone is going to be worthy of your time and reciprocate the affection you give them. Why else would she hide a lotus flower in the forest?

Women, especially mothers are incubators and will give back to their partner what they receive twice-fold. Fathers are the rocks of the family, holding all of the family’s pain and suffering on his back so he can take care of them and keep them secure. However, the role of a woman in this relationship with her family is to love. The reason why we didn’t see much of Pi’s mother in the film is that women are the providers of love in the universe.

In fact for the majority of her screen time in the film, she supports most of Pi’s endeavors. This information is important because we see a polar opposite in the way his father behaves. In the majority of his father’s screen time, he is not speaking down to his son but teaching him lessons. His father loved his son just as much as his mother but couldn’t show it because he needed to be strong for the family.

Pi, The Mother, The Cook, and The Sailor

Now that we got that out of the way, I can finally talk about my favorite character in all of fiction. There comes a point in the story when Pi’s family is running out of funds and they have to leave India to Canada and sell their animals. On their way to Canada, their ship encounters a severe storm and ends up sinking. Of course, many of the animals on board escape their cages and four animals come aboard Pi’s lifeboat. Them being a zebra, hyena, orangutan, and of course Richard Parker.

This is when Pi starts to become confronted with the importance of his father’s lessons. Animals are not sentient and live for food and water. Of course, many animals have the ability to show affection even to humans but it is important to recognize that they act out of instinct and necessity. They lack the ability to love at the complex level of humans.

There comes a point in the film when the hyena attacks the zebra and sadly kills it. The orangutan gawks and scolds the hyena for having the audacity to kill something so beautiful. However, just like what Pi’s father taught him, the hyena killed the zebra out of basic necessity and reason. For if it kept the zebra alive out of pity for its life the hyena would have died with it.

The orangutan represents Pi’s mother. She wants to keep his father in check and make sure he’s not being too hard on his son. When the hyena becomes especially rambunctious she slaps him to the ground. Pi screams and hollers, praising her for fighting back, therefore, exposing his nativity. She just looks back at him, knowing that as much as she doesn’t want his father to be so hard on him, the lessons that Pi learns from him are going to be the ones that might save his life one day.

The hyena attacks and kills the orangutan. Of course, Pi’s father never was physically or even verbally abusive, but his mother often had to back down and let his father reprimand his son. There’s a reason why you always hear mothers after children do something wrong say “wait until your father gets home” because the role of a father is to challenge you, teach you, and show you the horrors of the world. The orangutan lets herself be killed because she knows that if Pi keeps going along the same path and giving out his love blindly to anyone, he’s going to be killed.

Of course, Pi yells and taunts the orangutan, pulling out a knife. Pi loved his father but he was still too stubborn to fully understand and accept his teachings.

The Tiger

During this scuffle in the boat, the tiger jumps out and kills the hyena immediately without any effort. Richard Parker represents Atheism. It offers no love, nothing to teach, and nothing to give. It is only there to scare you and challenge your existence. This is why he is scarier than the hyena because although the hyena kills out of necessity, the tiger killed to rid of a nuisance. Richard Parker even threw the hyena off the boat and ate the zebra instead. Atheism doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t hate you and it doesn’t love you either, it just wants to chip away at your soul until the time of your death when your soul leaves existence for all eternity.

The hyena was too weak to get to Pi and couldn’t actually get to him because there was a rise in elevation in the boat because of all the supplies. Of course, Pi’s father was an Atheist himself but he was scared that Pi would lose hope on that boat and lose faith, letting his doubt and depression take control of him and be his demise. Unfortunately, he was too late and the tiger got to him first.

Without Religion, Pi had no other interests that kept him busy and gave his life purpose. Pi even admitted that eventually, things like math and science became boredom and patterns without end. So, without Religion in Pi’s eyes, he would be a nobody, and that is exactly what his father was so afraid of. However, Atheism does not care what you think of yourself and it does not care if you are a nobody. It just wants to take your life.

Finding Purpose

Richard Parker gives Pi’s life purpose because if he hadn’t regularly taken care of him he would get too hungry and Pi would be his last meal. Reflectively, Pi’s fear of Atheism brought him to find purpose in his life. By feeding that tiger and keeping him alive Richard Parker ultimately saved his life because if it weren’t for him, Pi would have died in that boat wishing for someone to save him. The fear of there not being a God in the sky to watch over you, was too great for him to just ignore. By putting his faith in God Pi felt secure, and that’s the exact reason why he was drawn to Religion in the first place. When that security is removed then he has no purpose and no other interests or drives in life.

This is reflected when at the beginning of Pi’s journey with Richard Parker, Pi looks to God and says “I surrender myself to you”. Pi hasn’t quite yet fully understood the value of his father’s lessons of prioritizing reason and being self-sufficient, so he turns to God before he turns to himself. It is okay to believe in any Religion and worship the God(s) of that said Religion, but first, you need to know why you are practicing worship in the first place. In Pi’s case, it would be selfish and foolish to believe in a higher power for the sole purpose of taking care of a part of yourself that you are neglecting out of fear or laziness.

In fact, Pi really starts to take after his father when he has the opportunity to kill Richard Parker when he jumps off the boat. When Pi had an ax to his head he decided not to pull the trigger because ultimately he needed Richard Parker to survive, for if he had killed him he would not have the motivation to keep moving and would have killed himself. Not to mention he even brought himself to feed Richard Parker his first fish after sobbing over killing a living creature for survival.

Pi really starts to learn the value of Richard Parker in a scene where Pi sees him looking into the ocean and asks him what he sees. From his dad’s own words, if you look into a tiger’s eyes all you will see is your own emotions reflected back at you. However, whatever you aim at a mirror you see right back. When Richard Parker looked into the ocean we see hallucinations of sorts. Some we could assume are actual living creatures deep in the ocean like a giant squid, a shark, and even an angler fish. However, that’s exactly my point. By looking through the eyes of Richard Parker he’s able to appreciate how beautiful life really is.

By looking through the mirror of Atheism Pi learned that its okay to be scared because that’s what’s life all about. Life is about vulnerability and not everything has to be explained to you and that’s okay. The beauty of life is that there’s so much to explore and find in this world and there’s no reason to waste precious time to be afraid of something you ultimately have no real idea lies ahead of you. No one can really know for sure if there is a higher power, but that’s the beauty of faith. It gives us the motivation to move through our darkest hour because often times it feels like its all we have left.

The Wrath of God

Just when Pi thinks he had learned his ultimate lesson his faith is again tested. When he encounters a storm we something that even Richard Parker is afraid of. God. God does not hate us, He loves us. He puts us through terrible things and takes everything from us to test us and prove our will to Him.

Atheism can’t physically take anything away from him. In a sense, its only purpose is to live in your mind. It’s just a looming presence that challenges your existence and slowly drains you. God, however, will do anything in His power to tear us apart if He wants to if He wants us to learn a lesson. No matter how hard the beating is we have to surrender ourselves to him because we have to accept that God is perfect and He knows what is wrong from right.

To truly love God and prove your loyalty to Him, you sometimes have to do things that are terrifying, like embracing the hole of darkness that is Atheism with open arms. After the storm subsides and Pi and Richard Parker are well near death, Pi and Richard Parker embrace when he rests his head on Pi’s lap. To truly love God, you have to truly be vulnerable. That means fully accepting that even though you don’t have physical proof of God’s existence you must fully give yourself to Him, and that’s possibly one of the most terrifying things to accomplish especially when you have devoted all of your strength to prioritizing reason and thinking rationally.

Pi accepts this unknown future and the spontaneous nature of his fate, surrendering and accepting his death. He says “God, thank you for giving me life, I am ready now”. When Pi felt he was beyond the probability of being saved, God gave him rest. Pi arrived on an island for Pi to lick his wounds. However, this island was not exactly a paradise but another test given by God.

The Carnivorous Island

When Pi arrives on this island, he is immediately embraced by it. Much of the plant-life is edible and the only animals other than Richard Parker to keep him company are none other than Meerkats. The island also has freshwater springs built into it. However by night, a chemical turned the water into acid, and the plants, trees, the very ground itself was carnivorous akin to a Venus flytrap.

Pi ended up picking a fruit from a tree and found a human tooth inside of it. It was then that he had come to the realization that there was a poor soul who came upon this island thinking he could stay there forever, and when he died the island had digested him.

This island represents that of a mother. Often times, mothers will find themselves holding onto their children and inadvertently keep them from becoming more. Mothers are important gears in the confusing clockwork of life, but God built every living thing to be flawed to teach us an infinite amount of lessons. Life itself serves as a representation of a mother. It offers us so much beauty to explore in this world and cradles us with love offering us so many ways to live life to the fullest.

God personifies a father. Without a father figure in your life, there is no one to provide guidance. Mothers, of course, can be well suited as well, especially when they have had a wonderful father to teach them. However, there’s no denying that God built fathers to be better equipped to do this as well.

Mothers are nurturers. Their role is to provide their child with love and affection with all their heart. There’s a reason why its so difficult for men to show affection. Take a banana tree for example. It would be foolish to expect a banana tree to grow apples because that’s not its purpose.

God created this island for Pi to teach him of the importance of his father and the horrors of never leaving your mother’s arms. Fathers are important because they are always watching, getting involved with their children and disciplining them to become strong and confident individuals. You need to confront the challenge to leave the nest. As scary as that is, it is mandatory for living a fulfilling life. God as a father is there to build us into successful people. He was always watching over Pi. When He seemed to be indifferent to Pi’s suffering, He was still watching. When Pi felt he was beyond hope of saving He gave him rest.

There’s a reason why moms always say to their children after they make a grave mistake: “wait ’till your father hears about this”. This is because the role of the father is to give you a challenge, build you into a work of art, and show you the horrors of the world, but they are always watching. Fathers are always there for you and love you with all their hearts even when it seems they are punishing you.

In fact, we see this when Pi’s family departs from India. Pi says to himself that he realized that leaving India was harder on his father than it was for him. Although it may seem that his father is being too harsh in reality that is quite the opposite.

Freedom

When Pi finally reached civilization at the Mexican shore, Pi had learned so much from Richard Parker from his father. However, Pi had been taking care of him for so long it was time for him to leave the nest so to speak. God had taught Pi the gift of fatherhood from his dad’s teachings and taught him about becoming a father himself.

Pi had learned how to find purpose in his life by using Atheism as a mirror to appreciate the grand scheme of what life is really all about, teaching him to love. However, when a child learns how to ride a bike he must learn to ride it without training wheels eventually. Now that Richard Parker is out of his life he cannot use him as a crutch anymore and must now apply his teachings to his own life.

Pi learned on the carnivorous island about leaving the nest and the dangers of staying in the comfort of your mother’s arms, never taking the opportunity to confront the challenge. So although it will be heartbreaking to see Richard Parker leave without the moment to say goodbye, it is what’s best for him for he is a wild animal and not a domestic housecat.

Conclusion

Overall, this film is phenomenal. I have honestly never loved a character as much as I have with Richard Parker. At the beginning of the film, he seems to be nothing more than a black hole of fear and nothingness, and the beautiful part is that never changes.

I feel the reason why I love his character so much is that Pi uses Richard Parker as a mirror, and the only reason why we see him become tamer is that Pi perceives him to be something he can learn from. Richard Parker only became tame when Pi saw the truth and saw how beautiful the world was. So, for Pi and the audience, Richard Parker is only a reflection of what you perceive him to be.

So if you want to see if you can apply this to the real world, just think. Something is only as scary or threatening only if you perceive it to be. After all, Atheists do not fear their belief of no afterlife and no one watching over them because they have already come to accept that. Just remember, mirrors always reflect what is in front of them. So if your fear obstructs that mirror, that is the only thing you will see staring back at you.

Author

Noah Veremis

Candyman: The Fear of the Unknown

Candyman is a 1992 gothic-horror film set in the crowded streets of Chicago. The film is about an urban “legend” named Candyman who blurs the line between myth and reality when he starts stalking our main character Hellen, and people all around her start to die in a brutal and gruesome fashion. As the film progresses we as the audience starts to question if it is really Hellen committing these crimes or if it is actually Candyman just framing her.

From the many times I have watched this phenomenal film, I have come to the grim conclusion that Candyman is only real because we make him real. The scary truth is, The monsters under your bed become real to you, so in your sense of reality they are birthed into this world from your imagination.

Copycat Effect

In this film, our two main characters are Hellen and Bernadette. Their goal is to write a thesis about a mythical figure named Candyman whom people have been attributing to rather peculiar murders in the city. When the two women go to an apartment complex, a building that housed one of these murders, they find the abandoned apartment where the killing took place. In it, Hellen crawls through a hole in a wall and finds unsettling graffiti art resembling Candyman’s gaping mouth as if he’s eating anyone who walks through that hole.

In this room she finds a pile of tampered candy that contain razor blades in them. This is among two separate scenes that, in my opinion are the meat and potatoes of the film’s message.

Have you ever truly seen a child with tampered candy on Halloween? As much as the media likes to portray, there really isn’t any concrete evidence that suggests it has a probability worth stressing about. However, the real interesting factor that I feel parents could confirm is that in most confirmed cases of tampered candy, children have been found to actually poison or tamper with their own candy (Miller). Sometimes this can happen when children hear about this on the news or from a friend and act it out. Other times its merely a prank.

In the other scene, Hellen is talking to a young child named Jake. Apparantly there is another story floating around relating to Candyman about a mentally challenged individual who was castrated in a public bathroom. When she goes to investigate to take pictures she is interrupted by a gang member holding a hook dressed as Candyman who says to her: “I heard you’re looking for Candyman bitch. Well, you found him”. Of course, she was then subsequently beaten to a pulp.

These two scenes matter because it explains who and what Candyman is.

Poisoned Candy “Myth”

Children are incredibly curious and impressionable and frequently act out and talk about what they see around them. When it gets close to Halloween the child may see something on the news or hear from a relative about warnings for razor blades or poison in candy from Trick ‘r Treating. The child might then tamper with their own candy and come running to mommy or daddy all disheveled because they get precious attention from their parents.

However, even though this isn’t directly related to the urban legend of Candyman, it represents what Candyman wants and what he needs for him to exist. It doesn’t really matter if people are actually poisoning candy on Halloween, but it terrifies parents just the same of just having the thought in their head. Children are the ones most malleable by the myth. They are the most naive, gullible, and the ones that express the most fear.

Of course, there hasn’t been enough evidence over the years to entertain the thought that this is an actual risk but again, that doesn’t matter. Once one person hears about it, they tell their friends, their friends make up stories for attention and for a good laugh. Some people even make movies and write books that contain the myth that then go on to be seen by thousands and millions of people.

Candyman doesn’t need to be real for us to believe in him. All Candyman needs is for the legend of his existence to be spread. It’s when gangs and murderers start taking advantage of the legend to scare people when it starts to become really dangerous.

Heard You Were Looking For Candyman

Nearly everyone in Chicago in this film has at the very least heard of Candyman. Naturally criminals take advantage of this to drive fear into the hearts of civilians.

Take a film that came out recently, Joker for example. The United States military themselves warned movie theater chains to ramp up security in preparation for Hollywood’s newest horror movie. The reason was that there was fear that someone might act out the atrocities of a movie villain like Joker. Of course, this never happened but imagine the satisfaction a troubled criminal might come to have, perhaps considering Joker as an idol when they commit atrocities even with the possibility of their death. The attention and satisfaction of sending a message to the world in one big bang is all that matters to them.

Of course, the media is also to blame. Big stories like this attract more traffic, and news companies are even known to drive a fake or far-fetched narrative. The article or script for live television will be structured in such a way that it could almost be considered a story. It doesn’t matter who they make the criminal out to be. Maybe s/he’s an incel raging about their quarrels with women in today’s society. Maybe its a nazi, or in this case, a Joker imposter.

The legend of Candyman is so popular and widespread that gangs take advantage of this and adopt characteristics of him. They paint his name and pictures of him on the walls of buildings and dressing up as him, acting out his likeness. This continued violence keeps the Candyman name alive. Due to all this violence from gang members and people who live through it, some may even add tall tales or fake news to the story.

For the copycats, these people commit these murders and horrendous acts because they attribute to who and what Candyman is, so in that sense the myth becomes real because of them. At that point, there is no myth because that person becomes Candyman. Candyman is the mother-ship of the disgusting imagination and curiosity of Mankind.

Even Hellen, who is trying to research about the real truth of the Candyman urban legend, is only making it worse. Hellen thinks she can stop these rumors from spreading with factual research, but she’s only enabling Candyman and his copycats. By believing in Candyman and spreading his myth you are inadvertently birthing more horrible things into existence related to the Candyman urgan legend. This is reflected by the fact that after all her research and hard work, all she got for her efforts was a black eye.

The New Queen

Throughout the course of the film, I’d like to think that weather Candyman is aware of it or not, Hellen is being trained to become the new Queen of the hive. When Hellen comes home after being released from custody with her lawyer, she has a conversation with him and her husband. She asks Trevor if he thinks she did it when he says “Nobody believes that” and she responds with “But it crossed your mind”. No one wants to address the elephant in the room because of how absurd it sounds that “Candyman” killed someone rather than Hellen. So to save herself the embarrassment she doesn’t entertain the idea and allows herself to be seen in the public eye as the true killer.

When the detective assigned to Hellen’s case tells her that she is to be arrested and asks “do you understand?”, her and the audience have no clue why or what killed that dog and took the child away and how it is related to Candyman. However when Candyman asks the same question, this time it is paired with another question that, although grim, actually makes sense:

Believe me it is a blessing to be whispered about around street corners, to live in other people’e dreams, but not to have to be.
Tony Todd as Candyman – Candyman (1992)

Candyman doesn’t have to be a living and breathing entity, as in his own words, being immortal in the world of dreams and myths is much more intoxicating than the life of a mortal.

After Hellen was burned alive in the end of the film and given a funeral, she had hundreds of followers come to her casket, when Jake throws a hook into her grave. Afterwards, we see Trevor writhing in his bathroom over what he experienced. He looks in the mirror and say’s Hellen’s name in the mirror five times when she appears before him saying, “What’s wrong Trevor, scared of something?”. The truth is he is scared of something. He’s scared of still having feelings for someone who committed murder and acted out disgusting and horrendous actions.

Trevor believed that myths like the albino alligators in the sewer and well, Candyman himself were fake. By doing this and spreading his word he was weakening the faith in Hellen’s new congregation and had to be destroyed.

Conclusion

Looking back at this film, I found the message to be extremely relatable. Take sleep paralysis for example. When you see such terrible things running around your room, its one of the most terrifying things any one person can experience. However, even though you know you’re safe and in a couple minutes you’ll wake up unharmed there’s no shortage of fear in your bones. The bottom line is something doesn’t have to be real to scare us, proving how fragile and helpless we really are.

Author

Noah Veremis

Works Cited

Miller, Adam. “Trick or Truth? The real story behind Halloween candy tampering”. CBC. CBC/Radio-Candada. 31 Oct. 2019. Web. 29 Jan. 2019.

The Dark Valley: The Gift of Free Will

The Dark Valley is a 2014 Western set in the unforgiving terrain of the Alps, specifically in Austria. Unlike other westerns that are dripping with action and tall men with sandpaper for vocal chords, this one is vastly different. So what makes this film so special?

The Dark Valley features Sam Riley as Greider, a photographer coming from North America to the Alps to “take pictures”. However as the movie progresses it becomes clear that he definitely has ulterior motives, using the photography shtick as a disguise for his true intentions. After two men in this small village end up dead, its clear Greider is out for blood.

However, as cookie-cutter as a summary of a film that may be, the film’s satisfying dark twist and clever motifs and visual themes that make for compelling characters and storytelling.

The Twist

Unfortunately, I can’t talk about this film without mentioning spoilers, so if you’re interested in seeing this film stop reading and come back after you’ve watched it.

In this small village, its so separated from the rest of civilization that anyone who stops into this town is usually incredibly famished and exhausted. The town’s leader “Old Brenner” will feed everyone who comes in but with a catch. Any woman that is presented to Old Brenner will have to give their body’s up to him for impregnation. These women are more than welcome to leave but will have to find a way to survive Austria’s harsh unforgiving wilderness. In Greider’s case, his mother was one of the women Old Brenner violated. When her husband tried to rescue her he was crucified. Greider’s mother did manage to escape but was never seen again.

In an epic tale of revenge Greider comes to this village where it all started and begins slaughtering all of Brenner’s sons that get in his way. We later find out that these men were actually Greider’s brothers. What really sells this twist though, is all of the buildup that lead up to that information.

Red vs Blue

When it comes to lighting, the film many of times uses colors of red and blue. When it comes to color you can use it to convey copious amounts of information. In this film, red lamps, fire, and candles are used, and the only time we see blue is through light from outside coming indoors.

Red

The color red represents Greider’s blood and the atrocities that both him and his family are committing. Yes, Greider may be saving people in the process, but at first that isn’t even on his mind. Red is often showing combating for dominance with the color blue, illuminating different parts of the room.

Often there are scenes where half of Greider’s face is illuminated by red, and the other by blue. In the film he has a metronome that he uses to help him take pictures, and uses it as background noise to fall asleep. The metronome is a tool that serves as Greider’s american roots and his naive ideals that life will follow a straight line and be on the side of the “hero”

Greider comes from a country that created the Western genre. There’s even a scene where one of the main characters, Luzi, is asking him questions about his home with wonder and excitement in her voice. Take John Wayne for example. Of course not every one of his films is the same, but John Wayne himself is a symbol of what the genre represents to the public eye. The hero is an assertive, confident hunk always picks himself up when he gets back down.

In this scene, Luzi and Greider are having dinner together and the entire room is illuminated with candles. Luzi is filled with wonder hoping that Greider is the John Wayne in this story and that his victory will be the end of this story and the end of their continuous suffering. In a later scene Greider and Luzi are at a General Store when one of the Brenner Sons, Otto, offers him a Shnapps. Greider refuses and Otto takes the entire bottle and starts drowning him with it. When Luzi comes to the rescue Greider is curled up on the floor while ample lamps all around him cradle him with red light.

Another representation of the color red comes from the coming winter. Because of the severity of the weather in the Alps, Greider would be stuck there until the winter passes. Luzi even tries to get Greider to leave to save him from himself by saying “This is no place for you. You should leave when the snow falls, it will be too late”. After the snow starts to fall, we see a scene of Greider in his room in front of a metronome with a candle illuminating the front of his body and blue light from his window illuminating his back. As the metronome plays, it’s sound slowly transforms into a heartbeat, showing Greider’s transformation from a naive “hero” into the exact thing he sworn to destroy.

Of course, the heartbeat serves as a representation of the cycle of impregnation from Old Brenner, and another example of Brenner’s blood fighting for control inside Greider’s body.

The color red in this movie embodies Greider’s struggle through the film, showing that through a representation of red combating for control with blue. Red is the imperfections of mankind, and blue is the innocence and beauty of life and child birth, which I’ll discuss now.

Blue

Blue is a color that is only represented through the outside world. In other words, it is a completely natural form of illumination.

Take Castaway as an example. When Chuck Noland woke up after passing out in his cave, the natural light of the sun opened his eyes. A similar case can be applied to this film. In many cases, scenes are illuminated almost entirely with red with blue in the background.

After Greider finishes off the rest of the Brenner sons, he returns to the village to kill Old Brenner and finish his quest. The door into Old Brenner’s room is painted blue, and both him and Greider’s faces are both half illuminated with red light and blue light. It is at this point that the audience finds out about the Brenner family being Greider’s brothers.

Now of course, Greider is conflicted. He has to choose between killing his only connection he has to his mother, or letting the cycle of violence and rape continue.

In that sense, perhaps the color blue represents the innocence of child birth and the beauty of raising a child to become a wonderful, active piece in the world and how Old Brenner bastardized that gift for personal pleasure.

In the film, Luzi and another main character Lukas, are to be married. The problem though, is that after they are to be married Old Brenner’s dark tradition of having his way with women after they’re married.

This color represents what God intended for the Earth and his expectations for mankind. Luzi and Lukas, a reflection of Adam and Eve, are caught up in the crossfire. People who are grateful for God’s gift and use their existence to appreciate said gift and create more life. That gift is exactly what Old Brenner is bastardizing: life itself. From my perspective at least, it seems God did not expect people to demoralize and take advantage of what was handed to them. Free will is perhaps the greatest gift of all because it gives us the ability to love, but it also gives us the ability to destroy and harm others.

As a final note there’s one last scene I’d like to talk about, and it might just be one of my favorite scenes of any movie period. When the wedding takes place, blue light from outside is shining through a window onto a statue of Jesus Christ. The priest, Breiser, whom we later find out is involved with the atrocities of the Brenner family, says this:

…Let us remember the good man Joseph. What do you think he felt when his wife was with child though he had never lain with her? He must have been full of rage…and felt helpless. If he had chased Mary away, everyone would have understood. But he was pious…and didn’t want to bring shame on her. And so he acquiesced, knowing that his son came from a higher being. Joseph understood that the Lord had not imposed a sacrifice upon him, but had sent him a gift from heaven. And what did the Holy Mary say about this? “Even if he uses me and my womb…I shall not protest, for he is one that knows better than I what is good and what is right”
Erwin Steinhauer as Breiser – The Dark Valley (2014)

Using this as evidence for my point earlier, Breiser and the Brenner family of this small village are taking advantage of God’s gift and using it to instill fear onto the community and control it by creating a terrible justification of their actions. No matter what, innocent people will suffer because of the gift of free will and will get caught in the crossfire from people who go against God’s prospects.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this movie in my eyes is my favorite western and one of my favorite films of all time. The christian Bible contains so much content, its always awesome to see people using the book to experiment with different themes and philosophical commentary in film.

That being said, I love the film’s message of mankind misinterpreting God’s expectations when he gave us the gift of free will. Even Greider is imperfect and goes against God’s expectations, killing several people in the name of vengeance and stoops down to Old Brenner’s level.

The harsh truth is no one is ever going to meet God’s expectations, because we are all imperfect and are bound to do terrible things in our lifetimes, and make grave and illogical mistakes. In my humble opinion, I believe that as horrible as these atrocities are, free will is not a mistake. Because we can act out of our own volition we can experience making a mistake and the satisfaction of learning from your shortcomings. There are some people in the world who have done absolutely terrible, unthinkable things but have rehabilitated themselves and use the gift of free will to be a productive and healthy member of society.

Author

Noah Veremis

Cast Away and the Five Stages of Grief

Castaway is a 2000 film about a man struggling to survive on a tropical island by himself for 4 painstaking years. Except, its more than that. Its visual storytelling is its greatest strength, rarely ever presenting new information without it. So, what exactly makes this film so special?

Castaway is a roller-coaster of emotions that uses the lonely setting of an island to signify Chuck Noland’s struggle through his separation from his girlfriend Kelly, and the inevitable acceptance of his loss of his relationship. The film itself is a message to the audience on how to move on. The film uses Wilson, Chuck’s volleyball friend on the island to show us his gradual maturity throughout the movie. From its fantastic visual storytelling to Tom Hank’s intoxicating performance, Castaway teaches us the horrors of divorce and the harsh reality to moving on.

A Broken Marriage

The symbolic theme of divorce is present throughout the entirety of the film. In the first scene of the film, we are introduced to a FedEx driver pulling into a ranch. The camera pans upwards as we see a metal sign with the words “Bettina” and “Dick” written into the sign. We later see the significance of this sign in the end when we see that “Dick” is sawed off.

The significance of this is that the mysterious package on Chuck’s island that he chooses not to open for hope belongs to the woman who lives on this ranch. It really doesn’t matter what was in the package, because Chuck held onto it to hold onto hope that he might one day just survive. Much like his hopes that he might one day reunite with Kelly. The film isn’t just a metaphor of Chuck’s symbolic divorce, but of a death as well. The first act of the film represents the five stages of grief Chuck goes through until the symbolic passing of his past life.

There’s a visual motif that the film utilizes to represent Chuck’s metaphorical divorce. In the first act, we are introduced to one of our hero’s problems – an infected tooth. This tooth infection is almost always paired with another visual queue, technology.

Chuck’s tooth infection represents his pain over his separation from his lover. His job as a FedEx executive means he’s often away from her and has to rely on technology to keep in contact with her. This is represented a few times with a missed call on an answering machine, and when his pager calls him away from Kelly during a family dinner. In fact, the first time Chuck even see’s Kelly on screen they unite by dancing to a rhythm of a copy machine (Logos Made Flesh).

When Chuck leaves a message for the answering machine, he complains about his tooth. This happens again at the dinner when he takes a bite of some food and the pain comes back to haunt him when his pager calls.

Chuck’s relationship was doomed from the start, as his job only pulls him away from his wife. Technology promises to keep them together but in fact, it is the ONLY thing holding them together. When Chuck reaches the island, his watch Kelly gave to him stops, so does his relationship.

Denial

As he finally succumbs to the harsh reality of life, he goes into shock, looking around the island. He yells “HELLOOOOOO” searching for a single soul to have an excuse to distract himself from his heartbreak. However, he is indeed alone. Time, and his heart both stop at that moment.

As time progresses, his tooth infection becomes worse. When someone goes through grief, its not unreasonable to expect that they would keep holding onto their pain in the hopes that they will eventually be reunited with their lover or passed family member. I don’t know about you, but I can name a few times after a breakup that I would ignore my pain and do anything at all to cope with my heartbreak, much like Nancy’s example of using surfing as a coping mechanism for her mother’s death in The Shallows. For better context, you can check out my breakdown of The Shallows here: https://moviemonster.blog/2019/11/24/the-wasted-potential-of-the-shallows/

In fact, he actually see’s one of the pilots from his crashed plane, only to find a dead body. After he buries him he scavenges his belongings to find anything useful, only to find a dead man’s shoes and a flashlight. Even though his separation from Kelly is causing him pain, he can’t help but hold onto hope of reuniting with her, even in the dark (Logos Made Flesh). His love for her only blinds him to what he really needs, as he looks to technology, a device that once held his relationship together to solve his problems.

After Chuck tries to escape his island when he see’s a ship in the distance, the tide crushes him and a piece of coral tears his leg open. With his life raft now deflated and his spirit broken, he limps back to shore a broken man. He finally admits defeat as he falls asleep in a cave under the dying light of his flashlight. This cave becomes his tomb (Logos Made Flesh).

Anger

After his shock and denial have run its course, Chuck wakes up to start a new life and begin his trial. We see Chuck find some FedEx packages that were lost from the wreckage. As he opens them to find anything he can salvage, its no coincidence that one of the packages he opens is of course a dissolution of marriage. One of the other packages we see him open is the infamous Wilson volleyball that eventually becomes the contrast between his old and new life (Logos Made Flesh).

In this next stage of grief, a common coping mechanism is to resort to anger to rationalize what happened. In my personal experience I have found that in the case of breakups, I would end up telling myself that “she wasn’t a fit partner” or, “she’s a terrible person for what she did to me”.

In Castaway, you can see this in Chuck as he tries to create fire. In his suffering, he has to rely on himself to find purpose and happiness without Kelly. Of course in his weakened and inexperienced state he’s expected to fail miserably. He tries to create fire and in the process, cuts open his hand. In his rage he ends up picking up the volleyball and screaming into the lonely abyss.

When he goes to try again, Wilson is now brought into existence to spite and ridicule him. Once he starts to see smoke, he looks over to Wilson, and realizes that the smoke had dissipated. He screams out to him “The air got to it!”.

Wilson is literally created from Chuck’s anger and suffering as he etches a persona onto this ball from his own blood. Wilson becomes a materialization of Chuck’s past life coming to haunt him. He represents all of Chuck’s failures, insecurities, and his attachment to Kelly. Its not unreasonable to expect that Chuck would lash out to distract himself and ignore these insecurities. Its definitely much easier to cope with loss by resorting to anger rather than moving on.

This stage of his grief starts to meet its end when the pain from the loss of his beloved Kelly becomes so great, that he resorts to a terrible self procedure of cutting out his infected tooth with a Rollerblade to remove it. He’s finally realized that he’s not getting her back. When he passes out from trauma, the film fades and cuts 4 years later to a disheveled and broken Chuck complete with a beard.

There’s even a point in the film when Chuck is given an opportunity to escape again when a door to a porta-john washes ashore which he can use as a sail. As he “talks” to Wilson, he’s fighting with his own thoughts. In his own words:

…And what is your point? We might just make it, did that thought ever cross your brain? Well regardless I’d rather take my chance out there in the ocean than to stay here and die, on this shit-hole island, spending the rest of my life talking to a GOD-DAMN VOLLEYBALL!
Chuck Noland, Castaway (2000)

Chuck kicks Wilson out of the cave and then realizes what he’s done. Using personal experience, I’ve found that when I have thoughts of moving on, I end up feeling depressed and sad inside that I’d even think about moving on from someone I cared so much about. Chuck has the chance to let it all go, but instead chases after Wilson. The waves washed off part of Wilson’s face, so Chuck resorts to holding onto his broken hopes and ideals with his own blood as he restructures Wislon’s face. When they reunite at the beach Chuck cradles him and says “Never again, never again”. Chuck is still holding a death grip onto those false ideals that everything will be okay, that him and Kelly are meant to be together.

People tend to last a long time in this stage. Its hard to grow up and stop blaming others for fault when we may have had some part in the relationship’s failures. After all, in order to admit that you were wrong, you would have to admit that all of your other decisions were wrong.

Bargaining

Chuck doesn’t really spend much time in this stage. After all, many people don’t go through the stages of grief in order. However, there is one incredibly powerful scene that fits this stage perfectly.

Near the end when Chuck is rescued and reunited with Kelly, he is invited into her house. In the beginning of the film before Chuck left, he gave her a series of Christmas gifts leading up to a proposal ring. One of them being hand towels, Chuck remarks at them after giving her the ring box that they were a “joke”.

When he is invited back into her new home, something doesn’t feel right. Chuck is surrounded by pictures and home decor belonging to her new family. He’s in another man’s home. Just as a frog using the last semblance of his strength to escape a pelican’s throat, Chuck is still holding onto hope that him and Kelly can reunite even though he knows deep down that its not right. Kelly gives him some hand towels to dry himself off with.

After a couple minutes of small talk, Chuck says “I shouldn’t have ever left the car”.

The bargaining stage is a coping mechanism that acts as a way for the brain to rationalize and justify the pain or sadness. In Chuck’s case, its his last line of defense against his pain. The hand towels are a representation of what could have been. If only he never left the car, they would still be together, along with their towels.

The human brain will try its absolute hardest to prevent itself from becoming depressed. Eventually however it will lose its energy. Kind of like an angry person eventually becoming sympathetic when they don’t get the reaction they expected. Bargaining is the last fighting spirit the brain has in it before it gives up and opens the floodgates to depression. With Chuck however, it represented his final step into the journey to acceptance.

Depression

In one of the major turning points in the film, Chuck is given a sail when he finds a detached door to a porta-john on the shore and is eventually able to craft a raft to make one last attempt to escape the island. He painted the pair of wings that were on that one package he held onto for hope onto his sail. Little did he know that those wings would be a calling card to his escape from his island and an open door to his future.

After he succeeds and finds himself at the mercy of the sea, he meets a whale who accompanies him throughout his journey. This whale represents God watching over him as Chuck makes his way through his last few trials on his path to acceptance and enlightenment.

After a freak storm, his sail and his hope, are torn off of the raft into the raging wind. When he wakes up, Wilson falls off his raft. The whale, that has been following him along his journey, blows water onto him to wake him up. As we see Chuck frantically search for Wilson, he finds him and makes a break for it.

In his starved and weakened state Chuck finds himself physically unable to go after Wilson and save him. He has to choose over his chance of redeeming himself to live a self-fulfilling life, and going down a path of self destruction that is continuing to mourn and sit in his own sadness and self pity. When he realizes that he has to move on he returns to his raft, and we see a broken man sobbing over the loss of Wilson.

Wilson was the only thing, aside from perhaps Kelly and the mysterious package that kept his sanity intact. Using another film as an example, take Life of Pi. Yes, Richard Parker is indeed a living, breathing, tiger. However, the constant threat of being eaten gave Pi’s life purpose. The fear of being eaten kept his sanity intact without him even realizing. If Pi never had Richard Parker on his boat with him he likely would have succumbed to insanity and met a grim death by his own foolishness.

With Wilson, Chuck had something to project his thoughts onto. Although not human, he still had someone to rely on in his darkest hours. Although symbolically Wilson is a representation of Chuck’s past self it doesn’t change the fact that Chuck still has to let go. He became his best friend on that island. With his only source of companionship gone, he had to go the rest of his journey alone.

The act of moving on is hard. We all want to hold onto hope that one day things will magically be like they used to be. We all want to believe that if we just keep pursuing what we lost we will eventually get it back. There comes a point where we have to realize that not everything is meant to be. For Chuck, this just means accepting his loss for what it is and moving on.

Acceptance

Throughout the film, we see Chuck go through small victories that all help into his path into acceptance.

For example, after he succeeds in making fire to become more self-fulfilling, we see that his survival skills have gotten an upgrade. The dress that he found in one of the packages has now been turned into a net to catch fish more easily instead of chasing after them fruitlessly. We can see that this dress, a symbol of femininity and Kelly as a whole has now been re-purposed to fit his own needs. He’s now taking care of himself and learning to love himself. He’s becoming more of the man he needs to be. When he cuts his hand when trying to start a fire he even uses part of the dress as a bandage, signifying his maturity and his journey to self-fulfillment.

Another example is when he’s in the process of creating a raft, he has a small conversation with Wilson mocking his past life being so concerned with control, represented by his constant obsession with being on time. He says “let’s not commit the sin of turning our back on time” and then chuckles at the foolishness he see’s in his past. Being able to chuckle at your past decisions and make fun of your past self without feeling pain is a great sign of improvement. If you are wise enough to truly laugh at yourself, than that means that you are aware of your past foolishness. After all, we only truly laugh at people who are foolish and ignorant right?

However, Chuck’s final stage is truly represented in the 3rd act of the film. After he gets rescued he has a conversation on the airplane with Stan, his best friend. Stan says “Kelly had to let you go, we thought you were dead. We buried you.” When Chuck asked what was put in the coffin, Stan replied with “well we all put something in. An old cellphone, a pager, I threw in a few Elvis CD’s”. This is a reflection on Chuck’s enlightenment from his time on the island. That coffin, and Wilson, represent his past life and his abandonment of his toxic ideology that technology was the key to holding his relationship together, and that this said relationship was the key to his happiness. Only this time, Chuck is fully aware of this connection and is forming his new life.

Back when he was on the island, Chuck had to feel pain to create fire and craft the tools needed to hunt and survive. It took a lot of hard work and self-discipline to change as a person. When he is rescued, he is given a surprise party of sorts. When everyone leaves Stan tells him “we are going to bring you back to life” and he is left alone to think and ponder in his thoughts. He walks around the room surrounded by the food he had to work so hard for to obtain. He then finds a lighter sitting on one of the tables and turns it on. I love this scene so much because it reflects on Chuck’s journey to self love and self fulfillment. He no longer has to feel pain to get what he wants, or rather what he needs because he is much stronger as an individual now. Now that he is enlightened he doesn’t need to feel pain to create fire.

Afterwards, we find him in a hotel room trying to recreate his cave on his island. He lays on the floor flicking the light on and off looking at his watch Kelly gave him, just as he did with his flashlight. He knows deep down that he has to let her go, but he’s not ready to accept it yet because he loves her so much. The lamp he flicked on and off is a representation of his new knowledge of his failed ideologies of relationships and his dependency on Kelly.

One last scene I’d like to mention before we wrap up is his talk with Stan after his final confrontation with Kelly. In this talk, he enters a long monologue where these final thoughts are spoken:

…The only thing I could control, was when, how, and where that was going to happen. So, I made a rope. I went up to the summit to hang myself. I had to test it, of course, you know me. The weight of the log snapped the limb of the tree. I couldn’t even kill myself the way I wanted to. I had power over nothing. And that’s when this feeling came over me like a warm blanket. I knew, somehow, that I had to stay alive. Somehow I had to keep breathing….I know what I have to do know. I gotta keep breathing, because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?
Chuck Noland, Castaway (2000)

In the final scene of the film, after this monologue, Chuck finds himself at the ranch that sent him that mysterious package that he has kept all this time. We see that Dick has been removed from the sign, and that only Bettina remains. He even meets the infamous Bettina on his way back down the road. After he leaves the package by the door he finds himself at a crossroads where he can go any which way he wants, and he looks down the road leading to Bettina’s home. Now because he knows what he needs, that he can go down any path he see’s in life, he isn’t tied down by anything. There’s no reason feel the need to control everything in life. Once you take a moment to just appreciate what you have, you can go whichever way you want.

Author

Noah Veremis

Works Cited

Miller, Matthew S. Who is Wilson: Castaway and Time Travel. YouTube, Logos Made Flesh, May 29th, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DNNHO6U40M .

The Wasted Potential of The Shallows

The Shallows is a 2016 film about a rebellious young woman battling a race against time to escape from a killer shark. To this day, The Shallows is the best “shark movie” next to Jaws. Unfortunately, this isn’t a fair comparison considering the films it stands next to. Surprisingly, it actually has a lot of strengths in the second and third act of the film. So, what exactly went wrong?

Why even talk about this movie in the first place? No one remembers this movie right? Well, being a worshipper of movies like Castaway and Life of Pi, as in, movies that thrive with very few characters in an isolated environment, you can imagine how excited I was for this movie. I really, REALLY wanted this movie to be good enough to be in my top ten. Jaume Collet-Serra, the Director of The Shallows clearly has talent. This film actually takes a few pointers from Castaway and utilizes visual storytelling very well. However, there are a few times where it falls flat on its face. I was incredibly disappointed because The Shallows utilizes visual storytelling extremely well, but laziness is its biggest flaw.

Exposition

The first problem we see in The Shallows is laziness. When presenting the audience with information generally at least in my opinion, there are two options. Use objects and color that can work in conjunction with the actor’s performance (visual storytelling), or use dialogue. There is a right and a wrong way to use both. For example, we learn in the exposition that Nancy is a medical student that has been ignoring her true calling to pursue her own endeavors, and ends up pushing her family and friends away in the process. That’s all fine and dandy, but the way it’s presented is aggravating.

To present this information, she straight-up tells us that she’s a med student. Carlos her taxi driver asks her if she went to school because the movie needed him to. Granted this question isn’t that uncommon in small talk, but regardless it feels rushed and lazy. As a filmmaker, you have to understand that your audience can connect the dots and fill in the gaps. You don’t need to explain everything to them.

Another example of this recurring problem presents itself once Nancy makes it onto the beach. She gets a phone call from her sister. After they exchange a few words her dad picks up the phone. Almost immediately he starts rambling about her dead mother explaining how she wouldn’t approve of this behavior. He just tells her “that’s what you do, you help people”, and she says “not everyone can be helped”. This movie shoves exposition down your throat in the first 15 minutes. Similar mistakes are made down the line, but the point remains the same. If you want to present the audience with information, treating them like babies and expecting them to believe everything your characters say and at the same time expect them to retain emotional impact is insulting. Give us proof. I want to watch a movie, not read a book.

The Fix

Visual Introduction

The best way to fix the character building in the exposition is to use a visual introduction. By using visual method in a character introduction, you explain who the character is. Throw a problem at them and show how the character responds. This way, the audience can take interest in this character as they face future problems throughout the story. Besides, how are we supposed to feel connected to a character and her choices if we don’t even know who she is? (Filmento).

How do we fix this using this information? Well, we know that Nancy is slowly pushing herself into loneliness because she’s rejecting her calling of being a mother hen in favor of some alone time. Whatever it is, it must be something personal, because its more relatable and more impact-full when involving family. I don’t know about you, but I can name more than a few times when I rejected plans with a family member or a friend for myself and regretted it. We have all experienced times where we chose something else aside from family, for perhaps a multitude of reasons. When you make something personal, it becomes relatable.

In the beginning of the film, Nancy ends up going by herself because Chloe is taking care of her hangover. To better flesh out her character arc, Nancy should go by herself on her own accord. In the next scene her sister tries to ask if she can come with, Nancy refuses, claiming its something personal that she wants to do alone. This example explains to the audience that Nancy is pushing everyone away from her because she wants to be alone. No more forced and cringy exposition, no more problem. I know that this example seems pretty shallow, but this is the first thing the audience see’s. Remember, exposition doesn’t have to be clumped into a single scene. We are going to present more information to the audience later, so there’s no need to force exposition down their throat. Something like a flashback would break the pacing of the film.

Personal = Relatable

So, we know now that the exposition is the number 1 problem that’s holding the film back. The unfixed version of the film presents the scenes way too heavy handed. When you present information to the audience, it needs to feel natural and organic. Otherwise it destroys the pacing and ruins audience immersion. In my opinion, her past as a med student should be presented later in the film. I personally believe it would function better as a twist. Nancy’s phone call with her father and sister also needs to be significantly altered.

We need to flesh out this information of Nancy’s personality with another conflict. We could have Chloe trying to reach out and explain that ever since she took up surfing she’s been distant. Then, Nancy reacts defensively and they get in a fight over the phone. When it comes to addressing their mother’s death, the dad’s lackluster monologue isn’t going to cut it. It needs to be more personal.

The death of a family member in the exposition is a little tricky to get right. In this case, I don’t think it should be represented visually as in a picture for example. Its just not enough. Chloe should explain to her during the fight that she only has one sister and that Nancy is being selfish for how she’s acting. They both had the same mother and Nancy and Chloe could have helped each other as sisters but Nancy rejected her. This now heartbreaking scene adds more layers to Nancy’s background. Not only does this version have more layers, but its also natural and organic speech that you someone in the same context might actually say.

This also communicates to the audience that Nancy took up surfing as a coping mechanism, and that she’s internalizing the pain instead of opening up. Everyone has experience of isolating themselves from their problems. This is a much better option than dad’s monologue because its relatable. If your character has been through something that the audience has been through and can empathize with, they are much more inclined to get invested through that character and root for them making the impact of her actions that much more powerful.

As for revealing her identity as a med student, there’s a scene later in the film that I feel would be perfect. After she gets stuck on the little island when the tide lowers she notices a man passed out drunk on the beach. In an unfortunate turn of events, instead of helping her, he takes her belongings and ends up getting killed by the shark anyway once he tries to retrieve her surfboard.

Once he goes through her bag, in our version, he goes through her wallet and see’s a student ID. Not only does this communicate that she left her calling behind, but it also communicates that the only way for her to get out of her predicament is to face her loneliness head on. If she tried to swim to safety, she’d be killed by the very thing that haunts her. She can’t run away anymore.

In my opinion these changes are not only natural and organic, but they are also more impact-full. Her past as a med student is now a twist and adds a whole new layer to her backstory, making it more relatable. On-top of this, but the scene where she heals the Seagull’s dislocated wing becomes an even more satisfying arc for her character, incentivizing the audience even further to root for her.

The Climax

In the climax of the film, Nancy records her final thoughts on a Go-Pro from one of the shark’s victims. In the vanilla version, they take the lazy option and have her say “I finally got that alone time, its overrated”. This is just another example of cutting corners and taking the easy route.

There’s a huge island that Nancy refers to in the beginning that, in her words, looks like a pregnant woman. We can use this island in our new climax scene. Instead, When she goes through her monologue she finally explodes in a rant of tears and sadness. We could then have the Sun shine a little too bright in her eyes, and she looks over at the island looking like the pregnant woman, signifying not only her rebirth into a healthier lifestyle, but that her mother was watching all along. She finally realizes that she shouldn’t reject her calling of being a mother hen and follow in her mother’s footsteps.

Before we wrap up I do have a few things to say about the film’s positive qualities.

Pros

The visual storytelling in the second and third act was amazing. There was a lot of small details that really made a difference for me. For example, when she meets up with the other surfers, she stays a long distance away instead of swimming over to them. When she’s confronted with the drunk man on the beach, she sees for herself what loneliness can offer. This man is also going through the same troubles. For him, his coping mechanism is alcohol and no one wants to spend time with him because he’s such an unbearable drunk all the time. When he tries to gather her surfboard, the shark tears him in half and the camera cuts to Nancy’s eyes as we see her see for herself what happens when you don’t save yourself from the pit of loneliness.

Another example of one of the scenes I liked is when she fixes the seagull’s wing. This whole time, she has someone right next to her that’s just as damaged as she is, and she neglects the opportunity. When she finally comes to her senses, she’s cowering under a crushed surfboard looking out to the seagull. She see’s that she’s not alone and that others are going through the same problems she is. Now she finally takes a step towards her rehabilitation and uses her medical knowledge to help someone who’s just as helpless as she is. I loved that they chose a seagull instead of a person because not only is it a throwback to Wilson from Castaway, but its much more impact-full because the seagull couldn’t even save himself if he tried. with a broken wing, he can’t fly away, and birds aren’t exactly the best swimmers.

Conclusion

In my opinion, these changes work because it makes the character more relatable and it makes all of the problems the character faces more personal. With these changes we see Nancy beaten to a pulp until she finally explodes and admits to her wrongdoings in the climax. The shark represents loneliness itself, offering no compassion and no love. Loneliness isn’t just a problem, its a killer. By driving away everyone out of her life she lead herself to the shark, and she’s now at his mercy. Now that my friends, is truly terrifying.

Author: Noah Veremis

Works Cited

“How One Movie Became Bullied by the Internet | Anatomy Of A Failure”. YouTube, Nov 8, 2019.