Silent Hills

despite all the things i got to do this weekend, something about the past few days has been a bit of a let down for me.

trying to find a cure for my melancholy (with Mabel an entire ocean away), tonight i treated myself to something i hadn't done in a long time, but used to enjoy immensely: i went to see a movie.

(actually, come to think of it, it wasn't all that long ago; i remember i had seen Ultraviolet alone...)

Going to the cinema alone, i get to sit right up front, without worrying about the eyestrain and possible nausea it may cause whoever i'm with, and i don't have to worry about them being bored by a film i was thoroughly enjoying and wanting to leave before the credits finished rolling.

Just me and the movie. Silent Hill was perfect for it.

Hill is of that class of dark film that i find way too cool to be genuinely scary. although some of the imagery was genuinely horrific, and would probably have given me nightmares in my childhood, these days, i'm more likely to call them beautiful grotesqueries. and i do.

if anyone remembers the first three Hellraiser movies, Hill resembles those movies most of any other movie of the genre in my mind. only much stranger, with a comparatively cerebral twist of the knife, instead of the visceral gut wrenching you're more prone to experience with those other films.

have no doubt, however, there's gore a-plenty as well.

and while Clive Barker's films were ultimately and quite obviously driven by a masculine imagination despite having a female protagonist, Hill feels thoroughly Earth-Goddess/Mother-Spirit driven, despite being written by Pulp Fiction's Roger Avary.

certainly, it wasn't perfect. despite being billed by top notch actors in my book, there are some very-slightly-hardly-noticeable-but-nonetheless-kind-of-clunky bits of acting, and i can imagine how some bits of dialogue may grate in some people's ears (the exposition, for instance, may be too off-pace for some people, too much of an infodump concentrated in one spot of the film, much like the Architect in Matrix Reloaded. also, the narration for that bit feels a tad juvenile, and may break the mood it's supposed to set for some people, though i found the style wholly appropriate, and even creepier for it, when you think about it), and some people may find the twist a bit unspectacular for all the weirdness that leads up to it.

but the biggest flaw, to my mind, is the climax, which felt rather contrived after all the wonderful subtlety of the rest of the film. it was, perhaps, intended to be exactly as it was, and i would understand it if it were, can even defend it if it comes to that; nonetheless, it would have been nice to see something different in that particular bit of the film.

the end, however, is uncompromisingly dark, and at least partly makes up for the apparent gratuity of the climax.

there's a beautiful minimalism to most of the movie that is refreshing in a non-arthouse film: from the contrasting light and dark of the visuals, to the beautifully crafted soundtrack, and even to the bizarre creatures.

even after the rather gratuitous explosion of the climax and the lack of genuinely scary moments for me (but hey, that's me), Silent Hill is still my fave film for the moment, and certainly counts vertiginously near the top of any best-movies-of-the-last-five-years-list i'm likely to come up with.

we need more dark fantasies like this one in the movies, imho. and it's just what i needed.

*

the mall was closing as i left the theater, and yet despite the dimmed lights and barricaded shops, the air continued to chatter as though the mall were still wide awake.

until i found myself walking through the mall's closed bazaar. walking between the hooded stalls of the closed kiosks was like tracing ley lines through a strange land covered with blue hills, or faerie mounds. the sound of the mall still filtered through, but it was muffled, as though coming from an incredible distance.

breaking through to the other side was like breaking the surface of a calm pool of water, and all the sounds of the mall snapped back into place.

i wonder how long i'd spent in that odd place.

*

i put a coin into the old crone's hand, and it was only after thanking me that she broke into song.

definitely worth 5 bits in my book.