SILENT HILL
Canada/France, 2006, 120 minutes, Colour.
Radha Mitchell, Sean Bean, Laurie Holden, Jodelle Ferland, Deborah Kara Unger, Kim Coates, Tanya Allen, Alice Krige, Robert Campanella.
Directed by Christophe Gans.
This is quite an exotic horror tale (though it was only at the end that I discovered it is based on a computer game). Written by Roger Avary (Kill Zoe and co-writer with Tarantino on Pulp Fiction) and directed by Christophe Gans (The Brotherhood of the Wolf) and a Canadian/French co-production, it is actually set in the US, in the forests of West Virginia.
A very intelligent reviewer remarked at the end that he could not follow it at all. This may be the case for many viewers – although it is designed only for horror fans and computer game players and they are very much ‘in’ on the conventions, the influences and the horror logic of this kind of thing.
It is given very stylish treatment and many companies contributed to the considerable special effects – involving mime artists, barbed wire and the creation of a kind of inferno, as well as a spacious church and the streets of a modern city simply left in the middle of things as a ghost town in the 1970s. The widescreen format is both attractive and overwhelming.
At first look, the plot is fairly straightforward: strange adopted girl has nightmares and sleepwalks; mother avoids psychiatrists and takes her to the town she mentions in her dreams. Wrong move! It is a coalmining town, Silent Hill, where a fire disaster occurred in the mine and it was hurriedly evacuated. Pursued by an earnest motorcycle cop, she finds herself in an ashen-grey Silent Hill, ash still falling. She searches for her daughter but suddenly sirens go off, darkness descends and all kinds of monstrosities appear. Needless to say, she perseveres and wins over the cop. What they also discover is a strange apocalyptic and puritanical, witch-hunting sect who have killed a little girl and exiled her mother (not hesitating to literally cast the first stone).
This is where it does become complicated, but viewers will realise that the film is showing two concurrent worlds, the world of ghosts where the mother is, and the brightly coloured actual world where the father is searching for his family. And, if you pay attention, especially to the words of the sect leader (an icily frightening Alice Krige), you will work out what happened back then and what is happening now and what is happening in the hell or limbo where most of the action takes place.
It is definitely a women’s film. The men are merely supporting cast. Radha Mitchell as a strong personality and is able to carry the film with her anxiety, being terrorised but becoming more determined. Laurie Holden is the policewoman.
There are a few lines that have a touch of bathos but that does not undermine the film, but it is definitely one for horror fans.
1. The impact of the film? Horror? Thriller? Based on computer games? Survivor games?
2. Canadian production, the setting of West Virginia? Locations, the recreation of Silent Hill, normal, pervaded by fog and the darkness? The atmospheric musical score?
3. The introduction to Rose and Christopher, travelling, Sharon as their adopted daughter? Sharon, at the gas station, the drawings? The disappearance?
4. Rose, the accident, the role of Sharon? Sharon’s nightmares, Silent Hill? Sleepwalking and calling out?
5. Rose, Cybil, the encounter, possible arrest, their combining together to search?
6. Rose, wandering, Silent Hill, the transformation, the darkness, the creation of the monsters? The encounter with Dahlia? The story about Alessa and the people attacking her?
7. Rose, the locket, Dahlia seeing it, the resemblance between Sharon and Alessa, stealing it? Rose arrested, the huge crevice? The continued search?
8. The character of Pyramid Head, monster, vicious, his destruction of people?
9. The contrast with Christopher, his search, the encounter with Thomas Gucci? The documents? The history of Silent Hill, the coal seam fire, its spread, the church? Witches?
10. Anna, the darkness, fire and the destruction of the church?
11. Christabella, the leader of the cult, the photo, the background of witches?
12. Rose in the basement, the two Alessas, Sharon and Alessa, the witchcraft?
13. Alessa, catching fire, the two Alessas? The plot and the confrontation?
14. Christabella and Rose, stabbing, the blood, Alessa coming out, the darkness, the wire, bisecting Christabella? Fear?
15. Rose leaving, Dahlia staying, Christopher in the ordinary world , Rose and the two girls trapped in Silent Hill?
