Reviews

Some of the movies on King's novels were not up to the expectation. However, The Dead Zone is a great movie that is thrilling as well as crafty in terms of its intensity of story and an enthralling plot that is mesmerizing and captivating. The movie has far more depths compared to ordinary thrillers and it has all the traits of being a leading cliff hanger. The acting of Walken was poignant and he is best suited for the role of the protagonist. A great classic, no-nonsense supernatural thriller. It's one of those movies that never get old and it will easily make its way to the hall of fame. A fantastic story supplemented by great direction and superb screenplay!

Ondine is a movie that can truly be regarded as a modern day fairy tale. The story has been depicted so amazingly that it mesmerizes the audience and blesses them with a profound sense of compelling magic and fantasy. I am glad that after a long period of time I've watched a fabulous romantic movie, in the true sense of word. Romanticism is something that makes us escape our known world of mundane reality and takes us into a world of perpetual love, warm passion and incredible dreams. The story of Ondine has all the elements of a charming fairy tale and the ingeniousness with which it has been depicted makes it quite believable in the context of our known reality. It has all the elements of a fairy tale and yet it's an outstanding tale of the real world. The Selki myth, the struggling fisherman and her sick daughter, Ondine as the luck mascot, the monster who emerges to take Ondine away and the enthralling aura of mystery that shrouds the facts for long, make it a movie that's characterized by enchanting surprises, suspense, mystery, emotion and fantasy. What more can we expect from a fairy tale. The Selki mythology has been illustrated so wonderfully in the film that it endowed the plot with a compelling romanticism. It's a sensitive story of salvation, love and magic that we often dream of but seldom find in our concrete real world of facts. I particularly liked the ending of the film. Like a wonderful fairy tale it has a "they happily lived ever after" type of ending. After all the tensions, all problems are resolved at the end. I think such endings make us optimistic about life and give us the courage to dream over again. It's a very poignant and sensitive movie; a fascinating love story.

Gran Torino is another brilliant masterpiece by the veteran actor/director Clint Eastwood. I must admit that the movie had all the trademarks of a Clint Eastwood film, although within a different context. It's a movie about courage, integrity and bravery. Eastwood's familiar never-say-die attitude mingled with his stubborn fighting spirit portrayed a superbly round character of Mr. Kowalski, which none but Eastwood could depict with such perfection. The film is apparently characterized by evident elements of masculinity that we all expect from Eastwood's films. Fast action, manual labor, construction works, tools, gangs, guns and of course that old hard car Gran Torino that resiliently survived countless violent storms of time. Clint Eastwood's typical action styles were fabulous and it's good to see that even after so many years these trademark styles still entertain the audience. Eastwood's direction is praiseworthy because he has successfully been able to infuse his old styles and spirits into a fresh context, which has made it more appealing to a new set of audience.

Although the plot of triangle doesn't suggest much about what's actually happening, there are some very significant but subtle clues that point towards a valid explanation. Based on that, I have come up with a logical explanation. I think the whole cyclical "time loop" phenomenon of Jess is nothing but a horrid nightmare or perplexed fantasy of a psychologically disturbed or schizophrenic person, who's none but Jess herself. The whole story is a prolonged illusion of Jess's disturbed mind, influenced by her subconscious. I think my theory must be supported by valid logic and that's what I will illustrate now. First of all, the thought-flow of psychologically deranged people often tends to get stuck at a point and takes a cyclical or repetitive route. That's the reason why often they repeat the same words "over and over again" and fantasize the same events over and over (like the music of a broken tape as depicted by a scene in the movie). Like normal people their thought process and imagination do not take a flexible "straightforward path". Moreover, we borrow many elements from our reality to build up our dreams and fantasies. Jess did that too. These elements of Jess's reality are the clues to suggest that it was a dream of her disturbed world. Many of these clues are actually hidden in the first scenes of the movie. Remember the capsized toy yacht of Tommy that Jess picks up from the water bowl in the first scene. Look at it carefully. It absolutely resembles the "Triangle" yacht. At the very moment, the wild chirping of the flying seagulls in the sky and Jess's sharp reaction to that is also significant. Later on the Yacht in the sea looks like a toy boat. When Jess wipes Tommy's paint from the floor her skirt gets stained by it and the paint resembles blood (carefully see the scene when Jess cleans up the blue paint from her floor). Perhaps, it symbolizes a distressed life that she has. Most importantly, Jess's house number is 237 (see one of the opening scenes when someone rings her doorbell and she comes out) and the number of the cabin, in which Jess and Greg enter in the ship Aeolus and find the "GO TO THEATER" written on the mirror, is also 237. This cannot be a coincident. This clue is ingeniously given by the director and this significant clue clearly demonstrates the fact that this entire cycle is a fantasy of Jess's mind and she has "subconsciously" picked up elements from her reality (like her house number) in order to construct this paranormal world of unspeakable horror. During the story Jess takes three different roles, i.e. Killer Jess, Savior Jess, and Innocent Jess. At one point of time, there are three different copies or "personalities" of Jess present in Aeolus. Killer Jess (masked one) kills everyone but herself in Aeolus, which's nothing but a macabre fantasy of a disturbed mind. Here the same Jess plays three different roles. This triangular personality concept of Jess is another fantasy of her disturbed mind characterized by strong influence of "Multiple Personality Disorder" that often schizophrenic and psychotic people suffer from. Moreover, many things happen in the movie which's not possible in the real world. The time loop or cycle itself is fantastical and Jess doesn't die even after the violent car crash or after she falls off the Ship (because it's happening in her mind and her mind doesn't want to kill her in order to sustain the repetition of the cycle) And also the deserted ocean liner that appears out of no where is not realistic. Anybody would understand that this story is not possible in the real world. It's a cyclical illusion of a mentally disturbed world. Almost the entire plot and scenes of the movie revolve around Jess as it's a fantasy of her mind. Perhaps, our subconscious often picks up things from our reality that we are not aware of. It's possible that she had heard of a story of such a ship and the Greek Mythology in her life as she lives in a port city. Actually, what I think of the background of the story is that, Jess a single mother with an autistic boy lives a miserable life and her reality gradually makes her abusive and mentally disturbed. She wants to "escape" from her confining reality and her disturbed mind makes this repetitive fantasy, perhaps when she's asleep. A mood of sleep, dream and fantasy is resonated by Christian Henson's hypnotizing lullaby which's the theme music of the movie. Jess's psychic turmoil and self destructiveness is also reflected in her fantasy world, as she often stands in front of the mirrors and curiously sees herself (sometimes with sheer hatred in her eyes that demonstrates her hate for her own troubled existence of reality). The movie is so ingenious that you need a detective's eyes equipped with psychiatric knowledge to unveil all the clues. My explanations are based on my personal analysis and observations and I invite everyone to argue for or against it.