Silent Hill (2006)

[X.]

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"Mother is God in the eyes of a child."
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This line is repeated twice in "Silent Hill" – the first time just a few minutes into the film and again towards the end. The second time is more memorable because by then "Silent Hill" has revealed its secret, and the truth is disturbing and disgusting yet it is thoughtful. Here's a complex film that understands the horror genre, it has the courage to exalt the absurdity of horror and at the same time it fearlessly challenges us intellectually. "Silent Hill" is beautiful and it is ugly because director Christophe Gans remains true to his inspiration, a highly successful and critically acclaimed videogame series. Like the game the film takes great pleasure in manipulating ideas, aesthetics and sound design to create a savage world based not on logic but on feeling and gut instinct – to the characters Silent Hill may be Hell or Purgatory. Gans has professed his love of John Carpenter's masterpiece "Prince of Darkness," how much he adores its abstraction, how that film works on both a sensory and intellectual level. "Silent Hill" treads the same path; buried beneath the gore and blood and nightmarish imagery is a tender core of pure emotion and even some clever socio-political satire. Thematically the film is a tease for a good 60 minutes but it eventually rewards our patience with its big secret, a harrowing maxim of one little girl's life in a sleepy town of hypocrites and religious zealots. Everything that has happened before the shocking revelation begins to immediately make sense; all the little details fed to us start to resonate. Because "Silent Hill" is able to find a balance of style and substance, a harmony between emotionalism and intellectualism, it works.

Radha Mitchell is a sexy and talented Australian actress who plays Rose in the film. The first scene of "Silent Hill" has her frantic, screaming "Sharon!" which is her 10-year old daughter's name (Jodelle Ferland). We find out that the kid is delusional and suffers from sleepwalking. And like every other afflicted child, we assume, Sharon is also prone to wandering off and using her crayons to paint the occasional demon and mutilated corpse between more normal kiddie stuff like sunflowers and cornfields. (In another film I would have placed sole responsibility for her condition on Al Jazeera's Middle East coverage). Rose's husband Chris (Sean Bean doing a wobbly American accent) is supportive but he is hesitant in allowing his wife to take their daughter to Silent Hill, an allegedly haunted town – which, for once in a movie, they Googled. You see, during her manic episodes Sharon ends up saying Silent Hill over and over again. Rose is compelled to defy her husband by visting this infamous town in order to find out the facts herself. On her way there Rose is confronted by a woman police officer Cybil (Laurie Holden). When Sharon disappears, Cybil will ultimately become Rose's aid and defender against the hellish forces of Silent Hill. Note that with darkness come strange and ghastly beasts that are anything but friendly. Rose and Cybil find themselves trapped in a fiendish community of women all hiding from sinister abrasions. There is an interesting subtext of homoeroticism in the film – Cybil is a tough cop, strong and protective like a man; Rose, on the other hand, is more, say we say, delicate. It's a fascinating spin on archetypal convention of a male authority figure. Because Silent Hill may well be a feminine dimension this precept provides screenwriter Roger Avary and director Christophe Gans with enough opportunity to embellish issues such as motherhood and immaculate conception as an integral part of the storytelling.

It is not difficult to appreciate "Silent Hill's" brilliance most notably in the production and design. The cinematography is sometimes indulgent because Gans seems to be celebrating cinema, moving Dan Laustsen's camera with great enthusiasm, bravely showing the plumbing of the filmmaking process. Carol Spier who is David Cronenberg's lifelong production designer has done phenomenal work here: The sets are unique and lavish; the look is dirty and grim meant to represent an offkilter view of the living dead. These malevolent creatures are grotesque and the creepy imagery seems to be clearly influenced by Clive Barker's grandiose macabre. Japanese composer Akira Yamaoka and Canadian Jeff Danna's score is atmospheric, contemplative and frightening. It's a versatile work – I hope we can consider how it helps to heighten our emotional connection with the film's beautiful transcendent ending (I dare not reveal it).

"Silent Hill" is smart, subversive and eloquent. There's an artistic sensibility here, a European feel that goes against the grain of bristly Hollywood horror films which rely on a cacophony of special effects and noise to assault the viewer's nervous system. This reminded me of "Dark Water," another horror film unfairly maligned for its measured pace and abstraction. Both films share a powerful mother and child bond underlined by the virtue of sacrifice. "Silent Hill" is a perfect horror film. ak


Rating:
  out of 

[shariqq]

5 out of 5?! Has AK really gone soft?

[animatedude]

wohooooo! i was waiting for someone to review it.i haven't seen it yet but i'll definitly pick up the HMV exclusive which is the best artwork available so far.

[cinemaster]

now I'm surprised ...

I found this to be boring in the narrative and excellent how they created the ghost town ... otherwise it was a struggle to get thru. Rhada Mitchell tried her best but didn't convince me. She was better in drama stuff à la Melinda and Melinda (2004).

Best scene I recall was the moment with the nuns in the corridor ... that was a very creepy moment. I wished there would have been more of those.

the ending was so over the top it hurt

for me the optics couldn't save a weak story, we know Gans has a hand for the visual stuff  but I think he did better  back in France, so I give this flick 

[cinemaster]

This reminded me of "Dark Water," another horror film unfairly maligned for its measured pace and abstraction. Both films share a powerful mother and child bond underlined by the virtue of sacrifice.

You're speaking of the (poor) US-remake of DARK WATER ? If so check the original and reconsider ...

[X.]

I've seen the original "Dark Water," cinemaster.

I like them both.

[X.]

for me the optics couldn't save a weak story, we know Gans has a hand for the visual stuff  but I think he did better  back in France, so I give this flick 

Trivia time: Gans spent 5 years trying to get the rights from Konami to make this movie. Everyone was trying for it: The Weinsteins, Tom Cruise, everyone. But Gans understood that the Japanese are hungry for respect not money. So he shot himself speaking about his passion for the game for 45 minutes, put Japanese subtitles on it and sent the video to Konami. He got the rights in 8 weeks. And the film was made outside the Hollywood system with foreign backing. Sony bought the US distribution rights. People have asked him about his movies "in France" and Gans doesn't like being stereotyped, he feels he makes world cinema.

"Silent Hill" got a critical drubbing and many video game fans were not impressed with the changes made to the storyline (changing the protaganist to a female among other things). But that's OK - I've never cared about popular opinion.

[animatedude]

for me the optics couldn't save a weak story, we know Gans has a hand for the visual stuff but I think he did better back in France, so I give this flick

Trivia time: Gans spent 5 years trying to get the rights from Konami to make this movie. Everyone was trying for it: The Weinsteins, Tom Cruise, everyone. But Gans understood that the Japanese are hungry for respect not money. So he shot himself speaking about his passion for the game for 45 minutes, put Japanese subtitles on it and sent the video to Konami. He got the rights in 8 weeks. And the film was made outside the Hollywood system with foreign backing. Sony bought the US distribution rights. People have asked him about his movies "in France" and Gans doesn't like being stereotyped, he feels he makes world cinema.

wow.now that's interesting.

[sally]

silent hill was playing at the local screen during the graveyard hour, i saw it based on ak's review and i hate to say that i agree with him. the movie was very moody very disgusting!

i need to go wash my mouth now

[madali]

Silent Hill (2006)
IMDB Link


How am I supposed to choose which movies to watch? I can’t watch movies based on trailers, as not only will they give a wrong impression of a movie, but as they can spoil it, I try to avoid them. And then what about reviews and people’s opinions? If I do that, I’d completely avoid movies like Silent Hill, which I had since it came to the theatre, and only watched it because I and my friend missed out on Nacho Libre, and it was the only decent thing playing.

And I loved it, and I don’t get most of the reviews. I remember reading about fans being disappointed by it, and movie critics deeming it average. And I can’t understand either. It was an astonishing horror movie, while it had flaws, it also was much better than I could possibly expect.

Adaptation is never about the finer details of the original work, since that can never be followed, and if it is, so many things would be lost in transition. Adaptation is about more than that, it is about being able to convey the theme, or in the case of video games, the feel of it. Silent Hill captures the feel perfectly. Look at the first 30 minutes or so of the movie. It WAS Silent Hill the game. Running from alley to inner building, encountering horrors, finding clues, or even better, finding an item to use (the flashlight), this was all familiar. The director has taken the controls from your hand, and is playing it himself, and we are by his side, watching him.

Each creature was amazingly done, especially Pyramid Head, sliding his huge sword. Or the nurses or the little screaming monsters. The fact that they existed was enough to creep me out.

And the visuals! And the soundtrack! When was the last horror movie that we watched, were we were struck, not by its horror, by its beauty?

It needs tuning and some improvements, but let’s give credit to the filmmakers. The best video-game adaptations have so far been movies where, at its best, have been campy, mindless fun (my favorites being Resident Evil and Mortal Kombat). Silent Hill has taken on a more serious game, and has delivered a more serious movie. It is risky to take video games adaptation too seriously, as directors seem to want to say to their critics, “Look! I’m not taking myself too seriously! I’m just having fun!”. But no one is having fun here. It is a heartfelt adaptation, and it shows.

The movie could have used some better editing, some more scares, and a better way of revealing the truth behind the events, so let us hope the filmmakers return to this project to rectify the issues.

And let’s hope they show more of Pyramid Head!


4/5

[X.]

...let us hope the filmmakers return to this project to rectify the issues.

The director's cut comes out next year.

[shariqq]

I generally don't watch horror movies. Can't seem to enjoy them much. But once in a while you have a Bram Stoker's Dracula come along which is not only a good scary movie, but is gorgeously beautiful to watch and listen to. Given ak's glowing 5/5 review, I decided to venture into the cinemas for this movie after work yesterday, and I did get mesmerized. What a breathtaking movie! The town of Sleepy Hill is bathed in such simple floating whiteness that the reaction to it is of admiration before foreboding. The director keeps the main two leads (Radha Mitchell's Rose & Laurie Holden's Cybill) of the movie smart and resourceful rather than bimbos and the kind who would stupidly walk into traps. Every horror movie has an Evil, and it is the manifestation of this evil that generally decids the quality of the horror movie. Evil in this movie (as given in the climax) is so well built that you realize it has a definitive purpose rather than torture/kill anything and anybody. Even the closing scene extends the movie into and leaves it open to what this evil eventually wants.

Christophe Gans has no upcoming movies announced as of yet (as per IMDb). But with what he has shown of his craft in this movie, I look forward to his next work.

This one's a 4 of 5 from me too.

[madali]

From what I have read, he wants to make a sequel to this, plus an adaptation of a Japanese game (the name escapes me now)

[shariqq]

...let us hope the filmmakers return to this project to rectify the issues.

The director's cut comes out next year.

Although IMDB's not a gospel, but the movie's trivia page states this: The version we see in theaters is the one Director Christophe Gans wanted us to see. He said in an interview that the studio executives loved his version, and he was never asked to cut down his film length. Although the initial script of the film was expected to be 3 and a half hours, the film was never shot with that length in mind.

[shariqq]

From what I have read, he wants to make a sequel to this, plus an adaptation of a Japanese game (the name escapes me now)

Oh, I hope not the sequel. I have started to abhor the idea of sequels to movies that work perfectly as a single and are not initiated with sequels in mind.