Li Jie's Film Critic---The Sword Dance in "The Omen", intended for Bush

Lucas 2022-02-17 08:01:03

In the first half of this year, Hollywood successively launched several old and new blockbuster films. In addition to "Poseidon" ("Poseidon"), perhaps the most striking is "The Omen" ("The Omen"). The remake of this film was exactly 30 years after the first edition was shot in 1976. Thirty years ago, the novel of the same name written by author David Seltzer (David Seltzer) was published not long after Hollywood put the rather thrilling story on the screen and became a classic thriller. A series of the same and similar stories. Today, 30 years later, Hollywood producers have specially sought out the original author of the novel, Dai Wei Schultz, and asked him to do his own work, adapting "The Omen" into a movie script again and appearing on the screen.


Although Schultz himself claimed that this adaptation of the script was just for "making money," but compared to the 1976 version, the new version of "The Omen" is undoubtedly much more refined. Many detailed settings add a lot of thought-provoking metaphors. It is said that this film was made for people who do not believe in the existence of Satan. However, even many people who believe in the existence of Satan will be shocked after watching this film.


Like the old version of "The Omen", the new version of "The Omen" also sets the beginning of the horror at the moment of the maid's suicide. The development made a meaningful foreshadowing and successfully rendered the eerie atmosphere of the entire film.


Although the plot of the following story cannot be separated from the common routines of thrillers, the murder scenes of the main parties are quite unique. They were magically killed by the devil's child Damien, which did not surprise the audience. But how they were killed, they were designed ingeniously by the choreographer.


The death of the maid was followed by the death of the priest. The priest rushed to the church in the squally wind, and finally in front of the church, he was pierced through his chest by a spear-like iron rod, and nailed to the church door alive. The entire shape of the priest being murdered looks like a street sculpture, cruel and terrifying, and aesthetically interesting with modernist art. This scene can not help but recall the historical moment when Christ was nailed to the cross.

If the death of the priest is reminiscent of the crucifixion of Christ, then the death of the journalist in the film is a metaphor for the loss of the mind. In the film, the reporter did not discover the traces of the devil based on the feelings of the soul, but through the processing of the negative film, he saw the terrible scene. In other words, the reporter perceives the shadow of the devil through brain thinking. Thus, the devil's counterattack was completed, cutting off the reporter's head.


This is another meaningful death look in this film. It should be noted that journalists are an indispensable group in modern society, especially in democratic countries like the United States. They represent conscience and conscience, the supervision of various evil forces, the human reason, and the rational mind. The film uses reporters' minds to be chopped off, a metaphor for the irrationality of a country. This detail is obviously not the choreographer's handwriting.


It was the poor mother who discovered the devil not by thinking, but by intuition. She didn't know that her son had been turned off, and she didn't know that the devil had killed her son, so she used a little devil to impersonate her son and defrauded her of maternal love. However, she realized that the child named Dai Ming had an indescribable horror and horror. And Dai Ming was also clearly aware of her instincts. So, the little devil slammed her downstairs first, and then the evil maid who was always protecting him cut off her breathing tube in the ward and choked her to death.


If we say that cutting off the reporter's head symbolizes the dumbness of the press, then strangling the mother to suffocation symbolizes the depressing mentality of the American people in the face of devilish terrorism after 9.11. The death of the reporter means that there is no word to speak; and the death of this mother is a metaphor for not being able to breathe. One is speechless, and the other is breathless. Regardless of whether the film's director is intentional or unintentional, these two death figures accurately describe the dumb aphasia and dull and suffocating mentality of the American people after the September 11 terrorist attacks.


The fourth meaningful death pose is the death of the hero who is the American ambassador to the United Kingdom. Ordinarily, the hero of this film is an avenger with a mission to kill the devil. However, first was his kindness and couldn't bear to kill a child; then he couldn't execute the little devil without authorization, but had to take the little devil to the church and execute the punishment in front of Jesus' cross, which caused repeated delays. Finally, when he raised the knife of revenge, a gunshot sounded and the revenge was suspended forever.


Compared with the previous three shocking death poses, the hero's death pose has been resorted to invisible. Only the shooting and gunshots of the special police appeared on the screen, and then immediately switched, and the next screen became the funeral of the male protagonist. At that time, the death scene was completely blurred. People don't know whether the bullet hit the actor's head or chest. People only know that the male protagonist has received a fatal blow. This kind of queuing at the death scene implies that this is an invisible murder, which is a metaphor for the soldiers and relatives who died in the distance.


The true meaning of these four meaningful death shapes is explained by another meaningful scene at the end. That little devil named Dai Ming, not only was not killed, but was also adopted by the president. In the last scene of the film, the President of the United States is holding the hand of the little devil and standing on the screen with his back to the audience. The President of the United States is with the devil.


Even the dull people will see what this end of the film implies. This film quite deliberately, all metaphors, ultimatum to the president. The Christ-like appearance of death, the loss of rational mind, the suffocation that couldn't breathe, and the death that was invisible from afar were all attributed to the president who was with the devil. If we can borrow a Chinese idiom, Xiangzhuang dances sword, intended for Pei Gong, then this film can be said to be: "Evil Omen" dances sword, intended for Bush.


From this point of view of the director, one can find that the original author, who is also the adaptor of the film, claimed that it was just for "making money", which may be a fake shot. Because this film has a very clear metaphor: the devil is attached to the president. What's more interesting is that the film uses the opportunity to show the blades of revenge to emphasize that the blades of revenge are in pairs: one can only kill the devil's body, and the other can kill the devil's soul. In other words, the intrusion of the devil into the world is not only to occupy the body of the world, but also to occupy the soul of the world. According to the meticulous design of the film step by step, it seems logical to understand that the devil occupies the soul of the president.


Hollywood movies have always liked to have trouble with the US government or the US president. Not to mention, at a time when the Iraq war was in trouble and the president was condemned for it, Hollywood released such a meaningful thriller. The new version of "The Omen", while ingeniously designing death styling to chase the box office, implied a cold condemnation.

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Extended Reading
  • Felicia 2022-04-24 07:01:15

    Not scary at all. . .

  • Candace 2022-02-17 08:01:03

    To watch DT fast forward again. . . .

The Omen quotes

  • Robert Thorn: I never want to see or hear from you again.

    Father Brennan: You'll see me in hell Mr. Thorn.

    Father Brennan: We'll spend eternity together.

  • Keith Jennings: The son of the devil will rise from the world of politics.