Drag Me to Hell

Rating: *** (out of 4)
Cast: Alison Lohman, Justin Long
Director: Sam Raimi

Sam Raimi's 'Drag Me to Hell' is an interesting entry to the horror genre. It has repeated loud shock that I'll often dismiss as cheap scare tactics in lesser horror films. It has special effects so over-the-top that it is physically impossible. It has relentless gore and splatter that is puke inducing, and it has a story so simple that it is essentially a B-grade material; read: Christine (Alison Lohman), a loan officer, has offended an old gypsy woman by denying her an extension to her home loan. In revenge, the gypsy woman places a curse on Christine that tranforms her life into a living hell.

Attributes as such would often be critisized as flaws in mediocre forror films. However, you know what? All these somehow works in 'Drag Me to Hell'.

Yes, I know I have an explanation to do, and I'll do that using an analogy. Let's say you go to a Chinese restaurant and order stir-fried beef. The beef dish, when it is served, must be fully cooked. Anything less than fully cooked, you are perfectly entitled to ask for a refund and curse the chef.

On the other hand, if you go to a western steakhouse and order steak done medium rare, you can't say that the beef dish is bad just because it is not fully cooked. Someone with a mature understanding of cuisine will understand that a Chinese stir-fried beef and a steak done medium rare are two different types of cuisine, and hence they should be judged differently. You can't use the same 'not fully cooked' argument to judge them.

Likewise, someone with a mature understanding of cinema would know that 'Drag Me to Hell' as compared to, say 'The Exorcist', are different type of horror films. 'The Exorcist', a classic in its own right, is the kind of horror that works on realism and mood. Unrealistic over-the-top visual effects and repeated loud shock would have spoilt it.

'Drag Me to Hell', on the other hand, is an exercise in irony. It is sometimes scary, yet funny at the same time. Scare and humour are like fire and water, totally opposite. Yet, Sam Raimi makes the two opposing elements works in the film. Watching it, I was genuinely scared in some of its moments. Even the repeated loud shock which I often find annoying in lesser horror films, genuinely jolted me from my seat for a few times. Yet, right after I recover from the shock, I realized the absurdity of it all and started laughing. My fellow audience must have felt the same as their emotional reaction sensed by my ear takes the form of scream, followed by yikes (disgust), and finally followed by giggles.

'Drag Me to Hell' isn't that kind of horror that takes itself too seriously, it is meant to be a campy thrill ride. So, complaining that its visual effect is unrealistic or its gore and repeated loud shock is 'cheap' will be akin to complaining that your medium rare steak is not fully cooked.

Sam Raimi and Alison Lohman gave us a main protoganist, Christine, we can believe and relate to. It isn't a soulless cardboard character like in so many of the lesser horror films. We like her and we care for her. In the beginning, Christine wemt against her own conscience in making a tough decision to deny a loan extension to a helpless old woman, driven by her desperation to impress her boss in order to gain a promotion. In the end, Christine was in a moral dillema when she was told that she could easily pass on her suffering to another person by giving the cursed button away as a gift to that person. To whom she should give it to? Was it the right thing to do? How humane, how nicely done, and how we can't help but to connect to her emotionally, however B-grade or simple her story may be.

Sam, good to see you back at your 'The Evil Dead' roots.

Solaris

Rating: ***1/2 (out of 4)
Cast: George Clooney, Natascha McElhone, Jeremy Davies
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Year of release: 2002



Something has gone terribly wrong to a space mission to planet Solaris. The crew of 4 has cut off communication with Earth, and although the space station is equipped with advanced AI that will send them back to Earth automatically, they refused to come back.

Back on Earth, psychologist Chris Kelvin (George Clooney) received a SOS call from Gibarian, the crew's commander, who is also Chris' close friend. In his video message to Chris, Gibarian pleaded to Chris to come to planet Solaris, saying that Chris is the best candidate to be able to help them. What has happened? the commander wouldn't say, except that it is totally bizarre, and Chris will know for himself upon arriving there.

As Chris arrived at the space station orbiting planet Solaris, he's shocked to find that Gibarian, the commander has committed suicide, along with another crew. The 2 surviving crew, Snow (Jeremy Davies) and Dr Gordon (Viola Davis) exhibits severe distress, as if something has scared the hell out of them.

What has happened? Still, Chris got no meaningful answers from the 2 surviving crew, but he is about to find out for himself on his first night on the space station, when he fall asleep. He dreamed of his dead wife, how they first met, and the tender moments they shared together. Chris awoke from his dream when a familiar soft hand stroked his face gently, and to his great bewilderment, there she is, Rheya (Natascha McElhone), his dead wife, lying besides him.

Apparently, all the crews, and now Chris, has had strange 'visitor' like this, someone dearest to them, someone they missed. There seems to be a strange force from planet Solaris, that resurrects or create a copy of that 'someone'. But there's a catch: in Rheya's (or her copy) own words, she has memories, but she doesn't remember experiencing these things.

The 'copy' is a physical flesh-and-blood manifestation of of what the other person know about them, in Chris case, the Rheya copy is the materialization of his perception of his dead wife. We came to know that in real life, Chris's relationship with Rheya ended tragically with Rheya committed suicide. And here it is, the Rheya's copy is just as suicidal, because in Chris mind, his dead wife is suicidal.

But the real Rheya in real life may not be suicidal, the copy behaved that way precisely because that's Chris' perception on Rheya.

Steven Soderbergh's 'Solaris' has the kind of intelligent science fiction premise that does not have to resort to portraying extra-terrestrial being as ugly monsters. Having said that, the sci-fi element is just a premise, though an intriguing and essential one. Soderbergh is more interested about human psychology, that makes his version of 'Solaris' a psychological drama set in a intriguing sci-fi premise.

It delves into the very nature of human emotion, how we can fall in love to not only the real someone, but also to our idea, perception of someone. We fall in love to characters in novels, films. We can also be emotionally connected to some famous great people that we do not know personally, apart from what we do know about them based on information from news and writing. In our rational mind, We know that the film and novel characters are not real, but emotionally we develop love and adoration towards them. In our rational mind, we are aware that the 'real' famous great people may not be what we perceive them to be, but that doesn't stop us from connecting to them emotionally.

In 'Solaris', Chris knows that Rheya in the space station is not real, but emotionally he can't help but to accept her, seeing that as his chance for a redemption, an atonement to his deep guilt and regret, for what he has done to the real her in real life. Is it real or fake? Are we alive or dead? It doesn't matter anymore, as long as our mind believes it to be real.

In the closing moment of the film:
Chris: 'Am I alive, or dead?'
Rheya: 'We don't have to think like that anymore'

Based on a Stanislaw Lem's novel, it was first filmed by Russian master filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972. I haven't seen the Tarkovsky's version, it is said to be a sci-fi classic. Now Soderbergh has remade it in his own version, into a film that challenges his viewers, a films that lingers on your mind for days after you have watched it. It is paced slowly, a wise decision that offers its viewers with rooms and spaces to ponder upon the profound idea in the film. Its tone is quiet, again a wise decision as it fits the introspective nature of the film. It is ambiguous, perhaps a tad overly so, many will find the urge to see it again for a second time after the first viewing.

Slow, quiet, ambiguous, not a recipe that will sell a lot of tickets. But Soderbergh's 'Solaris' is after all, a niche offering that appeals to the more intellectually inclined viewers. Steven Soderbergh is a very talented filmmaker whoose projects alternates between the more mainstream ('Erin Brokovich', the 'Ocean Eleven' franchise) and the more obscure and challenging ('Traffic', 'Solaris', 'Sex, lies, and videotape', 'Out of Sight'). I highly appreciate a film like 'Solaris' where he is in a mood for challenges, and refused to succumb to commercial demand.

* Note: Steven Soderbergh's Solaris was a official selection (in competition) for the 2003 Berlin International Film Festival