2002 Talk About Movies
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Contents © 2002
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.

THE OTHERS

Directed by Alejandro Amenabar. Starring Nicole Kidman, Fionnula Flanagan, Alakina Mann, James Bentley. Color, 101 minutes, English, France/USA/Spain, 2001. Available at Blockbuster Video.

Matthew: This film is a ripping attack on Catholicism. It's Grace's faith that keeps her from being able to recognize reality. When the girl tells the maid that Mommy can't see the others, she responds "Your Mommy just believes what she's been told." She has to have these orthodox Catholic beliefs stripped away until she says, "I'm no wiser than you," to her children.

Ernie: But the movie's creator hasn't completely departed from Catholicism because the dead are still glorified is some ways. The children are healed, and their familial love and some domestic tranquility are restored.

Matthew: But that's the great lie of the film. If you believed in Heaven and you found out that you weren't going there but instead were going to be stuck in a house for the rest of eternity you'd be screaming in despair.

Ernie: He could have stuck to a concept movie, a family realizing that they're the ghosts haunting a house. That would have been interesting. Instead, he's pictorialized some view against Catholicism, but he hasn't proved anything.

Matthew: He wants use the film to deconstruct orthodox beliefs. He shows her moving from those beliefs to what he thinks is reality.