John Doe: [interrupts] A woman... so ugly on the inside she couldn't bear to go on living if she couldn't be beautiful on the outside. A drug dealer, a drug dealing pederast, actually! And let's not forget the disease-spreading whore! Only in a world this s**tty could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face. But that's the point. We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it's common, it's trivial. We tolerate it morning, noon, and night. Well, not anymore. I'm setting the example. What I've done is going to be puzzled over and studied and followed... forever.
It was one of the most memorable lines in the mind puzzling psychological
film, ‘Se7en’. Starring with the Hollywood’s finest actors, Brad Pitt, Morgan
Freeman, Kevin Spacey and Gwyneth Paltrow, written by Andrew Kevin Walker and
directed by David Fincher, it definitely rocked the cinemas in the year 1995. It
was one of the best crime movie I had ever watched, aside from the films Zodiac
(2007) and The Bone Collector (1999). It left
every audience a thrill on their hearts and I am pretty sure the film was tattooed
on their minds as well.
The story was all about two detectives, Detective Lt.
William Somerset, the veteran one, and Detective David Mills, a rookie and a
newly transferred detective. The duo will investigate on the series of murders
in their town and they will try to capture the infamous serial killer.
The film was actually inspired by ‘Seven Deadly Sins’, which
was written in the various passages in the Bible. The seven deadly sins include
pride, lust, wrath, envy, gluttony, greed and sloth. Every victim in the film characterizes
one of the seven deadly sins, and it’s the prime basis of the serial killer,
John Doe, on who is going to be on his murder list.
The crime was designed according to what sin he was into. The
first on his list was the ‘Fat Man’, the one who barely walk due to his massive
weight. The cause of the death is too much eating, until he had internal hemorrhage
and hematoma. You can have the direct link of his sin to Gluttony.
Second one is a lawyer, the one who lords the money by lying
in the court with all of his breath to give freedom to rapists and murderers. And that sum up to the sin, Greed.
Other Sins and Murders:
PRIDE
 |
| The victim had her nose sliced off and a bottle of tranquilizers glued to the palm of one hand, and a phone to the other, she seemingly chose suicide over calling for help, because of her pride in her former appearance. |
SLOTH
 |
| A man was shock after coming out of some kind of chemically induced coma that has kept him immobilized in bed for exactly one year. |
LUST
 |
| The victim is knifed to death by her (sex trade) client wearing some sort of lethal strap-on device, while a gun is pointed at his head. |
The film was intended to be dark that you can actually feel
the eerie atmosphere as you watch the film.
The rain and the architecture of the environment gave its audiences creeps
and chills which technically added texture to the film. The killer’s brutish
and violent way of killing is actually a kind of teaching, or rather, according
to Detective Somerset, “He’s preaching.” Yes, the killer’s killings are actually lessons he want to share to the world. It feels like at some point on his life,
he wants to change the world in a way that everyone will definitely remember, and
it is the art on his murders.
What’s in the Box?
The ‘What’s in the Box’ Scene was definitely one of the most
unforgettable scene in the history of all films. For me it’s a classic, we are
stunned and inquisitive at its best, for it’s like the world we lived in
momentarily lost its oxygen, that we need to gasp air with our earnest.
In most crime films and novels, the ending was fairy tale. I meant
there’s happy ending like the protagonists captured the killer, or the murderer
was killed by the central character, and then ta-dah! Happy ending. But this
particular film, they changed the generic way of finale and it’s pretty unpredictable.
This is what I love about ‘Se7en’; it can daze an audience on each and every
scene throughout the film. And even after the audience watched film, they will
tend to think and think and think on how spectacular it was.
Sources:
(Note:The pictures and videos are not mine. Publishing of these materials are possible through New Line Cinema)
by: Regine Raboy
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