Please excuse the title (derived from The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins) of this post. It is a bit cheesy, but the most concise summary/criticism (IF you keep the reference above in mind) of the movie Nines I could come up with. I had picked it up a while ago, for a few pounds, and eventually watched it tonight.
I’ve frequently said that good horror is not about bloodshed, or shock effect, but that good horror suggests a deeper kind of scare – an intellectual one, a question about our humanity, or our society, or about who we are. If we really are as good, or moral, or simply in control about our life as we believe. Where our reality is questioned. Where you end up feeling both alone, but not entirely sure if you can even trust yourself and your own motivations. This, by the way, does not just go for movies – but for anything “horror”. This movie is a good example illustrating what I mean. But, sadly, not because it tries to be a horror movie (quite the contrary), but because of how incredibly creepy the point it makes is, when looking at it from “a manufacturing consent” or (to go back to Dawkins) “religion as a mass delusion” perspective.
Before I go on: That is not meant to say that the movie is bad. In contrast – it is very well crafted, filmed and presented, and certainly has a quite intelligent script. As a movie – disregarding what it attempts to say – it is entertaining and interesting. The problem: Its less and less subtle undertones of Christian philosophy. And from here on there be spoilers.
The movie tells three separate stories that overlap, all three using the same actors and it certainly has quite surreal elements as the realities of each three different scenarios overlap. The idea (which is quite startling given how the movie ends) is that god (or a god like being) is an addict, lost in its own creation. Impersonating humans living within it through avatars, playing and participating in the lives of its creation. The last of the three versions of the story presents the god like being as impersonating a game designer within the reality it (not as a game, but as a world designer) created. The first “incarnation” of the character presents it as an actor, close to a mental breakdown, addicted to drugs and alcohol, suffering from delusions. The second (there’s the trend) as a writer/director, who – again – loses control of reality and is being accused of wanting to manipulate people and control people outside the realities he (the director, not the god being using it as an avatar) creates, mistreating them in the process. There’s a suggestion of comparing this god like being to the players of everquest (referenced as crackquest in the movie) or world of warcraft (the boyfriend as an orc reference). Lost in this process of the game / world / it created, god just missed the last 4000 years, as it is informed – and here is one of the many places where the movie is inconsistent, as explained later – by an angel, or another god like being, that tries to bring “god” back to the real reality of it as a deity. The line goes “we missed you”.
All this would offer a lot of questions about what “god” is. About it’s morality. As mentioned it (god) is not obviously portrayed as a “good” or a “sane” being. The movie has the chance to ask somewhere interesting questions and remain on a purely and generally philosophical level about religion. And there are these inconsistencies (god is not a 10, it’s a 9, not quite perfect; there’s more than one of them) that seem to carry a somewhat neutral and not specifically Christian idea of “deity”.
But it doesn’t. Instead, the very last scene of the movie undoes all the grittiness and moral ambiguity (there’s less and less of it as the movie progresses) of all that came before. God’s back home, it leaving it’s world did not destroy it, and the way it returns to it’s “rightful” place … it leaves a “perfect” world behind (for the characters involved).
And then there’s of course references to the trinity, gods, mortals and satan, the obvious 4,000 years. This is not about the idea of god, but very specific. The problem: It is not clear whether that is the intended message of the movie. There are too many inconsistencies to say “this is christian propaganda”. Rather, it’s just very likely that someone wrote a “great script”, but the christian message sub-consciously wrote itself in.
That is what turns the movie into horror. The notion that the idea of god – one of the very points of Dawkins – is being indoctrinated into and engrained within members of society from a very young age, to a level that this one religious biased perspective even escapes their conscious knowledge. And, in the case of the movie, it probably doesn’t reach the level of awareness (and the comments on the movie on IMDB suggest this) of most viewers either. It doesn’t need to explain it’s Christian overtones – they are part of the “common sense” and agreed upon conventions. It is horror because, if you perceive it on this level, it will force you to ask about your own perspective, your own reality, your own biases. Those you’ll never be able to quite grasp. That you’ll never be able to be quite certain about. Because you can only filter what you are aware of consciously.
Interestingly – there’s a discussion of exactly this subject and notion about the film on IMDB’s forums. It’s a nice read as (as one participant observes) it happens to pan out between a strong atheist, a (less forceful) ‘atheist’ and a believer.
My vote on the movie isn’t complete yet. If generating debate is a good thing, it can (see above) work. More likely though – I’ll have a copy to give away soon.
And than – there’s that question about myself. I know and have noticed Christian elements appear in my stories. Given the cultural reference of the Bible where I was born and the way fictional writing at times is not a conscious process, this is probably not surprising. I haven’t finished the two stories I am particularly referring to, mind you, and these elements exist within the fictional world created with out really defining their meaning for the characters or the stories itself. It is not a problem that these elements exist. But the question of what they do to the story, what they say, and if they just reinforce and repeat the “consent” or “meaning” these symbols have within a Christian based society need to be brought into my conscious if I ever attempt to finish writing these stories.
In other (and brief) news … I haven’t been well these last weeks. Feeling SI triggerish. Overwhelmed with the world, not being able to do as much as I want, trouble getting up in the morning and needing a lot of effort to push all this away before I can even attempt to work on what I need to (which doesn’t work well, due to lack of concentration). I have to do a critical analysis of and 20 minute presentation on a number of international documents (Stockholm Conference, Belgrade Charter, Tbilisi Document, Agenda 21 [that’s a maybe] and the recently published Earth Charter). This was meant to be group work, but given I still don’t really know anyone on my course – I ended up working on my own.
And there, in my room, no-one to talk to, it all turned into that big unsolvable mess, giving me that feeling of – well – not getting anywhere I want to, in my life, doing things I don’t want or feel are “necessary” for my further development. Until I did, finally, text Alex and just talk it all over, this afternoon.
As always – the world in our heads seems to be so much more unreal and bigger than when one starts to cut it down. Thanks Alex.
