Ok, so after thinking it over I have a fairly concrete explanation of what the movie "The Cell" is really all about. It comes down to this: There really is no evil. All evil and evil behavior comes from maladjusted physical phenomena in the human brain and body; is physiological in nature. If we could just "get in there and fix it", or "crossbow it to the floor" in this case, then we could wipe out psychosis, phsychotics, neurotics, and there would be no more cause for gorgeous females to carry stun guns with them to their cars in the parking garage. All it takes is the science and the time to get into the human mind and "map" it's inerworkings. That would also include, of course, the gifted ability of millions of skilled professional "internal psychologists". Ok, I'm kidding of course. The science is practically impossible, or far off at best. What I'm really focusing on here is the reality that evil exists outside the parameters of science. Someone will inevitably tell me that I can't prove it and that gas and neurons are responsible for everything. It goes something like this: With time and knowledge we will tap the genetic code and alter the course of mankind by rearranging it and weeding out all that reeks of imperfection. Sounds danergerously close to a thought process some Germans made up in the 40s. Of course I'm reading into the screenplay stuff that isn't really there, but....hey, isn't that what I'm not being paid yet to do? Alas...someday. No more on this movie. Like I said, nice effects and great showmanship on the mise' en scene, but you can put really nice makeup on a corpse.

The Cell - 2000
Written and co-produced by my Film Tech I instructor in film school: Mark Protosevich

Saw "The Cell" tonight. Not strange at all, although described that way by our local veteran movie rental queen. (She just must not have seen all of Clive Barker's trilogy, the Hellraiser series). Simply put, this was a gallant attempt at creating a sympathetic look at the psychopathological reasons why serial killers do what they do, and the ever-popular suspicion that there is always some deep reason for what they do, and it might be curable.

I loved the imagery and straightforward attempt at realism in the digital work, plus the consistency of the images. The very Catholic images of the Queen of Heaven near the end, the baptism, and all of the very Daliesque scenery was very well done and highly consistent, so A+ for imagery and consistency.

But I give pause for the idea of sympathy for the serial killer. There certainly is no sympathy for the cause behind the behaviour, but we can easily jump the fence from hating the cause to dismissing the actual guilt of the killer based on that hatred. We can draw large puppy eyes around the killer and believe that they are not responsible, really. I believe what the FBI agent says early on in his discussion with Jennifer Lopez, along the lines of: "I've seen people go through so much more torture and abuse than this guy, but come out the other side never wanting to hurt a soul". A contributing factor to a serial killer or abuser or rapist may be an abusive-laden past, but it's not the amount, nor the only contributor. Ted Bundy, for instance, blamed pornography as the major contributor.

The other key element here is not abuse, however, but the neurological reasons for this killer's state of mind. He has some fancy condition that gets "set off" by a traumatic event; schizophrenia comes alive in a brain condition. My position is the same as for other human frailties: we are defective because of this strange and unwelcome condition called SIN. That is a basic and unalterable human condition that is the fault line for every fallibility in the world. It is spiritual, physical, mental, emotional, and hence metaphysical. Just as the physical is linked to the spiritual, so SIN is inherent in the very fabric of all things. It is what is most likely responsible for tilting the world off a straight axis and causing the first ice age. It is what makes a child throw a temper tantrum, or willingly place their foot over the line you've just drawn telling them it is not to be crossed. It is the apple that contained the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. It is the contaminant that causes death. Whereas the genome was created pure, the double helix strands became defective.

Sounds like the theory that all these problems are solvable through scientific means has a foothold then, heh? Wrong. The matter of choice is not open to scientific dissection. Before us are always 2 paths, and I believe there is always a will left that can lead us in one or the other. We are not victims of neurological certitude. The Terminal man was fiction. I believe our scenario is more like that of the Manchurian Candidate's. He was just a slight twitch away from going through with a programmed assassination but his free will shone forth and changed to a purposeful ending by destroying the source of the insurrection.

In that same vein of thought, the "bogeyman" that the Queen of Heaven nails to the floor at the end of "The Cell" might not be killable, but by baptism; complete immersion; he is cut off from his victim and can no longer assert power over him. Yes, it is a death. The immersion in water is the separation of the body from all that is livable. It is not an environment that the human body can actually live in, or survive. The symbolic nature of the immersion is the complete acceptance of the need to be relieved of all this waking world contains, and a submission to that which is also beyond ourselves to ascertain; eternal life. More on this later.