I am starting to write with a lesser known movie in my friend circle. The movie is Jacob's Ladder.
All the information you can get on Google and Wikipedia about this, more ratings you can get on IMDB as well. But this blog is not about information, it is about Dissection. so here it goes:
Movie starts with a scene where a US battalion is anticipating an attack in Vietnam. The soldiers are in very good mood, teasing each other and suddenly attack opens on them, as soon as viewer realizes, the soldiers are falling with some sudden trauma. They are not able to focus and enemy takes control on them. Many soldier get killed and injured. The Protagonist, Jacob Singer, also realizes and tries to fight with the attackers.
But the scene gets cut and he wakes up in a Subway train. The train is empty and he is not able to understand how long he has been travelling. He might have skipped the station. He asks a strange looking woman who doesn't respond or rather gives a creepy look to him, to this, he stops bothering her and while getting down the train, he sees some different kind of movement in the person lying in the seat next to the door. It sends shivers to both, Jacob and the viewer. Jacob gets down, but we are still looking at the empty train, and as it goes we see the strange woman again. It is the thinking of the director which works here, and he makes the viewer to stick to the train, as the viewer is most interested in the happenings in that horrific train which Jacob has just left. The strange woman also does enough to make the viewer unstabler without making any expression and without making any statement. The artist of the scene is the train and the woman. Jacob is just the medium to let viewer feel the fear. It just makes a horrific combo with the loneliness and the dark patches when train passes the tunnels.
Its hard for the viewer to understand which is real. Where Jacob is really visiting hell? or is he seeing some ghosts? or is he Hallucinating? or US Army did experiment with him? or is his son alive? These are the answers Jacob is also trying to find out. But until the last scene of movie director keeps the secret alive, which makes the movie worth watching and that's why I have hid the best part of the movie here. It would have been really great if I had dissected the final part, the heart of the movie as well here, but I really don't want to tear the secret apart from the movie, because it is the true nectar here.
All the information you can get on Google and Wikipedia about this, more ratings you can get on IMDB as well. But this blog is not about information, it is about Dissection. so here it goes:
Movie starts with a scene where a US battalion is anticipating an attack in Vietnam. The soldiers are in very good mood, teasing each other and suddenly attack opens on them, as soon as viewer realizes, the soldiers are falling with some sudden trauma. They are not able to focus and enemy takes control on them. Many soldier get killed and injured. The Protagonist, Jacob Singer, also realizes and tries to fight with the attackers.
But the scene gets cut and he wakes up in a Subway train. The train is empty and he is not able to understand how long he has been travelling. He might have skipped the station. He asks a strange looking woman who doesn't respond or rather gives a creepy look to him, to this, he stops bothering her and while getting down the train, he sees some different kind of movement in the person lying in the seat next to the door. It sends shivers to both, Jacob and the viewer. Jacob gets down, but we are still looking at the empty train, and as it goes we see the strange woman again. It is the thinking of the director which works here, and he makes the viewer to stick to the train, as the viewer is most interested in the happenings in that horrific train which Jacob has just left. The strange woman also does enough to make the viewer unstabler without making any expression and without making any statement. The artist of the scene is the train and the woman. Jacob is just the medium to let viewer feel the fear. It just makes a horrific combo with the loneliness and the dark patches when train passes the tunnels.
So, It sets a theme and makes the viewer anticipating something freakish to happen. Tim Robbins plays his character with utmost care and he gets crazier with every scene. So does the viewer. The scene where he sees his son's photograph and Jessie says "the one who died". It marks the scent of the movie which is not the army backdrop nor the horrific life Jacob is living, in a dilemma whether he is hallucinating or everything is real but the good and bad memories of Jacob's life. As in a scene director explains with the view of Meister Eckhart, who claims he has seen the Hell too. Meister Eckhart said: "The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you," he said. "They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth."
The movie marks many such instances from people's life, there is something dark in every person. Although the movie revolves around Jacob's hallucinations, which he thinks is due to something done by US Army and trying to pursue the truth behind his delusions. In the process he meets his mates from battalion and comes to know that they also suffer from same trauma. In between we again see many scenes from the Vietnam war, how Jacob gets stabbed, his rescue operation, and the scenes from past where he is with his died son Gabe and the present hallucinations and his growing madness towards the problem.
As the movie progresses, the viewer starts feeling the pain Jacob goes through, it becomes more gruesome when he visits Hell and the Doctors there tell him that he is dead, then suddenly he gets relieved by his chiropractor, when he gives him message. He forgets the pain which he was going through all this time. The meeting with chemist makes the viewer and Jacob realize how it all happened, the cause behind the hallucination and what actually transpired that day in the battlefield.
Watch it for the direction, screen-play, classic story and great acting by Tim Robbins. If you don't like it, which is more obvious, because somehow people understand Matrix but not these kind of movies, which puzzles me, but also tells me that people only want to watch meaningless action which doesn't really let them read between the lines. If you can't read between the lines, if you can't see something going on in the story which is not said explicitly, this movie is not for you.
If you like a movie which lets you imagine your own life and lets you connect with the character and the screenplay, this is the movie to cherish.
Ciao!
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