Villains

[twylyght]

And now we come to another type of villain that rarely gets mentioned in today's cinema... the Tortured Soul.  Perhaps because it is easy to fall to the trap of making these character one-dimensional, the closest we normally get is some rehash of the Frankenstein's monster.  Well, as it turns out, we have had a couple of good runs from a stock of ancient lore, classic literature, and modern day campfire monster tales

 

 

Sweets for the sweet.  All the hallmarks of a boogeyman germane to the lands where hoodoo wriggles its digits through the crevices of our grey matter.  Part imagination run amok, part slasher flick, and ultimately a story of how souls are twisted by the best of our natures.  Were it not for the evisceration by meat hook, this could have been a mark away from the film Swayze did in the 80s.  Alas, the monster for whom we sympathize, we ultimately fear.

 

 

While the film was an overall mixed bag, the way Grendel was envisioned and brought to life on the screen was very convincing.  In many ways a child with no means to escape his own form, he sets out to silence the origins of his literal pain.  Gruesome and ruthless, even while he was lashing out, he cried in terrible pain.  Yet, to contrast the horror visited to the nearby village, the dank hollows of his cave held home to a mother that loved him as any would their only child.  Their actions were tender and the way Grendel regarded his only source of affection was genuinely endearing.  Monster one moment, pathetic child the next.  The director got the execution right on this part.

 

 

To my knowledge, Serkis' performance capture to help realize Peter Jackson's Gollum was amazing.  Serkis has been known to engage in a number of high profile films for performance capture (King Kong and Planet of the Apes among them), but it was this character that landed him firmly on the map for those of us in the know.  The epitome of the tragedy of a monster is when they realize and loathe what they are.  While embattled throughout the series, the essence of this struggle was powerfully caught in a pivotal scene where the once innocent and childlike Smeagal confronts his cruel and viscous alter-ego, Gollum.  In a very real sense, these were two very different people struggling for domain over a single being.  It was in this confrontation where Gollum is beating down Smeagal in what begins to comedic effect ("you don't have any friends.  nobody likes you") that this realization came crashing down in a swift and stunning proclamation.... "I hate you".  With those three words, Smeagal nailed what it is to be the tortured soul turned villain, and it was heart-wrenching to watch him come to the realization that it was himself he was talking to.  With so many villains of various types to address in what was an allegory for a world at war in Tolkein's time, Peter Jackson and Andy Serkis carved out a compelling and memorable pitiful fiend.

[Jangler]