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The Exorcist
An evil possess a teenage girl and the movie chronicles how that effects everyone around it and ultimately human faith.
William Fried-kin was just below Spielberg,Scorsese and Coppola in terms of popularity and impact on cinema in the 70s. He won an Oscar for French Connection. There are two kinds of bad-ass movies. Realistic Bad ass and heightened bad ass. Realistic bad ass is much more subtle like French Connection where as heightened bad ass is good fellas. Realistic bad ass holds a mirror to the time period its set in where as heightened bad ass can only be seen in cinemas. Its not that realistic. Its a fantasy. If you watch french connection, you would know that it plays like a horror thriller. Its a game of mind and wit. Who blinks their eye first kind of conflict. The trifecta of films he made in 70s french connection, exorcist and sorcerer share the same DNA.
That brings us to this movie. Anyone who knows the promotional material about this movie would assume that since its an american movie and is called exorcist the movie is heavily based on Christianity. But whats jarring and kind of unique about this movie is that when the title card is displayed on screen you would hear Urdu(language predominantly spoken by Muslims) prayers. So that kind of throws a wrench into conventional expectations. The movie opens in Iraq where a priest interested in excavating ruins comes across a demonic figurine. This is where a mild element of surrealism seeps into the movie. What you are seeing is not supernatural at this point. All you see is a guy being uneasy after looking at a small rock and then being uneasy where ever he goes that day. But later we find out that the priest comes across a demonic statue and realizes that he is needed somewhere else in the world and the figurine shown earlier belongs to the devil and their excavations unleashed the devil.One of the interesting things about the movie is its decision to leave things a little ambiguous. Its an adaptation but nonetheless movie has to be treated as his own and this movie leaves a lot of stuff to imagination. Its one of those rare instances where imagination works better than whats in the movie.
The movie then cuts to 1970s america. The movie has lot of themes going on without being overt. We see the main character is an actress. We see her shooting a scene. Its interesting how this movie decides to use the family of a celebrity as the victim. I think devil is choosing a victim who has most hope and promise in life. If the victim was a starving family in a remote village, the devil doesn't have much will power and life force to chew on. The family is already giving up on life. But if a well to do family in western country is chosen then there is lot of will power and life force that it can drain from its victim and its family. Another main character in the movie is a priest. He doesn't look like an ideal type for being a priest. He is an ex boxer and is pretty athletic. If you read my review for Sorcerer or seen that movie, you would know that Friedkin has a talent for setting a mood that permeates through the whole movie. No matter the location. In Sorcerer there is a dark brooding tone that lasted the whole movie and sustained across various locations and settings. In a similar way the evil in this movie is centered around the room of teenage daughter of the actress. But the sense of dread and horror due to this evil can be felt through the movie and by that I mean the streets of Washington, halls of church , the house of our priest, train station at night, iraq and even a park in middle of the day. All that credit goes to Friedkin. He masterfully was able to intertwine those elements. In most of these movies conventional medical treatment is given very little value. People go to doctor once and then they deal with the supernatural. But the movie spends considerable amount of time testing the subject. The movie almost makes you believe that there are certain things which cannot be understood by science. The movie doesn't make a big deal about how the child was possessed. The erratic behavior of the girl increases with time. What the filmmakers choose to highlight as evil is very interesting. Most of the times when one thinks of evil they go to murder or scares but this movie considers even the most seemingly harmless things as evil. A teenage girl using curse words is considered un-characteristic and evil. Lack of social manners is considered evil. The way the movie tries to depict possession is by displaying change in character traits of a teenager. At an age when a teenager is much more concerned with self image and insecurity, the last thing she wants to do is break social norms and attract attention for wrong reasons. Even cursing is like that. In the second act of the movie there is a murder. Which leads to an investigative story-line. A police officer investigates a murder and tries to connect the dots which could lead to the house of possession. But filmmakers are much more interested in the trauma this incident adds up-to and not a police procedural story line. Even the ambiguity surrounding the murder is masterfully done. We don't see the actual crime committed. If I were to imagine, the scene would involve the boyfriend of our lead who was babysitting the possessed girl is killed by the devil in her. The scene would involves him being pushed or thrown onto a set of stairs outside the house and he lands at the bottom of it. None of it is shown and we are left of fill in the blanks after only the aftermath is revealed. That's much more terrifying because we don't know the clear motive. The procedure of exorcism and the practical ways the church deals with exorcism is also odd and interesting. I mean, we got a girl acting all crazy and the church needs proof to approve a procedure called exorcism. The odd circumstances of this whole event is pretty weird. The young priest mentioned earlier plays a key role in the movie. The movie wants you to believe the practicality of a possession and the practicality of an exorcism. So, during the exorcism when a priest is told that the devil will try to play mind games , we know exactly what kind of impact it has on its victims. The movie doesn't have cheap scares.
During the final act, the movie re-introduces the priest we saw at the beginning of the movie. It a brilliant way to do it because the last time we saw him was when he was staring at a huge statue of devil. So he brings all that eeriness with him when he is re introduced for the first time. The actual exorcism is a much more mind game and is very interesting. The devil tries to curse , scare and use their guilt against them. The ending of the movie as abrupt as it is seems to fit the rest of the movie.
Negatives about the movies are very few but glaring. One of the things that bothered me about the movie is how brave everyone is. I mean, if I was living in places where possession is common then I wouldn't be bothered by all this but when I am someone living in city in America then if I was someone working in this house where there are loud noises and all this scary stuff happening all the time, then I wouldn't even go into the house.The casualness of it all is really unrealistic in the movie. At a certain point as the movie gets going, the girl literally looks like a demon. Even at that point, a servant in the house is going into her house midnight and checking out her belly. I mean, who does that ? I think by this point, people feel that the daughter may have killed her mothers boyfriend. Even the mother goes alone into room to check on her daughter. So, all this is effecting the movie in a negative way. The priests see that the girl is lifting beds and looking scary as hell and I can accept that during exorcism they are willing to stay in the room. But if I were them, I wouldn't go into the room alone.All this started stacking up as the movie went along. Even the way certain story-line intertwined didn't work that well. The investigative story-line is meant to be metaphor for something but that didn't make much sense.
There is a narrative weakness I found in the movie.In movies where director is choosing to show the progression of something, they usually use a narrative where in they keep coming back to the story line. A story line starts, they cuts to another story line and then after a while they cutback to the initial story line. If the original story line is not strong enough then this feels like a repetitive cycle. Sports movie has this all the time and since the effect is compounded in them it feels repetitive. In the main story line itself they have multiple games. So you have multiple start , play and end in one story line itself. Same with racing movies. You gotta show multiple games in the same movie. So the novelty of going into a race for the first time is already lost. So in this movie after a while the story follows a repetitive beat. The girl is little crazy , something else happens and then the girl gets crazier. The girl is crazier and then some other character is shown and then the girl gets even more crazier. That becomes evident.
Despite all these inconsistencies I was able to get the tight rope the movie is walking. It is trying to deal with exorcism and concept of possession as a real thing. What if it happened in real world. The ghost wouldn't fly into the sky and scare the whole city like ghost busters. It has its limits and it has its ways it kills people in ambiguous way. The atmospheric eeriness is the ultimate achievement of this movie. It was able to capture how evil can effect all the people involved in this exorcism where ever they are. So in a way the movie doesn't let up. Usually movies have time off scenes. Audience are left to take a break from tension. But not this one. So all in all its a great horror movie and it has managed to do something that Hollywood is getting around to doing it again and that would be to focus on characters more than the scares itself. Director takes lot of time on the effects all this has on the mother of the girl.
An evil possess a teenage girl and the movie chronicles how that effects everyone around it and ultimately human faith.
William Fried-kin was just below Spielberg,Scorsese and Coppola in terms of popularity and impact on cinema in the 70s. He won an Oscar for French Connection. There are two kinds of bad-ass movies. Realistic Bad ass and heightened bad ass. Realistic bad ass is much more subtle like French Connection where as heightened bad ass is good fellas. Realistic bad ass holds a mirror to the time period its set in where as heightened bad ass can only be seen in cinemas. Its not that realistic. Its a fantasy. If you watch french connection, you would know that it plays like a horror thriller. Its a game of mind and wit. Who blinks their eye first kind of conflict. The trifecta of films he made in 70s french connection, exorcist and sorcerer share the same DNA.
That brings us to this movie. Anyone who knows the promotional material about this movie would assume that since its an american movie and is called exorcist the movie is heavily based on Christianity. But whats jarring and kind of unique about this movie is that when the title card is displayed on screen you would hear Urdu(language predominantly spoken by Muslims) prayers. So that kind of throws a wrench into conventional expectations. The movie opens in Iraq where a priest interested in excavating ruins comes across a demonic figurine. This is where a mild element of surrealism seeps into the movie. What you are seeing is not supernatural at this point. All you see is a guy being uneasy after looking at a small rock and then being uneasy where ever he goes that day. But later we find out that the priest comes across a demonic statue and realizes that he is needed somewhere else in the world and the figurine shown earlier belongs to the devil and their excavations unleashed the devil.One of the interesting things about the movie is its decision to leave things a little ambiguous. Its an adaptation but nonetheless movie has to be treated as his own and this movie leaves a lot of stuff to imagination. Its one of those rare instances where imagination works better than whats in the movie.
The movie then cuts to 1970s america. The movie has lot of themes going on without being overt. We see the main character is an actress. We see her shooting a scene. Its interesting how this movie decides to use the family of a celebrity as the victim. I think devil is choosing a victim who has most hope and promise in life. If the victim was a starving family in a remote village, the devil doesn't have much will power and life force to chew on. The family is already giving up on life. But if a well to do family in western country is chosen then there is lot of will power and life force that it can drain from its victim and its family. Another main character in the movie is a priest. He doesn't look like an ideal type for being a priest. He is an ex boxer and is pretty athletic. If you read my review for Sorcerer or seen that movie, you would know that Friedkin has a talent for setting a mood that permeates through the whole movie. No matter the location. In Sorcerer there is a dark brooding tone that lasted the whole movie and sustained across various locations and settings. In a similar way the evil in this movie is centered around the room of teenage daughter of the actress. But the sense of dread and horror due to this evil can be felt through the movie and by that I mean the streets of Washington, halls of church , the house of our priest, train station at night, iraq and even a park in middle of the day. All that credit goes to Friedkin. He masterfully was able to intertwine those elements. In most of these movies conventional medical treatment is given very little value. People go to doctor once and then they deal with the supernatural. But the movie spends considerable amount of time testing the subject. The movie almost makes you believe that there are certain things which cannot be understood by science. The movie doesn't make a big deal about how the child was possessed. The erratic behavior of the girl increases with time. What the filmmakers choose to highlight as evil is very interesting. Most of the times when one thinks of evil they go to murder or scares but this movie considers even the most seemingly harmless things as evil. A teenage girl using curse words is considered un-characteristic and evil. Lack of social manners is considered evil. The way the movie tries to depict possession is by displaying change in character traits of a teenager. At an age when a teenager is much more concerned with self image and insecurity, the last thing she wants to do is break social norms and attract attention for wrong reasons. Even cursing is like that. In the second act of the movie there is a murder. Which leads to an investigative story-line. A police officer investigates a murder and tries to connect the dots which could lead to the house of possession. But filmmakers are much more interested in the trauma this incident adds up-to and not a police procedural story line. Even the ambiguity surrounding the murder is masterfully done. We don't see the actual crime committed. If I were to imagine, the scene would involve the boyfriend of our lead who was babysitting the possessed girl is killed by the devil in her. The scene would involves him being pushed or thrown onto a set of stairs outside the house and he lands at the bottom of it. None of it is shown and we are left of fill in the blanks after only the aftermath is revealed. That's much more terrifying because we don't know the clear motive. The procedure of exorcism and the practical ways the church deals with exorcism is also odd and interesting. I mean, we got a girl acting all crazy and the church needs proof to approve a procedure called exorcism. The odd circumstances of this whole event is pretty weird. The young priest mentioned earlier plays a key role in the movie. The movie wants you to believe the practicality of a possession and the practicality of an exorcism. So, during the exorcism when a priest is told that the devil will try to play mind games , we know exactly what kind of impact it has on its victims. The movie doesn't have cheap scares.
During the final act, the movie re-introduces the priest we saw at the beginning of the movie. It a brilliant way to do it because the last time we saw him was when he was staring at a huge statue of devil. So he brings all that eeriness with him when he is re introduced for the first time. The actual exorcism is a much more mind game and is very interesting. The devil tries to curse , scare and use their guilt against them. The ending of the movie as abrupt as it is seems to fit the rest of the movie.
Negatives about the movies are very few but glaring. One of the things that bothered me about the movie is how brave everyone is. I mean, if I was living in places where possession is common then I wouldn't be bothered by all this but when I am someone living in city in America then if I was someone working in this house where there are loud noises and all this scary stuff happening all the time, then I wouldn't even go into the house.The casualness of it all is really unrealistic in the movie. At a certain point as the movie gets going, the girl literally looks like a demon. Even at that point, a servant in the house is going into her house midnight and checking out her belly. I mean, who does that ? I think by this point, people feel that the daughter may have killed her mothers boyfriend. Even the mother goes alone into room to check on her daughter. So, all this is effecting the movie in a negative way. The priests see that the girl is lifting beds and looking scary as hell and I can accept that during exorcism they are willing to stay in the room. But if I were them, I wouldn't go into the room alone.All this started stacking up as the movie went along. Even the way certain story-line intertwined didn't work that well. The investigative story-line is meant to be metaphor for something but that didn't make much sense.
There is a narrative weakness I found in the movie.In movies where director is choosing to show the progression of something, they usually use a narrative where in they keep coming back to the story line. A story line starts, they cuts to another story line and then after a while they cutback to the initial story line. If the original story line is not strong enough then this feels like a repetitive cycle. Sports movie has this all the time and since the effect is compounded in them it feels repetitive. In the main story line itself they have multiple games. So you have multiple start , play and end in one story line itself. Same with racing movies. You gotta show multiple games in the same movie. So the novelty of going into a race for the first time is already lost. So in this movie after a while the story follows a repetitive beat. The girl is little crazy , something else happens and then the girl gets crazier. The girl is crazier and then some other character is shown and then the girl gets even more crazier. That becomes evident.
Despite all these inconsistencies I was able to get the tight rope the movie is walking. It is trying to deal with exorcism and concept of possession as a real thing. What if it happened in real world. The ghost wouldn't fly into the sky and scare the whole city like ghost busters. It has its limits and it has its ways it kills people in ambiguous way. The atmospheric eeriness is the ultimate achievement of this movie. It was able to capture how evil can effect all the people involved in this exorcism where ever they are. So in a way the movie doesn't let up. Usually movies have time off scenes. Audience are left to take a break from tension. But not this one. So all in all its a great horror movie and it has managed to do something that Hollywood is getting around to doing it again and that would be to focus on characters more than the scares itself. Director takes lot of time on the effects all this has on the mother of the girl.