Hello All,
I watched Cloverfield late on Wednesday night, and liked it an awful lot. If you haven’t seen it yet, and want to, STOP reading this post, and come back to it later. There are ***spoilers ahead***.
I really liked some of the imagery that the movie provides. While it is a monster movie, and it’s rated PG-13, so while there is some blood and gore, the movie does a good job of showing you the horror of the situation without seeing people being disemboweled very much. While the gore is there, it’s not nearly as bad as you would find in an R rated movie. I liked this. In my case, if I see too much blood and gore, I tend to not take it so seriously. It becomes too far removed from reality to have much emotional resonance with me. The images shown in this youtube clip, stir up all kinds of emotions, and I think it worked to great effect. It’s 3:42 long. Well worth it you want to have the context to my post.
The image of an unknown disaster taking place grips many of us living in the post 9/11 era. This probably rings true even more so for people living in New York or any other big city. Seeing a group of young adults at a typical kind of party shows the stark contrast between every day living and the threat of a disaster.
When everyone saw the news of what was happening, as it was described as an earthquake really got me engaged.
Watching crowds of people react in horror as who-knows what was going on while the crowd was on the roof resonated with me as well. There was panic, chaos, and fear personified.
Then the crowning achievement: a large object was hurled in the direction of the main characters. It bounced off of a building or two, then skidded down the street, destroying several vehicles in the process. As it approached, the identity of the object became clear: it was the head of the Statue of Liberty. While I would normally disagree with the virtual destruction of such a national treasure and symbol as that, I have to say that it was extremely effective in communicating a sense of fear and dread to the viewer. Huddled at home, in the dark, wearing my high-grade headphones made me feel like I was there with the characters. Few movies caused me to feel the sense of dread that the characters portrayed, and I think this was largely accomplished by the movie makers’ exemplary use of imagery. Kudos to Cloverfield. Advice: if you can watch the move in surround sound or with headphones, do it. It adds a lot to the experience.
Imagery has become a topic of interest for me recently. This was the first time I have written about it, so if anyone has any feedback, positive or negative, please let me know.
