I am a big fan of movie.
Recently I
downloaded and watched some old classical movies. One of these great movies is Seven. This movie was so
successfully, because it had all the elements of a great
movie should have. The director David
Fincher is a
genius of making dark and stylish style movies. Morgan Freeman acted like an old, cool, and wise guy . And off
course, the handsome guy Brad Pitt is favored by most females. However, what I like the most is the story of this movie.
In Christan, Seven represents seven deadly sins which are lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. The whole story is about two detectives, Detective Somerset(Morgan Freeman) and Detective Mills(Brad Pitt) investigate a series of murders made by a extreme religious killer. The killer kill seven people one by one according to seven deadly sins in seven days.
The first victim is a fat man who eats too much every day to even walk out of his house. His death represents gluttony which means over-indulgence and over-consumption of food. He was forced fed with spaghetti. And his stomach was kicked by the killer and was burst.
The second victim is a defense lawyer who is rich and famous but has a bad name of defensing for corruption and criminals. The killer pointed him with a gun and asked him to cut a pound of his body for his sin. After his death, the word "Greed" was written on the floor of his room.
The third victim is a drug dealer was bound to a bed in his own apartment. When he was found, he was still alive. His hands was cut off and he was suffering mental deterioration due to over injection of drug.
The fourth victim is a a young woman, a prostitute. She was found dead in a room with "Lust" written on the door. An extremely horrified man who was also found in the same room told the two detectives that he was forced by the killer at gunpoint to wear and use a special device. It was a strap-on dildo attached with a blade. He was forced to wear it, rape and kill the girl.
The fifth victim is a pretty model killed due to "Pride". Her nose was cut off. She was given a choice to suicide with sleeping pills. The word "Pride" was written with blood on the wall of her room.
Till here. It looks like the two detectives will keep on searching, find out who is the killer, and capture him. To their surprise, after the fifth murder, the killer, whose name is John Doe, went to the police station and turned himself in. Policemen was surprised, because he had only killed five people. They was wondering if there would be two unfounded dead bodies. John Doe requested to lead Somerset and Mills to the desert outside the city. The two detectives took John to the location he requested. And at 7pm Sunday(The 7th day of that week) a postman delivered a package to them. The head of Detective Mills' wife was put in the package.John Doe killed his wife, because he admired(Envy) Mills' family life. Mills then got angry(Wrath), shot him down ,and was taken away by police.
What makes me like this movie is the meanings behind the story. In the movie, each victim was not treated as human being. I was wondering how can a man think out such bloody ways of killing people. The killer, John Doe is a well educated man with enough income. In the last part of the movie he explained his purpose in the movie. He believed that murders as a way of showing people what the world is to punish the wicked. He wanted everyone to remember and admire for what he had done. That's what he talked to Detective Mills in the movie:
David Mills: Wait, I thought all you did was kill innocent people.
John Doe: Innocent? Is that supposed to be funny? An obese man... a disgusting man who could barely stand up; a man who if you saw him on the street, you'd point him out to your friends so that they could join you in mocking him; a man, who if you saw him while you were eating, you wouldn't be able to finish your meal. After him, I picked the lawyer and I know you both must have been secretly thanking me for that one. This is a man who dedicated his life to making money by lying with every breath that he could muster to keeping murderers and rapists on the streets!
David Mills: Murderers?
John Doe: A woman...
David Mills: Murderers, John, like yourself?
John Doe: (interrupts)A woman... so ugly on the inside she couldn't bear to go on living if she couldn't be beautiful on the outside. A drug dealer, a drug dealing pederast, actually! And let's not forget the disease-spreading whore! Only in a world this shitty could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face. But that's the point. We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it's common, it's trivial. We tolerate it morning, noon, and night. Well, not anymore. I'm setting the example. What I've done is going to be puzzled over and studied and followed... forever.
Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. These seven sins do exist in this material world. And no one can escape from these, even a detective(Detective Mills) who represent justice and equal fell into the trap and became a man with wrath. That's the nature of our world. We are living in an imperfect world. But the biggest sin is not anyone from these seven sins. The biggest sin is to judge the world in one's own belief, just like what John Doe did in the movie. Wolf will eat sheep, if it feels hungry. But man eat sheep with reasons. In the movie, Detective Somerset(Morgan Freeman) said "If we catch John Doe and he turns out to be the devil – I mean, if he’s Satan himself – that might live up to our expectations. But he is not the devil, he is a man. " Sometimes human can really act like the devil.
