Monday, March 23, 2009

Knowing: The Movie

I just saw it an hour or so ago so it is still fresh in my mind. I would say this movie might be considered to be a horror movie by some people, depressing by others, and probably very useful for religious and spiritual people all over earth. I'm not quite sure what to make of the end of the movie myself so I won't ruin it for you by telling you what it is.

Nicolas Cage is an MIT professor whose wife died about 1 year ago and left he and their ten year old son all alone. Cage is obviously in the movie both a scientist and an atheist or agnostic(one is never sure which) who has had it with religion(his father is a pastor). And everyone in his family, father, mother, sister is very religious and prays. So he doesn't talk to his pastor Dad because of their disagreements but his sister talks to Cage in an oblique kind of way, trying to make sure Cage and his son Caleb are okay.

In 1959 a little girl wrote numbers on a page and it was buried in a time capsule at her elementary school. It is dug up now in 2009 and given to Nicolas Cage's son, Caleb. And the story goes on from there.

There is a lot of fear, not knowing and just the basic confusion of being a human in the movie which is used against the audience in a very profound way. So the audience is constantly asking, "What's going on?" which really draws the audience into the movie. There is this sort of constant undercurrent of "I'm scared!" and "I don't understand" throughout the movie that humanizes the movie and makes it work especially for agnostic and atheistic kinds of people. However, I think this movie has something to say to everyone, even Sunday School Classes filled with kids that are old enough not to have nightmares from this movie for the next several months.

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