paraphrase on the gospel

Rating: 9/10 (1 August 2008)

This movie is widely misunderstood. Most critics fail to see, that this is not a David Lynch wannabe in a spooky-comming-of-age-in-the-80's-flick. This is a modern fairytale about the passion of Christ. Notice that this boy is tormented by the anxiety of loneliness in the face of death (the prophecy from the rabbit, that the end of the world is near). The meaning of the narrative as well as spiritually first appears for us and the troubled young man as choice of sacrificing for love takes the gloom out of life and the movie. The turning point of the movie is placed when the young lovers a attending a screening of Raimi's "Evil Dead". In the theater the tormented youngster decides to follow the rabbit (down the hole) and burn the fake evangelists house down eventually disclosing the hollow moralists lies and diabolical misleading of the school kids (remember the scene where the young man calls the moral-preacher "the Antichrist" in front of the school). As he leaves the movie-theater to follow the advice of the rabbit, the young man passes under the billboards, where the two main features of the cinema are announced: The last temptation of Christ - the evil dead. When these two movies are placed together, they point towards the message of the movie - when you are tempted to think, that dying is always meaningless even for the ones you love, you are a victim of the anxiety, that even tried to get a hold of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. But as the young man gives life back to the girl he loves, by paying with his own (placing himself in the room, where the jet-engine crashes) - he dies with a smile, he sacrifices himself - in the spirit of Christ - hence giving meaning to a cold and superficial world of shallow psychiatry and cheap morality. Watch it again - and this time let the fairytale of the oldest truth outshine the appearance of the surreal. This is not Lynch - it's Pecinpah drunk on joy.