Darker than black itself...

Rating: Null/10 (7 October 2001)

I believe it was Sophocles who once said: 'How dreadful the knowledge of the truth can be when there is no help in truth!'.
Se7en carries the same struggle as it lurks and creeps behind the film's agony. The plot is very simple. An unknown murderer has started a murderous spree using the seven deadly sins as his motive. Two detectives are involved with the case: Sommerset, an intelligent man ready to retire within a week and Mills, a rookie detective believing that he can break all the enigmas. The film is intensely dark and pessimistic and in fact there is no hope anywhere. The deaf citizens walk in the street, the cars drive through the traffic and the whole city resembles an urban atrocity. The name of the city is never mentioned but it appears as if David Fincher attempted to use a mixture of New York, Chicago and Philadelphia's outskirts which does not find a way to perceive itself into the viewer's tastes. It always rains and we never see a welcoming day. Even if there is light, they're hopeless pools of luminosity reflecting the dead surfaces that live within Fincher's world.
The characters are acted astonishingly. My favourite is Morgan Freeman's character, Detective William Sommerset. He plays an intellectual outcast of the city that no longer feels pity to help it breath again. He is a typical chess player: he picks his words carefully and cautiously plays his actions to a person. He has lost hope in humanity and only strives to work because it is the only object that allows him to express his hate to himself and the city. To others he seems bossy, prude and unpatient but he has a right to be. I presume that most people after seeing the film will relate to him more than the rest of the characters. Brad Pitt's Detective David Mills is probably the only character that smiles without any force. He is young, energetic and aims to do the best for his job. His wife, played my Gwyneth Paltrow also plays a part to keep the film carry a little bit of optimism. She is pregnant and does not want to tell her husband because she is confused of whether to grow a child into this corrupted city or have an abortion. The only person who knows about it is Sommerset. The film's ending holds one of the most disturbing scenes ever to be portrayed in the world of cinema. It isn't gory but just astonishingly shocking, having the ability to outrage any strong mind just because of the whole surprise that awaits directly into the end. Since this film was out a long time ago it will do no harm for me to mention the killer's (John Doe) performer who is Kevin Spacey. We only meet him during the late end of the film but he has one of the most interesting lines as he talks to the two detectives about the objective of his murders as they head along to pick up two more bodies. The scene where they show his apartment is beyond imagination; it actually describes his personality. He is a smart man gone insane. A typical example of a perplexed and bewildered person who no longer sees the need to carry with the laws of the community but the need to change them.
The film has its religious entangements but in the end it is not only concerned with the principality of religion but of the struggle to make a transitional move in society. Any non-religious or atheistical person will adore this film because it guarantees to represent the image of a world gone mad, deceased and lost in its oblivion. It's better to not mention the film's disturbing parts because they will reveal themselves whether the audience will like it or not. Since the WTC bombings, this film may not be pleasing to many people as it leaves them combined with an emotional end reaction. It is the kind of film that searches a place in the mind and locks itself indisputably. Fincher's FIGHT CLUB was more optimistic than this as it was filled with the of a dark humour but in my personal opinion this stays Fincher's best work so far and probably one of the best film of the 90s Hollywood shelves.
You will be confused, frightened and left into a pit of uncertainty. Enjoy.