The Mist-The Unknown

Rating: 8/10 (30 April 2008)

The Mist, I watched this movie quite a few days ago. I could not say that it's a great movie; however, it did inspire me into sort of thinking. What's in the mist? This is a question that has been asking throughout the whole movie, by people stuck in that town supermarket and by the audience as well. Is it important? Yes and No. I'm not trying to play any literal game. What I mean is that the things in the mist scared people but what people were scared about is far beyond the mystery hiding behind the mist. They looked more frightened when they were waiting than when they were fighting with the huge insects and queered birds that broke in through the window. People tend to be tough and optimistic if they know clearly about what they're handling. No matter how hard it is, they'll finally figure out the solutions. But when everything's just ambiguous in the mist, the horror expands to the extreme. What terrifies us is usually the unknown rather than the horrors we know.
Quite a few people lost their mind out of dread. That's exactly why they choose to believe in that moonstruck woman. She pretended to master some godly power which those people didn't understand either. The unknown vs the unknown. They thought she might be able to confront the unpredictable disasters concealed in the mist and save their lives. When a person runs into something that cannot be explained by common senses and gradually loses his confidence, he has to turn to some other believes to keep him spiritually secure and make him consoled. It's a wrong and perilous way, which will eventually lead its disciples into insanity and destruction. The cost for temporary delusion of feeling better is losing all senses and giving in to inhumanity.
Yet David and some others remained with reasonable judgments, especially David who even became a leader or hero of this small group. So was the lady who seemed to be a little bit crazy at first when she insisted in getting out of the supermarket right away and going home for her little daughter. But at the end of the movie, her staying safe with her daughter besides her in that military truck proves that she made the right decisions and took proper actions. She did it and it worked. The different ending for her and David might be caused only by a little luck. She's luckier than David, I assume. I bet she would choose to stay in the supermarket as David did if she took her daughter with her and David would definitely go back home for his family if he left his son at home with his wife. I'd like to appraise the lady as a winner of life but hate to hear someone calling David a loser. He's not. David tried every chance he had to save his son and even some strangers. He's human being so that he had his weakness. They were both courageous and strong-minded. What were their sources of courage and strength? Their parental love. That's what we say that people's value does not lie in what we acquire from life but in how we're needed by others. Giving is better than getting, sometimes.
Let's leave the movie alone and look back into our really lives. Are we ever frightened by something unknown to us? About career, about love, about family, about life, about future, and even about ourselves? What shall we do to face the horror deep in our hearts? Following somebody else blindly, committing suicide under the unbearable stress, hurting others to make ourselves feel a little bit better, being carried away and destroyed in despair, or staying firmly with our belief and trying to find some way out with our greatest efforts and courage? Do we know what we're fighting for rather than only what we're fighting with? I know my answers. Do you?