random quote

"Is it better to live as a monster or to die as a good man?" So says Teddy Daniels in "Shutter Island," a movie that had me in tears well before its end. I seriously doubt that was the intention of the writer, but perhaps 'twas so, and I am one those so affected by this work.
It's truly a wonder I even saw the film. The previews I had seen left the distinct impression that this might be one of those films for me to avoid, a horror film designed to leave nightmares in its wake. Accordingly, I avoid such films as I prefer my dreams to be of a more peaceful nature. And yet, on a rainy Friday afternoon, I found myself buying a ticket for that very film, as well as one to distract me from its aftermath should it be nightmare-inspiring material.
So, just in case any readers might have stumbled upon these writings, one who has not seen the movie and might yet, perhaps such reader should now retreat to prevent knowing too much. N'est-ce pas?
As I was saying, the film had quite an emotional impact on me. "Shutter Island" is a thriller, of the psychological variety, and dealt with a man who had lost sight of the thin line which sometimes exists between truth and fiction. Sometimes the truth is exceptionally hard to accept, overwhelming all of the senses at once. Under such circumstances, the mind might bend and break, creating a more preferable explanation of the current circumstances. Especially if those circumstances involve the sudden death of someone loved, the sudden violent death at one's own hand of someone loved.
A person forced to confront such a hard truth might find their mind twisted such that the truth becomes part of a conundrum, a puzzle to be solved, with oneself as the hero of the day, setting out to right a wrong done by... someone else. An intelligent mind may well recognize the doer of the misdeed, but fashion a code to disguise the identity of the criminal from itself, to create a hero from the heart of the killer. Eventually, the hero would discover the truth, the oh-so-hard truth and be forced to accept it or to retreat into the fabrication once more.
As hard as that truth may be on the criminal, the fabrication affects all around them, especially those who recognize that person as having a good heart. They are forced to watch him re-enact his myth, hoping that this time he will accept the truth at the end of this play, that he will stay in one character, his true self. They have seen him go through this pain before and they try with all their might to help him work through the story one more time, hoping this will be the last time.
The incredibly sad part of this film lies in the recognition by the good man of the monster he has become, the monster he cannot escape and cannot accept. Does he continue to live the lie his mind has proffered, growing increasingly aware that the two personae are one and the same, or does he seek to end the lives of both the good man and the monster?