Posted on 05/18/2007 8:07:30 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
A new film begins with a young man cleaning up his apartment, putting on a good shirt, and killing himself in the bathroom.
And it’s all downhill from there.
As its title suggests, the film Wristcutters: A Love Story presents an utterly bleak view of life—and a not very inspiring view of the afterlife, either.
The story continues in a sort of dingy purgatory, where those who have committed suicide work at menial jobs, compare stories of how they “offed” themselves, and, incredibly, even contemplate killing themselves a second time. When the protagonist, Zia, finds out that his girlfriend committed suicide shortly after he did, he and two friends go on a bizarre road trip to find her.
Scheduled for release in August, the film is already facing controversy over its ad campaign, which is targeted toward 17- to 30-year-olds. Marketers plan to use images from the film showing people killing themselves in various ways, an idea so alarming that fourteen mental health organizations came together to challenge it.
And well they should.
As psychiatry professor Lawson Wulsin noted in the Cincinnati Enquirer, the U.S. Surgeon General’s office recently issued guidelines called “Reporting on Suicide: Recommendations for the Media.” The guidelines note that there is significant evidence that misleading publicity about suicide “contributes to the contagion of suicidal behaviors.”
Courtney Solomon of After Dark Films, the film’s distribution company, claimed that the images of suicide will have slashes over them, in the manner of a traffic sign, and are supposed to serve as warnings against suicide, not to encourage it. “[The film’s] message is that love is better than suicide,” he said. “God forbid someone was considering committing suicide. This film may change their opinion.”
This is appalling. It’s like calling evil good. What passes for hope in this movie is nothing but insubstantial, fleeting at best. In this movie, human relations seem to be the only things that matter—and even these can’t be relied on. And there’s no hope or connection to the transcendent. Any figures meant to represent divinity or transcendence turn out to be phonies or arbitrary-minded bureaucrats, and most things they do end in disaster.
A note of hope at the end is supposed to represent the triumph of human love but really comes off as not much more than a fluke, and doesn’t do a lot to dispel the darkness that came before it.
To top things off, a lot of the suicides that are vividly depicted in the movie are what you might call “revenge suicides,” the kind where someone kills himself just to make everybody else sorry. (One girl’s suicide note even reads, “Are you sorry now?”) I probably don’t have to tell you how much that kind of attitude can appeal to 17- to 30-year-olds, especially those dealing with depression or other difficult circumstances.
The film company finally agreed to delay the ad campaign for a while to consider recommendations from mental health organizations. But I can’t think of much they could do to make the nihilism of this film any more palatable.
However they try to sanitize the public image, you need to warn young people against even watching ads for this film. Even a cursory glance can be devastating. The mainstreaming—even glamorizing—of suicide is the ultimate proof that many in our culture have embraced, and now even romanticized, the culture of death. Lord, help us.
Thanks for the ping!
> That said, this sounds pretty sick, and another example of how when a person gives up on God, they’ll believe anything.
Amen, brother!
I have a feeling that this particular film will not get past our Censors. It is a crime in New Zealand to incite or assist suicide — a very serious crime. This movie could well do that.
There are and should be limits to Freedom of Speech.
I didn’t see the original “28 Days Later.” So I wasn’t up to speed on the overall plot. But nothing good happens to anyone in “28 Weeks Later.” I thought, well maybe this person or that person will make it, but NOOOOOOOOOOOO. No one gets a break! (Except the two kids)
“As its title suggests, the film Wristcutters: A Love Story presents an utterly bleak view of life—and a not very inspiring view of the afterlife, either.”
Look for Oscar nominations all around from the Left. Yeesh! What cr@p.
Kids? Get the mental health help you need, or you’ll just end up “thinning the herd” and you’ll be another one who wasted their Gift of Life.
Which brings up another thought. Since the Left wants as many children as possible killed in the womb, is it ANY surprise that they’d exploit the “survivors” for monetary gain, through their constant drumbeat of ‘The Culture of Death?’
I have noticed more and more occult programs aimed at young people on TV, and now these kinds of films. Don’t tell me satan isn’t after our youth. he KNOWS that their generation will usher in the Kingdom of God. We need to pray against these kinds of movies and let Hollywood know what we think of them, especially with our pocketbooks.
VERY VERY TRUE on all counts, Mary, Dear.
If that’s the movie I’m thinking of, it was just plain tragic. He was trying to save her as best as he knew to do and didn’t want to have anyone else take her away.
Nope, no surprise at all.
It is lireally true that these are the best of times and the worst of times.
Sorry, but I have to blow the whistle on this one. Most grenade fuses only last 4-5 seconds total, and some of that is used up in throwing time and the momnet it takes for the target to realize that a grenade has entered their position. That cuts it down to somewhere between 1 and 3 seconds to act, and that's if the enemy threw it without holding onto it an extra second or two to reduce thyour available reaction time.
If you're clustered in a fighting position with your buddies and a grenade rolls in, you all have to get at least five meters from it to get out of the kill zone, while under fire...in 1 to 3 seconds. Or somebody can jump on it. Unless they react quickly enough to throw it back, that's the choice.
Essentially, yes.
Certainly the birth pangs toward the worst of times.
Affording many chances to stand as light against the rising darkness and lawlessness.
Just learned from a fellow pottery person that some of her kids that she’s dealt with in her job . . . come back bragging of doing drugs with . . .
THE JUDGES that they were sent before . . . for drugs.
BTW, what's the origin of your screen name?
I’m from the peacetime army where the live grenades were most likely dropped at the feet of someone who had just screwed up.
Of the several accidents I heard of, one was an instructor who accidentally pulled the safety of a grenade on his belt, and was so blase about the whole thing, he didn’t even try to pull it off and throw it, just saying “That’s the sort of dumb thing only a trainee would do”, before being killed.
Another was of a Captain safety officer on a grenade range who walked out onto the range to pick up an UXB, and was carrying it back when it exploded.
Lastly was a soldier who took apart a dud to find out why it hadn’t exploded.
For a while there I thought that every time you were issued a grenade, you temporarily lost 10 IQ points.
It’s a slight misspelling of the name of a large volcano located South of Mexico City.
Popocatepetl.
One of the scoutmasters I work with was an Army doctor back in the day. He says the special forces guys working in the backwoods in Honduras used to go fishing with them.
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