Great Film: From Hell
Darker than a Night may be - Darker than an Ebony Tree
This is really an outstanding modern movie, and it deserves, in my
opinion,
one of the highest places in the hall of fame of the genre, that is still
considered to be inferior by many people.
The myth of Jack the Ripper is presented here more or less as a classical
`who-dun-it' - without even being very original in its final solution.
The
magic of the film lies elsewhere.
The film manages to capture a fascinating picture of Victorian England,
though not necessarily a picture of it's real history. It is, in fact,
the
mystery of that period that the movie depicts, the riddle of Jack the
Ripper
being merely a part of it. All those things for that 19th century London
is
still famous can be found in this movie, dark and sinister alleys,
decadent,
opium-smoking noblemen (in the tradition of Dorian Gray) and mysterious,
all-powerful organizations, in this case the often-used freemasons. The
validity of all these mixed theories is not really important, `From Hell'
just offers a collage of myths and legends. However, these legends may
yet
capture the epoch's spirit better than any historical discourse since the
spirit of our times is also only partially represented by political
events,
much of today's spirit lies in much more elusive things, the media for
example.
To capture these myths, `From Hell' uses dark and sinister images, worthy
of
the `Gothic' traditions often used in those days. Though all shots are
professionally done, with modern digital effects and the finest costumes
and
décors, the general style is very classical, even `old-fashioned' to some
degree. The usage of paintings and heavily contrasting colours even
suggest
relationship with Roger Corman's E. A. Poe-movies (e.g. `The Pit and the
Pendulum') whereas characters like the prostitutes and the inspector
(Johnny
Depp, great as always) refer more to real Victorian history.
Out of all these references to (film-) history one could have easily made
a
typical `post-modern' movie, living of quotation and irony. That is
exactly
what the Hughes brothers did not do - and perhaps that's also the reason
why
their movie has received so much indifferent criticism. `From Hell' does
not
allow the audience to keep their distance to the depicted events, it does
not offer any opportunity to laugh like all these new-age teenage horror
movies (e.g. `Scream') that do not try to build up atmosphere but are
celebrating the simple combination of shock effects and irony. There is,
in
fact, not a single ray of hope shining through in `From Hell', it is dark
and depressing from the beginning to its end, following the line of
classics
like `The Exorcist' or `Rosemary's Baby' and it is not only intense and
disturbing but also excessively cruel - a cruelty that does not express
itself merely in the plump showing of blood but rather in the `sickness'
of
the depicted events (perhaps comparable to `Seven'), the desperation of
the
setting and the helplessness of the characters.
While all these things make `From Hell' harder to consume and less
`popcorn-friendly' than the usual `scream-teen-story', it fulfils the
inherent aim of any good horror film: it unsettles, it awakes primal
fears
that one keeps buried in daily life. While bringing these fears up with a
movie (or a lonely walk through the woods at night, that is) one gets to
know and to deal with them better.
A truly frightening, yet enjoyable movie. One can really draw much out of
it, and it has been made with a great concern for detail. However, if one
does not like Horror films at all, and if one does not understand why
such
movies are worth serious discussion, this one will perhaps not stand the
(often cheesy) argumentation either and be considered as junk. I love it,
though.
Cast
- Inspector Frederick Abberline played by Johnny Depp
- Mary Kelly played by Heather Graham
- Sir William Gull played by Ian Holm
- Sergeant Peter Godley played by Robbie Coltrane
- Sir Charles Warren played by Ian Richardson
- Netley, The Coachman played by Jason Flemyng
- Dark Annie Chapman played by Katrin Cartlidge
