Silent Hill (2006)

Silent Hill (2006)

Dir. Christophe Gans

As someone who's had minimal hands-on experience with the video game series upon which the film is based I can't offer any kind of proper game-to-film comparisons, but I can attempt a review for people who are new to the franchise, exploring the question of whether or not you need to already be a fan in order to appreciate what Christophe Gans delivered.

My short answer is no, I don't think you do. The film's strengths stand by themselves, and the failings in the story would be there either way.

One of the main differences between an existing fan's perspective and a newbie's would perhaps be the viewer's ability to give a backstory to some of the characters or creatures, and doing that may well come with its own kind of baggage or even add further complications to the plot.

At its most basic level it's the story of a mother named Rose (Radha Mitchell) searching for her missing daughter Sharon (Jodelle Ferland). Rose wanders the streets of an unfamiliar town in the hope of catching a glimpse or finding a clue to the child's whereabouts. Sharon's safety is of paramount concern to Rose; her own is secondary. The deeper story of why the child is even in Silent Hill to begin with is the lure that keeps us biting at the hook until the end.

The French-born Christophe Gans imbues the first two-thirds of the film with an understated but notable amount of European style, preventing it from feeling like just another US genre movie. (It's actually a Canadian/French co-production, but even that's no guarantee that it would emerge exempt from being Americanised during production.) His use of locations and of finding interesting ways to view them is effectively engaging and his willingness to not show us everything all the time is a very welcome form of restraint.

The town is enveloped in something resembling a perpetual ashy mist that helps it appear separate from reality, but within its own locale is frighteningly real. The paradoxically threatening, smouldering feeling that an encircling emptiness carries within it is brought to the fore, making even standard establishing shots of the main street tremendously atmospheric.

Within that framework are some unreasoned actions/reactions existing solely to advance the search. In reality the rational individuals would take a temporary step back and realise that what they're doing made little sense or only added to their failure. It's not a viewer's job to rationalise illogical turns in the story - it's a writer's job to justify or eliminate them. The scenes in question aren't enough to cause anyone to desk-flip but are worth mentioning for balance purposes.

As for the cast, I like Radha Mitchell. Even in shit movies (the one with the crocodile springs to mind) Radha's usually dependable. For me, she was the perfect choice to play the mother.

I'd seen Jodelle Ferland (Sharon) once before. She was one of the more memorable characters in Stephen King's not very good Kingdom Hospital (2004) miniseries. Like Radha, she too had the right balance of qualities that her role needed to be believable.

Sean Bean, however, is Sean Bean and if he'd been replaced by any half-decent actor it wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference because, while the husband/father figure was necessary to complete the family unit, he had only a small role to play in the drama.

And finally, it wasn't until late in the film that I realised the actress under the unkempt hair was Deborah Kara Unger. She was unrecognisable. Good job, Miss Unger and costume dept.

-On second thoughts, I don't need to pee right now.-

From the very beginning we're discreetly instructed to take note that sound plays a very, very important role. Sound always does in film, but in Silent Hill it's even more pronounced.

Even though the score is almost entirely Akira Yamaoka's game soundtracks re-purposed and occasionally reworked he doesn't get a composer credit. Jeff Danna gets it. All Yamaoka gets is a credit for 'songs'. It's possible it was some kind of union bullshit and not actually something Danna could do anything about but it's still an unfair situation. It would've been worse if they'd not incorporated Yamaoka's amazing compositions at all, so there's some consolation.

The quality of CGI varies from scene to scene. I suspect it's because a number of different companies worked on it, each taking a specific element, and some were better at matching the aesthetic and lighting of the real world setting than others were. Happily, there's nothing really awful and when it's good it's actually really good, enhancing the whole darkly alluring package.

In closing, the first hour of Silent Hill is a strong contender for the best, most atmospheric English language film that I've personally seen in the last decade. The very end is excellent, but some parts of the finale don't sit well with me for a number of reasons, even though I can see why the story went that way. I'm more accepting of it now than I was on first viewing but still feel that if the shift from accomplished, taught search to a more generic modern horror fan-pleasing style late in the last third had been excised completely then I'd wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone I know. Currently, I'm more selective in who I offer it to.

If you made it this far into my ramblings then you obviously have an interest in the film, putting you firmly into the second category. Please do check it out. It absolutely deserves an audience.