The Happening
Is a good movie, i liked it. Some major themes it intensely explored for me were Death, Youth and Language. The possibility that the northeast USA is confronting a terrorist attack directly confronts the emotions of 9/11... with bodies dropping off a building in NYC as a terrible reminder. Central to the action is the way adults comforted children as people were dying. The film has one main premise: what if humans were afflicted the same way that bees are with colony collapse disorder. That horrifying possibility is what makes this a horror film.
The films action doesn't make sense. How can it, when it is confronting a human world that isn't making sense either. We are singlehandedly destroying the very environment that we need to survive. Mother Earth is reacting to our lack of logic and resisting... fighting back. The suicidal annihilation of bee colonies can seem to us lacking purpose or reason but the effects are clear... no more bees would have a devastating effect on life as we know it.
As the human colony collapse begins to unfold in the film a quote is flashed on the screen attributed to Einstein, " “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years left to live.” Whether or not he said it is debatable. Whether or not it is true is debatable as well. The only inarguable fact we can confront right now is that the bees are disappearing. The only part of the plot of "The Happening" that we can reliably comprehend is that people are killing themselves.
Our environment is being ravaged on catastrophic proportions. When a catastrophe occurs our language fails us and it is disorienting to our minds. This is captured in the fatal attacks of The Happening. The first stage of assault is loss of speech. The second is physical disorientation and the third is death.
The acting in the film lacks gravity... the goal of the actors is not to transport the viewer into the world of the film where their feelings and emotions mirror our own. The actors are more treated as delivery vehicles... they sacrifice authenticity and realism in order to force their situation directly onto the movie audience. It is simply not possible to realistically "act" in a way that confronts the illogic of our environmental actions. The only actors capable of doing that are the ones that are killing themselves. The ones in collapse.
But somehow there is good in humanity and hope for the environment... i cannot prove this but i feel it in my gut. Or maybe i am just hoping, because i don't want either to end. Likewise i know this was a good movie and i feel it in my gut as well...
because when the credits scrolled up i didn't want it to end.
It is relevant that the movie title occurs in present tense.
