Se7en

365 Films

Entry #49

Se7en (1995)

Directed by David Fincher

David Fincher’s Se7en is one of the most pessimistic, misanthropic, and just flat out uncontrollably bleak films ever made.  The fact that is grossed well over three hundred million dollars speaks volumes about the fragility of the American psyche.  I guess we, as a nation, sometimes just want to feel like shit.  Perhaps this is why I have revisited the film as infrequently as I have over the years; it’s a deeply unpleasant experience.  I first saw Se7en when I was eleven years old on its opening weekend in 1995.  I had some familiarity with the serial killer genre and the trailers and marketing certainly promised a more black and white affair.  I was certain going in that the bad guys would be caught and punished and the forces of good would restore order to the universe like they were always destined to.  I used to have this strange habit of critiquing action movies wherein if the villain died what I deemed to be a “cool death”, it could redeem the entire project.  Speed is not a good example because that is a great film, but it has an awesome beheading death for Dennis Hopper at the end (spoilers!)  Desperado is a film, for example, that let me down in this department.  There’s a whole mess of high octane, beautifully choreographed mayhem for the first one hundred minutes and then it resolves himself by the villain just getting shot like any other schlemiel.  Anyway, Se7en was the first ending I saw where the villain gets a pretty decent death (shot in the head at close range, which over came my objection to a bad guy just getting shot, I know, I know, I’m not proud of my ten year old self either), and yet, I felt a strange emptiness inside.  This was not a triumphant death by any stretch of the imagination and the limited exposure I’ve had to the film since then indicates that it is ultimately the hero who is dealt the lethal death blow.  A cold hard fact of reality is that in real life (unlike movies) when you shoot an unarmed suspect at point blank range there may be some legal consequences headed your way.  That is Se7en in a nut shell: it tempts you with the promise of trashy genre material and then proceeds to pull the rug out from under you in the most brutal possible fashion.  Fincher is no sadist mind you, more of a morose observant carefully detailing the pointless folly of good trying to triumph in the world as twisted as this one.  I know that sounds like a bummer and this movie definitely is, but Fincher pulls off an admirable feat by making it sickeningly watchable.  As a charming post script to the story of my first encounter with Se7en, the night I saw it I threw up and my sister had a terrible nightmare.  It’s very possible that I have those events in reverse and I had the nightmare and my sister got sick from watching it.  In any event, the point is very clear: this movie will fuck you up.