Gothika
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Gothika |
| Original title | Gothika |
 | |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2003 |
| length | 98 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Mathieu Kassovitz |
| script | Sebastian Gutierrez |
| production |
Robert Zemeckis Susan Downey L. Levin Joel Silver |
| music | John Ottman |
| camera | Matthew Libatique |
| cut | Yannick Kergoat |
| occupation | |
| |
Gothika is a horror - thriller by Mathieu Kassovitz from 2003. The title is a reference to the costs incurred in the 18th century gothic novels (English gothic novel ).
action
The psychiatrist Dr. Miranda Gray works in a mental hospital where she is currently working on a particularly difficult case. Her patient Chloe claims that she is raped by the devil . However, Miranda does not believe in supernatural phenomena and instead seeks rational explanations. When she is on her way home during a strong thunderstorm at night, she has to take a detour due to a roadblock. Behind a bridge she suddenly sees a girl standing in the middle of the street and steers her car into the ditch. She approaches the girl and offers her help. But then the young woman suddenly goes up in flames and Miranda goes into shock.
When she regained consciousness three days later , she is in a cell in the mental hospital, not as a doctor, but as a patient. In the unfamiliar situation with which she is unexpectedly confronted, she increasingly loses control of herself. But the greatest shock is yet to come. Her colleague Pete Graham tells her that her husband, Doug, the head of the clinic, was murdered. Chloe shows her a newspaper report that suggests Miranda is the perpetrator. However, she has suffered from memory loss since the scene at the bridge and cannot remember anything. She tries to convince everyone that she is neither guilty nor crazy, but nobody around her believes in her.
The allegations are growing more and more: Fingerprints are found on an ax, the murder weapon, and Sheriff Ryan, who was a friend of Doug, saw them leaving the crime scene. This makes her the most violent accusations and shows her pictures of her dismembered husband.
The otherwise rational physician becomes more and more desperate as the inexplicable events pile up: the message "Not alone" suddenly appears on the glass wall of her cell. She sees the enigmatic girl again in the institution's shared shower. There she was also cut on her arm, which was misinterpreted as self-harming behavior and during interrogation an indication of her perpetrator, because these cuts also form the words "Not alone", which were written in blood on a door at the crime scene.
The case becomes even more mysterious when Miranda speaks to Dr. Parsons finds a photo that shows the girl from the street. Parsons explains to her that it is his daughter Rachel, who died a few years ago. So Miranda sees a ghost, even if it contradicts all logic. But Rachel's mind is so real that it opens her cell door. In a newspaper report that appears on a computer monitor, she reads that Rachel was killed by suicide . On her escape, Miranda passes Chloe's cell. There she sees her former patient being raped by a man. The perpetrator wears a striking tattoo on his chest. The picture shows a woman who is chained and surrounded by flames. Miranda is captured and transferred to another cell. She tells Pete about the rape scene in Chloe's cell and the tattoo. He explains to her that it is the so-called anima sola , which represents the suffering in purgatory .
Miranda cannot calm down in the new cell either. During outdoor activity, she talks to Chloe and learns that she, too, is about to be raped. A short time later, Miranda is haunted by a ghost in her cell, which hurls her against the walls. The employees, who only see Miranda throwing herself against the walls on a surveillance monitor, believe in a suicide attempt and rush to her. When they try to calm Miranda down, the psychiatrist breaks free and escapes with an employee's keys. She secretly receives a car key from the clinic porter and sped off.
After a near collision with a truck and another confrontation with Rachel's ghost, she returns to her home for the first time since Doug was murdered. There she experiences cruel visions. In the hallway, she sees herself killing her husband with an ax. A few moments later she sees herself in a bathtub full of blood. Then she drives (guided by Rachel's ghost) to a shed in Willow Creek owned by her husband Doug. There she finds a scene in a hidden cellar that is reminiscent of a film set : next to a large bed are two spotlights, a camcorder and a case full of syringes. The bed, which is handcuffed and shackled, is covered with a bloody sheet. The camera tapes Doug raping and killing a girl on the bed. When Miranda tries to flee from an incoming police officer, a locked girl appears from a dark corner, who has been missing for two weeks.
She returns to the clinic and finds herself caught between the fronts: on the one hand, she has saved a potential victim, on the other hand, she is still considered a suspect in a murder case. Dr. Parsons reveals to her that he also saw his deceased daughter in flames in a dream. So Rachel's father and Miranda have the same vision. It is becoming increasingly clear that there must be a second culprit besides Doug. She also talks about this with Sheriff Ryan. When Miranda creates a psychological profile of this accomplice, it becomes clear that the description fits Ryan. This then suddenly reveals itself and in the subsequent scuffle the anima-sola tattoo becomes visible on his chest. He tries to stun Miranda with a syringe to get hold of her, but she manages to break free and escapes. Ryan wants to take advantage of the situation and tries to shoot Miranda on the "escape", where he hits a gas pipe. Miranda escapes into an office and is cornered, while Ryan muses aloud about his decades-long relationship with Doug and reveals that both have tortured and killed many women. Suddenly he too sees Rachel's ghost. He shoots him but only hits one monitor. This catches fire, the escaping gas ignites and Ryan also catches fire in the deflagration. To kill him for good, Miranda shoots him with a handgun.
A year later, Miranda and Chloe are again at large. After the psychiatrist says goodbye to her former patient, she sees a boy in the middle of the street who turns out to be a ghost when a fire truck drives through him. A poster declares him missing.
Reviews
“[...] However, thanks to his outstanding visual creativity, director Mathieu Kassovitz (' The purple rivers ') succeeds in combining these elements into something new, and this new element surpasses the aforementioned films by far, at least in terms of shocking qualities. The entire film is surrounded by an extremely dark atmosphere, the women's prison looks more like a kind of ' Arkham Asylum ' for psychopathic felons in Gotham City , and fantastic tracking shots seem to have been shot from the perspective of a ghost who easily penetrates doors and walls. "
"Good, inscrutable horror, implemented with simple means and good actors."
"With a believable desperate performance, Halle Berry dominates this visually imaginative horror thriller, which, directed by Mathieu Kassovitz (' The purple rivers '), plays with primal fears and lets no one escape from its grip."
“Somehow this could have been a better film, between all the corridors and nooks and crannies of the prison-castle, with Berry providing a 100% idea that is in keeping with the film's overloaded style. Attentive viewers will find out early on who the killer is, and the end is no increase, but Gothika still provides some good shockers for fans of horror films. "
“Initially it was a tightly staged, exciting psychological thriller. The motifs and narrative threads, however, fray in the last third, whereby the film ultimately surrenders its narrative logic to the paranormal. "
background
- Filming had to be suspended for eight weeks after Robert Downey Jr. accidentally broke Halle Berry's arm when he was about to film it in a scene. For the remainder of the shoot, Berry had to wear a bandage, which can be seen in some scenes.
- Gothika is the first Dark Castle Entertainment film that is not a remake . It is also the most successful with a box office income of 141 million US dollars - with a budget of 40 million US dollars.
- The title song of the film, The Who Cover Behind Blue Eyes , comes from the American band Limp Bizkit . In addition to singer Fred Durst, Halle Berry also appears in the music video.
Awards
- Nomination for Golden Trailer Awards 2004
- Nomination for Teen Choice Award 2004
Web links
- Gothika in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Gothika at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Rüdiger Suchsland on Artechock
- Gothika in the German dubbing file
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Gothika . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , February 2004 (PDF; test number: 96 828 K).
- ↑ filmszene.de
- ↑ sf-radio.net
- ↑ kino.de
- ↑ filmkritiker.info
- ^ Gothika in the Lexicon of International Films
- ^ Box Office Mojo