Frailty

It’s a movie. Only a movie. But a movie of some class – and this have it without a doubt, has something behind. A message. An overtone. A direction. Some meaning. “Frailty” has, and I consider it to be a dangerous one. 1st of all, the movie gives for more than three quarters the impression that it’s all about a misled, maybe psychotic father who utilizes his position of power to mislead his two children to serve his own irrational and monstrous belief.

After we see him as a quite normal and caring dad, he introduces them to a holy vision he had and later they see what’s about the great plan of God with him, killing people who are demons. It seems to have been in order to let us share in the sad and painful life of two children which had the bad luck to grow up in a Christian fanatics’ family, with a most heavily psychotic father, and some of us may agree that from what the rest of the world hears and sees about life in America, it is not uncommon there to grow up like this.

Even to show us a metaphor of how easy naive minds, especially children, can be brainwashed by others who are socially powerful, or talented enough to persuade them of the most perverted and irrational ideas imaginable (and what other label could be given to those demon fantasies from the darkest middle age and earlier, than irrational), the movie works very seriously for nearly one and a half hour, even if there are some mild supernatural reminiscences, which could declare everything as pure fantasy (which it is), but actually do not.

Then, in the last chapter, I hope so much for the creators that they only intended box office quotes and not Christian sympathy points – the real dangerous part, the mystery-for-real-part begins. It is revealed that every psychotic and perverted belief of the father, every cruel act he did to his son and his victims, was righteous and good.

Yes, the movie also sanctions the unacceptable deeds of the psychopath and his traumatically indoctrinated offspring as The Will of God. The young son’s decision to kill his father, we think he did it to stop the serial killing, it exposes to be an act of a demon to save his demonic friends. He will grow up to a serial killer demon who seeks attention of his holy brother to be rightfully destroyed.

Good twist, but what an awful attitude is behind. The world is full of demons which deserve to be destroyed (since when is the demon destroyed when the body is killed, I ask all exorcists), because of a single man’s visions. And the more realistic (!) twist, where the movie would have the chance to change its direction, in particular that it turns out dad’s visions were a hoax from the devil, and dad is one of the demons, and the crimes of his victims false visions, sent by the evil, this twist is missing, and I fear I know why – the Highest granted license to kill, no joke intended.

It would seem that I’m taking this too seriously. But this movie looks like a social drama for just too long, too serious, too well made. I must take it seriously at a certain point. Especially when it turns out to be a Propaganda film for something a modern civilized human, regardless of his/her religion, should stand against. Literally demonizing other people is not only a sign of mental illness, but also de facto a part of how politics are made sense whenever to get inconveniently people out of the way (forever). And I think we must stand against this not only by ignoring it but pointing at it and saying it wrong.