De Vierde Man: Surrealism

De Vierde Man (trailer)

I wasn't able to clip the video in this entry so just click the link above for its trailer. Thank you! :)

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Paul Verhoeven's De Vierde Man (The Fourth Man) made me think. honestly, I have no idea what does a spider doing in that film at first. But as it progress, I realized that it is somehow a foreshadowing and a symbol. 

The lead character, Gerard Reve, is compared to a male spider who, after mating, is killed by a female spider. In this film, the female spider is Christine. 

I think De Vierde Man qualifies to be a Film Noir because it has a Noir's main edge - a Femme Fatale. 

The inluence of Christianity is also evident in this film; Such as, the crucified figure of Jesus Christ, statue of the Virgin Mary, and on the train scene, there was a mother and child (this ,I think is Mary and Jesus), then the mother peels the apple and formed a halo for her baby. 

A number of foreshadowing is also noticeable. First, inside the train, when Gerard was looking intently at the photo of a hotel, then suddenly he is walking along the corridors to a door, then an eye and blood started coming out of the door's peak hole brought him back to reality, only shows that someone's eye will later be a target. 

Second is, the showing of a spider at the opening of the film, symbolizes or warns the audience about the flow of the film and/or the future struggles of the lead character or the fourth man per Se.

Another is, inside the salon, the other customer kept on reminding Gerard to be watchful. 

Surrealism

I have encountered the word 'Surrealism' when I was studying Arts on High School. We were familiarized by our professor to the different surrealism paintings and painters. One of which is Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory. 

As our professor asked us to define Dali's art, several answers and interpretations flooded our classroom.  in the end, we were taught that Surreal paintings are unpredictable. I personally define this as 'Weird' art. Let's take Dali's painting above as an example, is there such a melting clock? 

Don't get me wrong, I do not mean weird as in bad or negative, rather, I mean it as unusual or unique. That it can be related to fantasy - to dreams. My High School professor used to tell us to paint or draw our dreams and we can have our own surrealist painting. 

Moving on with films, De Vierde Man, I believe exhibits this kind of art as well. I have been talking about foreshadowing in this entry, and the way these foreshadows are presented are surreal. The best example is the Train scene (which was earlier discussed). 

There are several parts on the film where I was lost - where I can't anymore understand what is happening. And I think such scenes made it an effective surreal film. Fortunately, as the movie ends, questions such as 'why was there a spider?', 'what's with the eye coming out of the hole?', and the like, is answered.