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A Quiet Place and the value of communication

 One of the horror movies that I have watched and I think it qualifis as such is A Quiet Place. To summarize the plot, the movie shows how the Abbott family has to survive through apocalyptic times. Strange creatures have taken over the world and they hunt by sound. Because of this, the Abbott family learns to live in silence and communicate with each other through sign language. If they make any sound the monsters would come and kill them. Which is what is happening at the beginning with the family’s youngest member Beau, and during the movie giving birth to the new baby will be the biggest challenge.

As Cherry states “horror cinema deals with anxieties that are of great concern to the culture can thus explain some of the pleasures for the audience that allow the viewer to also work through these fears, and further it can also explain why horror is so enduring and always popular.” (Cherry) I think this movie is relevant to what Cherry explains in his essay because we see how the family faces problems due to miscommunication and more challenges. By this, I tend to refer to the scene where the oldest daughter feels responsible for the death of her youngest brother and that be a reason from his father not to love him. Watching the movie we get to understand the reasons. I think this is a metaphor of what could happen when our resources (meaning Wi-fi, social media and more) become useless and furthermore they are obligated to live without making any noise. We could also take this as the representation of how chaotic our lives have become because of modern times, as well as it could be the reflection of what it means when people are unable to control things. Nowadays we are used to live with immediacy affecting many areas in our life, even when we order food for delivery. Furthermore, the movie makes an allusion to pollution and our lifestyle. “Regardless of the ideology encoded in these films, they all centre on a monster or form of monstrosity that is represented within the text in opposition to the dominant ideological stance.” (Cherry) As we have discussed, one of the goals of horror movies is to present in an exaggerated way (making it scarier in order to startle the audience) a modern problem. Showing us what our reality has become and enlighten that matter. In this case I think A Quiet Place portraits problems, such as the ones mentioned above, and many more that can be interpreted. However, the fundamental one here I believe is the value of communication.

Comments

  1. RosanaDecember 16, 2020 at 2:13 AM

    A Quiet Place has been in my to-watch list for some time Yaiza. I think your interpretation of the film working as a metaphor of the ingrained miscommunication that families are experiencing is bright and insightful. Great activation if Cherry's text.

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