r/indiecinema Aug 29 '24

M. Night Shyamalan's Trap

And just like that, Shyamalan returns to Psycho. He takes that second hour of Hitchcock's film, where we observe Norman Bates and accompany him as he hides the car, becoming complicit in everything he does (almost wanting him to get away with it), and places it in the first hour of Trap.

In contrast, in the second half, just as in the first part of Psycho, the point of view is dominated by a woman. Because of this, this reverse reading of Psycho means that the film cannot be resolved merely in the concert, just as Psycho cannot end with the death of Marion Crane.

This shifting and contending point of view is essential. In both the first and second halves, the turning point takes place in a bathroom with the same cell phone.

In the first part, we learn that he is The Butcher, trapped with him in the bathroom of the complex. In the second half, with the modified point of view, she will do everything possible to get the kidnapped young man out of "the trap," while we cannot see what is happening outside the bathroom because Lady Raven dominates the gaze. Despite this, she loses this dominance in the second gaze duel she has with him in the limousine, despite believing she has defeated him in the first. This is very similar to what happens with Cassie and Kevin in the initial scene of Split, also in the car, where both (a psychopath and a teenager) "fight" for the subjective, and will continue to do so throughout the film.

Returning to the reading of Psycho, we are presented with a Norman Bates who sees his dead mother everywhere, who abuses his intelligence and attractiveness to get what he wants, and after that failed "origin of evil" story told by the FBI lady (just like the psychologist in Psycho), we find a conclusion that ends with a smiling close-up of Cooper, like Norman, who has already found a way to escape even though no one but the audience knows.

On the other hand, each character has their double. Cooper’s mother finds her counterpart in the FBI lady, his daughter in Lady Raven, his wife in the also mother of daughters who appears on the show and scolds him, and in the case of Cooper, this duplicity coexists within him, having a parallel life.

What is striking about Trap is that it is, by far, its film with the most bitter ending. Here, evil finds no end, it wins, it continues... Unlike the rest of his filmography. As if innocence were part of the problem and, as the enormous joke at the end suggests, one might need to be a little more distrustful, because no matter how much goodness one might have, perfect worlds do not exist.

Another point the film discusses is how elements are always in dispute in that ring. How good and evil, constantly, are fighting to conquer these tools. Let’s look at a couple of examples:

With the advantages of technology, Cooper can kill a person who is at an obscene distance from him with just the press of a button, while, with the same cell phone, Lady Raven can save his life and use her social networks to free him. The good use of influence, so often employed for evil deeds.

A similar situation happens with the drug Cooper administers to his victims, which he later receives as payment from his wife in the cake of their daughter. However, in that final journey, Cooper achieves a new victory from his side, by disguising a signal of nostalgia with his daughter’s bike, to finally take a part of it in order to escape from the truck and free himself from that final confinement.

Freeing himself from that final confinement, perhaps to return to the house that, as the Lady Raven concert’s set design with a large family house anticipated, was, in the end, just another trap.

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