|
''Red Lights'' is a 2012 Spanish-American thriller film written and directed by Rodrigo Cortés and starring Cillian Murphy, Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro, Toby Jones, Elizabeth Olsen, Joely Richardson and Leonardo Sbaraglia. The plot focuses on a physicist (Murphy) and a university psychology professor (Weaver), both of whom specialize in debunking supernatural phenomena, and their attempt at discrediting a renowned psychic (De Niro) whose greatest critic mysteriously died thirty years prior. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2012, and received a limited release in the United States on July 13, 2012. == Plot == The film opens with two primary characters: a university academic who also engages in paranormal investigation work, Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver); and her assistant in both areas, Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy), who is also a talented physics academic. The audience is provided with an insight into the world of the opening section's primary characters while concurrently observing the public re-emergence of a psychic, Simon Silver (Robert De Niro). The ending of the film's first half is signified by the sudden death of Matheson from a chronic vascular condition at the same time that one of Silver's re-introductory performances takes place; an incident that is particularly significant due to the death of a former nemesis of Silver, a skeptic who investigated the psychic's work, under similar circumstances. Matheson also had a previous encounter with Silver. She recounted a public meeting when Silver had, for an instant, gotten the best of her by bringing up the subject of her son's spirit (her son was in a vegetative coma and on life support). Matheson agrees only to appear on a televised panel in anticipation of Silver's return. Prior to her death, Matheson refuses to cooperate with Buckley's insistent call to undertake another investigation of Silver, warning Buckley against such an undertaking due to her previous experience with the psychic. However, following Matheson's death, the assistant becomes increasingly obsessed with investigating Silver for the purpose of exposing the popular psychic as a fraud. During Buckley's efforts to reveal Silver's large-scale trickery, a series of inexplicable events occur—electronic devices explode, dead birds appear, and Buckley's laboratory is vandalized. Buckley's paranoia intensifies, as he believes Silver is behind these incidents. Buckley's calm and rational disposition eventually degenerates into an obsessiveness that resembles the late Matheson's intense disregard for paranormal claims. As part of the introduction to the climactic section of the film, Silver agrees to participate in an investigation proposed by an academic from the same university that Matheson was employed by, and Buckley joins the observation team for the tests. In the final moments of the film, Buckley's assistants manage to reveal the manner in which Silver defrauds the public through a close analysis of the test footage accumulated by Buckley from the university's investigation. At the same time, Buckley exposes Silver at one of the psychic's public performances, and Silver is left dumbfounded. Buckley then reveals to the viewer that he actually possesses paranormal abilities and has been responsible for the inexplicable incidents that have occurred during his investigation of Silver. In a letter to his late mentor, Buckley explains a realization in which he arrives at an understanding that his decision to work with Matheson, despite the possibility of loftier career opportunities as a physicist, was the result of an unconscious attempt to seek others like himself; the revelation clarifies that Buckley's choices were made in spite of his conscious denial of the existence of paranormal activity (such denial is touched on earlier in the film, whereby the character implies that he chose this career because his mother was delayed from seeking critical medical treatment due to advice from a fraud psychic). The letter to Matheson ends with regret that Buckley denied her the consolation on "knowing" (there is something more ) and that now she deserved even more, "everything." Buckley then turns off the life-support machine that is keeping Matheson's son alive. He then walks out of the hospital and concludes his letter to the deceased Matheson, "You can't deny yourself forever". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Red Lights (2012 film)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|