a deconstruction

by brian greer

Keith, of course, got another shot. But it wasn't easy. Constant reminders and painful memories...Keith was enduring a private Hell in his own mind. This was his punishment, his limbo. What would you do with your second chance? Keith chose the road less travelled. He engaged in vices that he never even thought about doing before: smoking, drinking, pornography, lying, and ultimately rape. Sex (forced, or otherwise) is a great motivating factor, especially for someone who has never had it (as Keith reveals in his suicide note). Ultimately, Keith's vices consume him...literally. Sadly, he takes an innocent victim with him on his way to Hell. But I am getting ahead of myself...


The Cemetery The Last Thing You See Before You Die
The film begins with about 25 seconds of darkness before cutting to a shot of a cemetery. If you look closely at the gravestones, you will see Jewish symbols and names. This is Keith's vision, or more appropriately, Keith's final vision before his ultimate demise. He sees a figure in the graveyard (his girlfriend) and follows her into what appears to be a tomb. He opens the door (a major theme in the film) and the vision changes to Keith staring at something (later revealed to be his own dead body in the tub) in a bathroom. The out of body vision indicates that Keith is indeed dead but is still able to exist on some level...but under some divine supervision.


The Apartment (A) Wake
Keith wakes up like he just had a bad dream. Or more accurately, Keith is reborn; he is quite sure that he has died but doesn't seem quite sure why he is back in his bed in his apartment. He scratches his wrists (after all, he did cut them). He stares at a picture of him and his fiance but turns it face down, not wanting to be reminded of what he did. He gathers himself and rises, stepping on a piece of paper that has "I'm Sorry" written on it (his suicide note). The TV is fuzzy, a direct reflection of Keith's mind. A painting in his apartment symbolizes that someone is watching over Keith. He gulps down water, the element of life. A tattoo of a Hebrew symbol on his back is revealed, indicating his Jewish descent. He tears down more pictures off the refrigerator. He gets dressed and exits the apartment throught the door (emphasized strongly). He stares down a seemingly never-ending hallway and sees a figure in the shadows who appears to be wearing a hat. The paranoia sets in.


Doorways as Portals Theme Break
The first door that opens in the film is in the cemetery. This is Keith crossing over between life and death. Keith's apartment is his own personal limbo. That is where he must stay despite the consistent reminders (photos, pictures on the wall, TV broadcasts) of the thing that causes him the most pain. The doorway out of the apartment is a portal to the real world, which somehow Keith can inhabit. Think of a prisoner getting 1 hour a day outside to leave his cell. Keith's existence is certain but temporary. The only time he does return to limbo is when he opens another door...the one to the motel which essentially leads him to Hell. Every shot where Keith opens a door is emphasized with a close-up to articulate his passing between different aspects of the afterlife. In the end, he chooses eternal Hell over a limited Purgatory that may have led him to Heaven.

While the apartment is Keith's purgatory, the park is sort of like Keith's sanctuary. Ironically, this place of solitude is also where he meets the girl that eventually becomes his obsession and undoing.


The Park Happier Times
Keith's fondest memories of his fiance are in the park. Here, the memories are nice and dream-like...the exact opposite of his feelings earlier. His memories of her are colorful (literally, the first color shots in the film), and we actually see where the pictures in his apartment came from. He chooses between a pack of cigarettes and a religious Christian pamphlet (choosing the unknown vice and once again forsaking God). From all his coughing, this is obviously his first cigarette; before, he never would have dreamed of smoking. He sees the girl and we actually see evil Keith begin to take form. He begins to stalk her. He figures that if he is allowed to come back and all he has is Hell to look forward to, he might as well satisfy all his desires and do all the things he never did prior to his "death." He sits underneath a jungle gym and a shadow of a cross passes through his body as he has sexual visions of the girl.


The TV and The Car Wreck Visions and Flashbacks
The TV reflects Keith's mind. He is watching pornography which then switches to a fantasy about his girlfriend. For Keith, the lines between fantasy and reality are completely blurred and, at this point, do not even exist. He sees what he wants to see and envisions whatever his mind tells him to. The man in the hat (previously seen in the hallway) is sitting behind Keith as he watches the TV. The fantasy scene on the TV and in Keith's mind switches to a real life flashback of Keith looking at a crippled girl in bandages being fed by her caretaker. Keith gives a slight glance back through the TV, as if he is looking at himself through the glass. The shot leading up to Keith in the bed shows to key things: a ring box (symbolizing the engagement) and a study Bible (symbolizing his newfound religious beliefs). Keith has a dream which is a real life flashback of the car wreck that crippled his fiance. We see her wearing a ring as they play with the radio in the car. After the crash, we see lights and fog which will also be seen two more times in the film. We also hear the only dialogue of the film so far which is Keith saying "Help!" The bandaged girl from the TV is obviously Keith's fiance, so the pieces should be falling into place. She is hideously disfigured and a quadropalegic, but most importantly, she is ALIVE. Remember this, it will be important later.

Now, the website goes a little further in depth into the car wreck. You don't see it in the movie, but the car wreck was a collision. So who got killed in the other car? That's really not important to the overall theme of the movie, but my theory is that the victim of the car accident wore a hat.


The Park - Revisited Where's the Dialogue?!
Keith is nervous and twitching having just relived the most horrific night of his life. The girl talks to him and throws his cigarette to the ground in a playful manner. Keith once again sees, and hears, only what he wants to. That's the reason the dialogue is sporadic here. It places more emphasis on what is actually said. This is the only time in entire film the name of the main character is mentioned ("It was nice talking to you Keith.") - the girl remains unnamed in the movie and is credited as "Victim" (the missing girl article on the website reveals her name). She is kind and religious (symbolized by the same Christian pamphlet Keith ignored earlier but now blasphemously uses to his favor). For all Keith knows, she is the one who is handing these things out. They talk, and Keith speaks his only line: "The girl I was supposed to marry died in car accident." Now, we know that the girl is alive (albeit severely crippled), so we know that Keith is lying here. Yet another vice consumes Keith, and even worse, he is using lie to gain sympathy from a girl he knows to be kindhearted, young ("How old do I look?") and naïve. Keith manipulates her and she leaves having just made a new friend. He walks down the tracks having just found the perfect victim.

So Keith only says two things in the movie: the first is a genuine cry for help, and the second is a lie. In the overall context of the movie, the limited dialogue is a better fit than hearing the entire conversation. Besides, me and Wash grew to absolutely hate the dialogue and cut almost all of it out at the last minute. But, if you absolutely must know what was said, here is a reprint of the actual dialogue I wrote for the actors to read for the scene:

EXT. PARK – AFTERNOON

Keith, having apparently been the recipient of an unsettling sign from above, has taken solace in a pack of cigarettes in the park. Sitting in the same swing as he always does, he nervously smokes, twitching body movements, shaking hands and all. He drops the used the butt onto an already growing pile by his feet. Usually, this is the time when he would look for her, but his mind is convoluted with the images he saw earlier. His preoccupation almost makes him oblivious to the fact that someone is talking to him.

(She walks off and seems happy to have met someone nice to talk to. Keith briefly follows behind her before walking out of the frame. She has no idea that her act of good will turn into an act of horror.)

There it is. In a different movie, maybe it would have all been left in. On to the tracks...


The Tracks Dance with the Devil
The man in the hat appears for the third time in the background. Half of his body is in sun and the other half is underneath the tracks in the shade. Look in the background and you'll see him. He watches on as Keith buys drugs from a drug dealer (the same drugs he will put in Lisa's milkshake later). This scene is kind of like Keith running into the devil and selling his soul. The tracks are underneath an overpass, as if Keith doesn't want God to look down and see him. Sadly, this was Luke's only scene in the movie, which we wrote specifically for him. Wash thought he looked like the lead singer of The Cars and wanted him to be in the movie, so we expanded a scene where we had Keith buying drugs that we weren't even going to shoot in the first place. Wash also makes his Hitchcockian cameo in this scene. We were going to expand upon the whole Keith stalking Lisa thing, and I was supposed to have a cameo as Lisa's boyfriend. Sadly, we didn't film that scene. But you do get to see my hand during the suicide scene, which is what is up next...


The Suicide and The Reminder No Escape
Chronologically, this scene is a flashback (it's in color, so that's a hint). We see Keith kill himself in rather dramatic fashion. We revisit the first scene where Keith is staring into the tub, literally having an out of body experience. He closes the curtain. The lights flash for no apparent reason...this will happen again in the movie. The flashing lights are like some kind of divine intervention, or interference from a higher power. At this point, everything has come full circle in the movie so far; hopefully you are not too lost.

Obviously, Keith does not want to stare at his submerged corpse in the bathtub, so the curtain is closed while he washes his face in the bathroom. Keith gives himself disgusted looks; the mirror is also used as a means of self-reflection (both literally and figuratively speaking) in the movies, so there is no need to drive home that point. Pictures of his girlfriend appear out of nowhere, a reminder...something he cannot escape. This is hell, his own personal limbo. He passes through the portal and meets the girl to take her out for a milkshake. Super close-up of Keith's lips make him appear sinister, like he wants to eat the girl alive.


Milkshakes and Cigarettes Turning Point
Notice the cherries (innocence, virginity) on the store's sign. The girl points to "Monster" which is especially ironic given what happens later. As they walk away, you can make out a tattoo on the girl's back. Both Lisa and Keith seemed to have been "marked" with a predertimined fate. Keith's turning point comes as he stares at the girl lustfully and puts a powdery substance into her milkshake. When I edited this scene, I used "Fog" by Radiohead as the temp soundtrack. A song has never matched a scene so perfectly. With that song, this was my favorite sequence in the whole movie. But since we don't have a couple of grand to get the rights to use it, we had to come up with something original. But for those of you who have the song, play it from the beginning as soon as you see the "Bruster's" sign and listen how the words and the slow-building tempo of the song match the scene flawlessly. It killed me and Wash not to use "Fog" here and actually delayed the film by several weeks while we tried to come up with music to accompany this scene.


The Honeymoon and The End Transmogrification
Keith takes the girl (via trunk) to a desolate motel for their "honeymoon." He drops her bookbag on the ground. He carries her like his bride to the door (the final portal) and throws her on the bed inside where he proceeds to rape her. The man in the hat is outside during all of this and says a prayer. If you weren't paying attention, this might be the first time in the entire movie you see this guy. Actually, he is in three scenes prior to this, keeping an eye on Keith. Now, however, things are out of his hands. In the wide shot of the exterior of the motel (which you can see here), the number "3" is in the upper right corner. This is symbolic of the number of people at the hotel, the holy trinity and the third being that results from what happens in the room.

Inside, the two begin to transform into some sort of grotesque entity. The lights flash again... Keith is literally being consumed by his vices and his evil is consuming his victim. This is his ultimate fate. He squandered his second chance and took an innocent girl with him. The struggle between Heaven and Hell and the interaction of life, death and the afterlife all come to a head. They burst into flames, vanquished from the Earth forever. The man in the hat, the mediator, not liking his wordly duty (but not really having a choice) exits the motel...but not before taking some of Keith with him. He picks up a vice himself (smoking) and walks off, stopping only to pick up the girl's bag...the only thing left of her existence. He exits the same way he first appeared in the hallway at the beginning of the movie...through the shadows. Cut. Credits. The End.


Beyond The Movie Final Thoughts
So that's Atrophy. A pseudo-art, pseudo-horror and pseudo-drama film. Or maybe just one big anti-smoking commercial. People always ask me what genre the film is and I always say it doesn't have one. By the way, the film's title refers to both Keith's mental deterioration and the girlfriend's physical atrophy of her paralysis. Both are wasting away, just in different ways. Wow, 3,650 words and I just could have written that.

The website was made as a companion to the film. This site is treated more literally than the film (fake newspaper articles, et al.), which is almost entirely symbolic. The purpose of the site is to expand upon the themes in the film without simply revealing everything (although, I think I just did that anyway). The movies, pictures and artwork on the site all inspired the movie in one way or another. Finally, the post-credits scene can be interpreted as either something done by the editor just to be cute, or that Keith's limbo is a series of inescapable repeating cycles. Personally, I don't know why I put the scene there...I'll leave that one up to you guys.