Anna Backens - The Jacket

This film had many incredible visuals throughout the story line, I noticed. One of the elements in this movie that was powerful was how Jack Starks, returning from war and battling amnesia, was continually to show mercy to people when he was treated so ruthlessly by the psychiatrist Dr. Becker. This is shown ultimately at the very end of the story as he sacrifices himself so that the girl and mother can live. Also, the visuals help to bring to life the acuteness of pain that Jack experienced while at the mental institution. When he was put in the box, the sounds and the colors said it all. Much of the time that he spent in the straigtjacket in the coffin-like box, he kept his eyes open because he knew that he would see his fate if he shut them. As the camera was angled toward his eyes during these painful times, a viewer could empathize with what he was actually feeling because eyes are like a "window into the soul".
Also, as mentioned in class before the movie, I thought about the experiences that some individuals endur during tribal rituals. One in particular is when they poke holes in their chests with animal bones and dance around a tree until the bones rip through the chest skin, symbolizing completion. Eventually the individual enters into a state of ecstatic experience. I saw this same kind of out of body experience in Jack's torture in the straightjacket as he was injected with drug-induced materials. He entered into a state of ecstatic experience. The visual symbols stuck out as the colors became vibrant and shaking.