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The Mirror and the Drug Dont Prove Anything - SPOILERS

posted 13 years ago by padzok
12 replies | jump to latest

Misty Mirrors

Some people are saying that Anna's breath on the mirrors proves that she is alive.

But it doesnt prove anything.

If someone else (one of the cops, her mother, her boyfriend before he got killed) had seen the mirror mist up, then that would be a massive clue that she was alive.

But it can just as easily be said that she is "obviously alive" because she talks to the undertaker, she unlocks the door, she walks round with a knife, she trashes his office, she is seen by the kid.

However, all of those scenes are were either:
i) only Anna is present
ii) only Anna and the undertaker are present, or
iii) the kid is the only other witness

If the only characters that can see dead people are the kid and the undertaker, then everything we see in the movie is consistent with Anna being dead.

The breath on the mirror does not give us any additional info. EITHER, the undertaker cannot see dead people, in which case the proof that she is alive is the fact that he spends most of the movie interacting with her, and she trashes his office. OR he can see dead people, and the fact that he "sees" her breath on the mirror is no different to the fact he "sees" her do lots of other stuff, and "hears" her talk.

After all, if Dead Anna doesnt "breathe" then she can't "talk" either, because "talking" involves air being forced over the vocal cords.

Something about the gift the kid and the undertaker both have allows them to see and hear the dead, when other people can't. So other people wouldnt see or hear Anna breathe, and would not see or hear Anna talk.

The evidence that the kid also has the gift/curse is that he is able to see his mother move, despite the fact she is apparently dead.

Plausible Paralysis

So what about the fact that Eliot was injecting Anna with "Hydronium Bromide". This is claimed to be proof that she was alive, because a cop had claimed that it can produce a "fake death" of a living person.

This drug doesnt exist in real life.

So, in the fictional world of the movie, it is possible it does exactly what the cop says.

HOWEVER, is that cop a trustworthy character? Maybe he saw a vial of "Hydronium Bromide" at the funeral parlour, and wanted to make trouble for the undertaker by encouraging the boyfriend to believe the undertaker was holding the girl captive.

Alternatively, maybe the cop has read some sort of conspiracy theory on the internet about "Hydronium Bromide", but that doesnt make it true.

At the end of the day, this cop is a bit of a freak who liked playing with corpses. He is a border line psychopath, and nothing he says should be relied upon by anyone. Maybe he does not like to think of himself as a necrophiliac. As part of his fantasy, he tells him that the corpses which he molests are really alive, and are simply in a drug-induced coma.

Apart from this one cop's claims, there is no evidence, in either the real world, or in the rest of the movie, that there are drugs that can make someone appear dead throughout the various examinations by family and friends.

[–] sandifay62 13 years ago

I saw it as Anna only seeing signs of her own life from her perspective. We saw her was how she saw herself.

The family and friends didn't really examine her. The cop was just a pervert.

So I agree with you. Anna was dead.

[–] unclesatan 13 years ago

The drug kind of DOES prove something. There's no point in injecting a chemical compound of a circulatory system that no longer circulates.

[–] padzok 13 years ago

The drug kind of DOES prove something. There's no point in injecting a chemical compound of a circulatory system that no longer circulates.

But that is circular reasoning.

If the starting point is that "Hydronium Bromide" is injected into her to do something, and that to do that thing, it must circulate around her body, and that it does do whatever it was intended to do THEN her blood must be circulating and so she is alive. QED.

But we do not know what "Hydronium Bromide" is. If it is an embalming fluid, then it does not need to circulate around her body to do its thing. It just needs to rest at the injection site.

And, for all we know, it doesnt "do" anything. It might just be water, for all we know. But Deacon has made up the name "Hydronium Bromide" because he gives his corpses a placebo in order to encourage them to move on.

[–] unclesatan 13 years ago

If it is enbalming fluid, then a whole lot more would need to be injected, and further injections at the same site would provide no benefit. If it is just a placebo, there is no reason why it would rob a corpse of consciousness when the corpse has not been told it would have such an effect. As for Deacon making up the name, the police officer mentioning the same compound as being a drug used to simulate death puts the lie to that notion.

[–] padzok 13 years ago

If it is enbalming fluid, then a whole lot more would need to be injected

Absolutely.

If she is dead, then the bulk of the embalming fluid would have had to be inserted into her before she comes round the first time (or possibly on one of the other occasions when she is unconscious).

She does have a gaping wound on her side as well as a severe cut on her head. Neither of these bleed, nor scab over. That would be consistent with her having been embalmed at some stage.

and further injections at the same site would provide no benefit.

If he hadnt put enough in the first time, then he'd have to put some more in.

As for Deacon making up the name, the police officer mentioning the same compound as being a drug used to simulate death puts the lie to that notion.

Deacon has a container in his parlour with the name "hydronium bromide" written on the side.

The cop only mentions "hydronium bromide" after he has been to Deacon's parlour.

If Deacon made up the name "hydronium bromide", the cop could have made up the use. I'm sure it would be a turn on for the cop to imagine that Anna was really alive when he molested her.

(BTW, not that it proves anything, but if "hydronium bromide" really does the things that the cop suggests, then it was very brave/foolish of Deacon to keep a container with the name written on the side. A more cautious psycho killer might have been tempted to disguise it somehow.)

[–] unclesatan 13 years ago

The cop who explains what "hydronium bromide" does and the cop who went to view his brother are not the same cop.

[–] padzok 13 years ago

I was fairly sure it was the same person when I watched the movie. (But I dont own a copy to check.)

[–] HenryCW 13 years ago

The previous poster was definitely correct and they were not the same cop. Actually three cop were with Paul in that scene - the chief and two other cop. The cop who viewed his brother's body said he had seen Anna's body and was sure that she was dead. Paul suggested to the chief that Deacon might have used drugs to keep Anna paralyzed and appear as if she was dead. The two dismissed that idea, but then the third cop interrupted and told the chief that such a drug did exist and explained how hydronium bromide worked. That cop played no further part in the film.

[–] viceroy_88 11 years ago

Yes, they are two different cops.
You can check these snapshots if you want:
http://free-image-hosting.com/images/2013/01/15/1Nnsj.png

[–] HenryCW 13 years ago

You could argue that Anna just imagined that she was breathing in the two "mist on the mirror" scenes, but Deacon saw the mist too. In the first scene, Deacon immediately wiped away the mist so that Anna would not notice, which strongly suggests that he had something to hide. Towards the end, Anna noticed the mist again when she wanted a final look at herself. In response Deacon immediately injected her with the drug so that she was not able to make any more trouble.

Actually other people had seen Anna (as well as the other "dead people" treated by Deacon) alive. Anna herself was startled when her "dead" piano teacher appeared to be breathing. When Anna almost succeeded in escaping but was cornered by Deacon on the upper floor, the boy saw her at the window wearing her red dress. Anna's head moved when the horny cop viewed his brother's body. (He startled Deacon when he said "there's something wrong" - actually he was complaining that his brother's smile was not broad enough). At the funeral, her eyelids moved several times but that went unnoticed by Paul and the others. All this of course only shows how silly the script is. For example, had Anna’s head moved when the cop peeked at her naked body, Deacon would have been arrested in no time.

All these and other scenes are meant to show that Anna was alive, but the problem is that the plot is filled with so many absurdities that one can no longer be certain which parts of the movie are real and which parts are just imagined by Anna. The drug is one example. Perhaps one could believe that a certain drug could lead to paralysis and stop a person's pulse so that he appears dead. But would this (or some other drug) make a person feel no pain from a near-fatal accident, and also feel no hunger and thirst? But then to be realistic, the mortician would have to keep the person paralyzed at all times – and I doubt anyone would want to see Christina Ricci lying motionless for the whole duration of the movie. I think that is why in the film she was able to walk, talk, unlock a door and even wield a knife, and that was outright silly.

[–] padzok 13 years ago

You could argue that Anna just imagined that she was breathing in the two "mist on the mirror" scenes, but Deacon saw the mist too.

He also saw her move around, and talk. If those things prove she is alive, then there's no need to rely on the mirror. If those things dont prove she was alive, then what difference does the mirror make?

Talking requires breath.

... wiped away the mist so that Anna would not notice, which strongly suggests that he had something to hide.

He wanted her to accept she was dead. There's no doubt about that.

But the fact that he wanted her to accept she was dead doesnt prove that she was alive.

the boy saw her at the window wearing her red dress.

If she is dead, then the kid can see dead people too. The script doesnt rule that out. On the contrary, it encourages the idea that his mum might be dead, but he can still communicate with her.

Anna's head moved

She also manipulated Deacon's keys. So she can do stuff. Almost all ghost movies have ghosts able to interact with the real world to some extent, even though only "special" people can interact with them fully.

Eg in Beetlejuice, the main characters (who are ghosts) can lift sheets and stuff, but most living people cannot see/hear them properly. Only Winona Ryder's character can do that.

Or in Ghost, Patrick Swayze can initially have no interaction at all with the world. But he manages to train himself to do a couple of minor things, with a great deal of effort. However, Whoopi Goldberg can see and hear him fully.

So there's nothing to rule out the same possibility here. ie that Anna is properly dead in a medical sense, but hasnt moved on yet. She can still do a couple of things with her body, with a great deal of effort, including moving her head; but can only interact fully with Deacon and the kid.

[–] black_faith79 11 years ago

You have so many valid points, yet there are so many questions that need to be answered...
1) Why did Deacon get so worried and went back in a hurry when he found out that he forgot the keys? Was he afraid that Anna's corpse would escape?
2) Did Deacon kill Paul at the end? I think he did because it was so obvious that Paul felt pain at this shot. Then, if Deacon killed Paul then wasn't it possible that he killed many other before him, including Anna?
3) In the pictures taken by Deacon on the wall, most of them are taken with the dead with closed eyes, yet some of them (Anna and some others, one of them was described by Deacon as being really confused) have their eyes wide open. So I suspect that these are the ones who were buried alive by Deacon because "they were already dead".
4) We can see that no actual conversation took place between Deacon and the cop's brother, so my take on that is that there's no gift/curse. It's only Deacon's hallucinations. Yet on the other hand, it's strongly suggested that the boy has some sort of a supernatural element about him (Although I guess that he buried the chick alive)...
All in all, this is what I loved most about the movie, it leaves many loose ends and it makes one think of what really happened. I'm thinking of watching it again to answer some of these questions.