Interpreting “The Passion of Darkly Noon”

"The Passion of Darkly Noon" was written and directed by Philip Ridley. The central character being also the antagonist, Brendan Fraiser (who played Darkly Noon) had a lot to portray, a lot of emotions! There is peace, confusion, sadness, anger, irritation, happiness, loneliness etc.This movie is artistic, throws light into religion, cult, repressed sexuality, love, obsession, sacrifice and much more. And we are here to interpret this film. ( Take a look at some of the pictures from the film)

Loneliness

Religion

Confusion

Sexual Repression

Nature

Psychological unraveling

Love and obsession

Anger

Redemption

Now, lets do the anatomy of the movie:

1. Cult,Religion & all that follows: starting with his unusual name “darkly noon”, it is taken from a bible passage but it is definitely not positive. It was not a religious group that he was part of, but a cult. A cult where sin and penance meant pain, suffering and sacrifice. He was also clueless about the outsiders ways, he was naive enough to believe what he had and received where right and the outside world were sinners. As his community didnt entertain or approved of the outside world, so did the outside world to his ways. There is alot of reflection between darkness and light, Darkly was confused and tried to hold on to his believes like water, how much tighter and easier he made his hands (self) to accomodate it, droplets after droplets it ran out of his hands.
2. Loneliness and Finding Meaning to ones own Journey: Darkly, as portrayed in the movie was a loner, he had nobody apart from his parents. After his parents were dead (killed), he had no friends or accquintances to turn to. He was broughtup in a situation where he didnt know the value of friends or other people. He found it difficult to get accustomed to people and leading a normal life, he tried but failed. It was too much for him to learn it as an adult, only if he could have had a normal upbringing. Darkly also greatly struggled with finding a purpose to his life out of the cult. He was always confused, and irritated. He had alot within himself, but he couldnt explain it to anyone, he didnt know how to!
3. Sexual / emotional repression: As a fully grown man he has never experienced a great sexual encounter, not just great ; any sexual encounter. He might have not even known that he had all those feelings within him. He had no emotional maturity, he couldnt handle his mood swings. He didnt know how to behave according to the feelings he had. He was sexually attracted to Callie, there is a scene where he looks at her and masturbates while she is just smoking, he didnt need to find an element to find her sexy. He was so drawn by her, it is like as if it was the first woman he met in his entire life.But he also considered, it as sinful to like a woman and have feelings for her, he felt he was slipping away from his religion and his purpose ( all that his parents taught him, all throughout his life).
4. Love and Obsession: What darkly felt for Callie was an attraction, but it turned into a dangerous obsession. He never knew love, love without any of this pain, sin, or sacrifices, without any boundaries. The way he expressed himself was destructive.
5. Upbringing and How he saw the world: His upbringing amoung a group people from a cult (which was never shown in the movie) happens to be strong. His thoughts and actions were influenced by the cult greatly and that was his religion. He was blinded by his cult members and such rigid and crude parenting that he found penance in pain, and stayed closed up unable to be penetrated or understood emotionally by anybody. He struggled to get along with the outside world, once his own journey began , alone. The influences of the cult strongly guided him, making him delusional and dangerous.
6. Spiraling Down: Psychological unravelling of “Darkly Noon” was dark, entangled, misterious, deteriorating and dangerous. This shows the fragility of the human mind and what a human is capable of at his most vulnerable times.
7. Atonement and Sacrifice: Here, in this context atonement would mean feeling for a woman, being influenced by an outside world, Getting a little carried away by the new found life. He felt it was a sin to lead a normal life unabiding the rules of his cult. Hence, he wanted redemption and redemption to him means inflicting pain as penance, its sacrificing. Sacrifice was a form of forgiviness, he was on a path to set things right in the only ways he knew.

The film was set in a dark and mysterious atmosphere with a lot of unanswered questions about the past and truth in the past of Callie, Callie’s boyfriend Clay and Clay’s mother Roxy; even Darkly was confused by them, he didnt know till the end who was right. The movie is a psychological thriller, and leaves us with alot of mysteriousness in the climax.