Susan Watkins -- In Class Film 4

During the first part of Watchmen, I felt pretty good about the movie on a whole. One thing I loved about it was the cinematography and how it communicated such a specific perspective on the world without having to spell it out with explicit words. I noticed this from the very first moments of the film: so much of the landscapes, especially when The Comedian is present, is gritty and full of dirt and disarray. I think this communicates to the viewer on a deep level that he sees the world as broken, full of grime, and irrevocably corrupt.

The moment that really got me, though, was The Comedian's funeral. The scene opens up dreary and grey, but finally clean. The well-manicured graveyard lawns are perfectly green and the clothes and individuals attending are clean and put-together. Simon and Garfunkel's "Sound of Silence" opens the scene, full of lament and ominous overtones. Our glmipse of The Comedian's inner self, which we see more of later in the movie, is reflected in their sorrowful singing. Finally we feel like we understand him in a more dynamic way, his fatalism and despair that was hidden so deeply beneath his arrogance. This was the scene that made me stop and say, "This is genius."

This is just another example of Lewis' "myth" in movies... how film can allow us to connect with characters in stories as a Buber "Thou" even though we have never actually met them in real life.