What a bad boy I've been. I haven't got any translation done today and I shouldn't be lazy like this many more times in the future or it will cost me dearly. If I can say anything in my own defence, then I'll say that all morning today has been taken up by extraneous-social-life-outside type things right until 2 pm when I finally got home, showered, cooked lunch (bolognese soy with spaghetti which unfortunately wasn't too tasty due to a couple of cooking mistakes) and sank in the sofa watching a DVD re-run of Se7en. More on this movie later in this post.

Early afternoon was spent doing various web related stuff (*cough*, what a lousy excuse this one) and went out to play a bit of football in the late afternoon. Back home again, shower again and another terrible crash on the living room's couch to watch Chelsea's match on TV. The bottom line is, I was utterly lazy all day, better admit it, and try to remedy it by working extra-time tomorrow.

As for Se7en, this is a 1995 movie which played back quite a lot on my VCR when I was younger, a few years back. Giving it another go now was quite enjoyable as I caught lots of little details which are subtle but altogether important, stuff I hadn't really spotted before. Having Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt starring together, both with a performance highlight of their careers, certainly helps. And David Fincher (Fight Club, The Game) is undoubtedly one of my favourite directors out there. He's just so fresh and innovative, it's unbelievable. Obviously Kevin Spacey (who, for my money, needs only to stand around looking pretty and still be an awfully awesome actor) as always delivers an astonishing performance even if he only shows up for like twenty minutes of the movie.

So, the point I would like to make concerning Se7en is actually about the ultimate idea present in the story of this flick. I wouldn't like to go ramble about religious details as everyone should believe whatever they want to believe. I'm giving this preamble because as far as I know the idea of the Seven Deadly Sins is something particular to the Catholic ways (please correct me if I'm wrong on this). Anyway, by watching this movie again I felt it is so much thought-provoking like I never felt before. By the way, if by some weird, unfortunate and unbelievable circumstance you haven't seen this movie, be warned: spoilers herein.

John Doe (Kevin Spacey) is a serial killer who takes on individuals guilty of commiting each of the seven deadly sins: pride, envy, lust, wrath, sloth, greed and gluttony. He believes that by killing an individual in his eyes guilty of each of these sins he's doing the work of God who will be studied upon and hopefully followed in the future. Detectives William Sommerset (Freeman) and David Mills (Pitt) are hot on his tail until John Doe (certainly a wise choice of a character name) decides to turn himself in. This happens after we have seen the aftermath of five of his homicides, along the course of story, with all their twisted details. Through his lawyer, Doe proposes a deal to both detectives: either they accompany him to the place where the remaining two victims are or he'll plead insanity in the courtroom, in all likelihood getting away with it.

Having agreed on the earlier option, the car trip the two policemen make with John Doe is certainly one of the hottest and most memorable scenes of this film. The dialogue between the three men is, for my particular money, among the best ever and provides quite a lot of food for thought. Take on this short excerpt for example:


David Mills: Wait, I thought all you did was kill innocent people.
John Doe: Innocent? Is that supposed to be funny? An obese man... a disgusting man who could barely stand up; a man who if you saw him on the street, you'd point him out to your friends so that they could join you in mocking him; a man, who if you saw him while you were eating, you wouldn't be able to finish your meal. After him, I picked the lawyer and I know you both must have been secretly thanking me for that one. This is a man who dedicated his life to making money by lying with every breath that he could muster to keeping murderers and rapists on the streets!
David Mills: Murderers?
John Doe: A woman...
David Mills: Murderers, John, like yourself?
John Doe: [interrupts] A woman... so ugly on the inside she couldn't bear to go on living if she couldn't be beautiful on the outside. A drug dealer, a drug dealing pederast, actually! And let's not forget the disease-spreading whore! Only in a world this shitty could you even try to say these were innocent people and keep a straight face. But that's the point. We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home, and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it's common, it's trivial. We tolerate it morning, noon, and night. Well, not anymore. I'm setting the example. What I've done is going to be puzzled over and studied and followed... forever.


While I'm certainly not defending the killing of human beings here, you'll have to agree with me that this makes you wonder about a lot of things. I for one can't dismiss anything John Doe says here as being lies. I try to understand what sort of world we live in and I still can't reach any decent conclusion. The truth is, regardless of what kind of importance you give to the concept of Seven Deadly Sins, the actions they represent are present in every day life, around every corner, in nearly every place. And what I know for sure is that David Fincher, under the covers of a regular whodunnit type story thriller, managed to put his finger on the wound and press real hard.

Now, this makes me wonder about something else. Earlier on this post I mentioned I was lazy today, not getting any real work done... isn't lazyness one of the seven deadly sins?