Since the original novel was published in 1991, the controversy surrounding American Psycho has never stopped. When this work, which was once considered unfilmable, was finally put on the screen in 2000, the controversy about it has not ceased. In addition to all kinds of discussions about the theme and performance of the work, there is a question that has always plagued readers and audiences, and that is whether the various homicides shown in the work were actually committed by the protagonist Patrick Bateman or were they fantasised?
Just taking the film as the subject of discussion, this film has never given a clear and clear answer. The truthists argue that Bateman did commit several homicides, including the murder of Paul Allen. In essence, in addition to direct and detailed presentation of Bateman's abnormal personality and behavior, the work also satirizes the secular and alienated relationship between people under today's material luxury conditions. The characters in the film often call each other the wrong name, and even at the end, when Bateman confesses his criminal experience to his lawyer, he is mistaken for Davis by the lawyer. According to this reasoning, the lawyer claimed that his lunch with Paul Allen in London was also likely to be another "misidentification" event: in the age of exaggeration, the connection between names and people seems to have long been separated, and interpersonal relations have also been slow. The earth tends to be superficial and stylized. As a member of the gold-collar investment bank, Bateman confessed his crimes but no one believes it. This cannot but be said to be a dark humorous mockery of reality.
However, it seems that the unrealists have more reasons: all Bateman's crimes are carried out in isolation between him and the victim, and there is no direct evidence to prove the authenticity of these cases, not to mention that Bateman has repeatedly hinted or frankly committed him. Homicide but no one believes it (even in the last police chase, there are no bystanders besides the police and the guard who were eventually killed); another more direct reason is that the evidence of the crime will mysteriously disappear (For example, the blood stains left by the victim, etc., ordinary people cannot completely remove it without leaving a trace, but Bateman seems to have done it, otherwise many cases will not be investigated for the crime of disappearance).
Unrealists have the upper hand, but apart from one scene in the film, the plot does make sense. It is the existence of this scene that makes murder drifting between reality and illusion, which has never been conclusive.
Towards the end, Bateman went to Paul Allen's original residence, only to find that it had been refurbished, and the remains of the original stored remains mysteriously disappeared. The response of an old woman (which seems to be Paul's family) is puzzling: she found Bateman mysteriously and slightly flustered and asked him to leave quickly, so as not to cause them trouble. The original and common understanding was that the murder was indeed illusory. Paul Allen had indeed disappeared or went to London. The decorated residence and disappeared wreckage just showed that everything about the murder was in Bateman's imagination. But the strange behavior of the old woman has been unable to make sense.
Perhaps all of this should be understood like this: Paul was indeed killed by Bateman, and other murders did happen. His family, who thought Paul was missing, saw so many corpses when they finally cleaned up his room. The first reaction was that Paul was a serial killer. He hid the corpse in his room after committing multiple murders. That is why it is specifically explained in the film that Bateman moved Paul's body elsewhere), and then he tried to escape the law by "disappearing". As family members, they did not want to inform the police of what Paul was supposed to do, which would cause trouble and make their Paul a suspect, so they secretly decorated the apartment and kept it secret. When Bateman came to visit, she immediately ran to see the room where the corpse was stored. The old woman obviously thought that Bateman might know the facts of Paul's murder, so she told her to leave in a tone of warning and persuasion as if she had never been there.
This is my personal understanding: the intention of this scene in the movie seems to be to show that homicides did exist. The Unrealists seem to have explained the cause and effect, except for this scene. But there are many loopholes in the real school. The whole movie finally came to an end in an uncertain ending.
There is a dispute between two screenwriters in the DVD easter eggs: one of them believes that the case is real, the other believes that the murder was conceived. In the end, in the film, we also saw the product of their arguing and compromise: both arguments make sense, but neither of them makes sense. In the last shot of the film, the door behind Bateman reads such a notice: "THIS IS NOT AN EXIT", which is also the last sentence of the original novel. It seems to tell us implicitly: simply discussing whether the murder is true or not, there is no way out, because even the author and screenwriter never knew the answer.
In fact, the main point of this film is by no means to discuss the authenticity of the homicide. This chaos may help us to better focus on the thoughts the author wants to express.
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