The Box is adapted from the short story "Button, Button" by Richard Matheson (author of the novel "I am Legend"). The original is a relatively simple moral fable—Norma receives a box one day, and a strange man informs her, as long as Press the button on the box, and she will get rich bonuses, but at the same time it causes the death of a stranger. The ending of the novel is the Norma button. Her husband died unexpectedly. It turns out that someone you don't know is not someone you don’t know, but someone you don’t know. For those who don’t understand, the novel author uses a dilemma to make a free choice to show people’s conscience, greed, anxiety and alienation.
Richard Kelly greatly expanded the original work, and even recruited French existentialist representative Jean Paul Sartre's famous play "No Exit" for textual interrelation, adding a sense of absurdity to the film. In "Interval", the three characters arrive in hell after their deaths. There is no imaginary sulphur fire or torture in the hell, but a closed space, where the three people face various crimes, character weaknesses and despicable self-choices during their lifetime. , Their relationship and dialogue are like constant mutual torment. It turns out that "others are hell." The heroine of The Box, Norma, was burdened by the financial pressure of the family, just like Eve failed to face the temptation, pressed the button, made a decision but made a wrong self-selection, and finally caused chain strange events and crises (these are all What the original book does not have), probably the last time a morally wrong decision was made over time, it was enough to bring about irreparable sin. Even if Norma has good sympathy in nature, she can no longer easily relieve her mistakes. All kinds of problems.
Arlington Steward who gave the box had a terrifying face but spoke politely. He seemed to be a messenger sent by a higher being (in a religious or scientific sense) to test humans and test how much moral perfection there is on the earth. The righteous. Norma’s husband, Arthur, is an optical engineer who actively explores the unknown of the universe, but failed to be admitted as an astronaut. He was frustrated. In the end, he became an enlightened man. He switched from the pursuit of science to the experience of religion. He knew it because of seeing visions. This world is a world of purgatory, but people have an afterlife and a chance to be reborn. The director uses water, a self-evident business image, to show that he has been saved.
Norma is the failed Eve who took down the forbidden fruit, but also the divine mother full of love. In the last choice, she resolved the crisis of the next generation with her own sacrifice. Yes, it is necessary for The Box to take the Christmas season as the background, and at the same time make the film's religious and moral allegory more heavier, and provide another level of complement to the unjustified scientific aspect of the film.
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