The story of The Ring (2002) is quite long and a bit confusing. First, let’s look at the history of creation, so that the explanation of the film becomes clearer.
Initially, the story of the girl from the well was an old Japanese legend, which, however, really frightened the villagers for a long time. The legend is called “The Tale of the Plates”, where the two main characters are a poor but noble girl and a rich, but slightly impudent and self-confident young man. The girl is in the service of the young man, which he uses, actively hinting that they should continue closer communication. But an honest girl ignores or only pretends not to notice the obscene courtship of the owner. Then he goes for a trick – he brings 10 expensive plates from his parent’s house and instructs the girl to wash them, when she starts counting, it turns out that there are only 9 plates. In fact, the young man removed one plate in advance, but his maid does not know about it, therefore, he literally goes crazy, counting plates over and over again and realizing that one is missing. She turns to the owner for help, and he is ready to forgive her, but in exchange for possessing the girl, which he refuses again. Then the young man loses his patience and throws the maid into the well, thereby dooming her to death. But the girl’s soul does not find peace and continues to wander in the world of the living, breaking into the houses of rich people, she begins to count loudly to 9, after which she makes terrible sounds that bring some to death. It turns out to expel the girl with the help of an ancient healer, he manages to shout out the number “10” before the girl’s soul begins to howl terribly. So the restless soul decides that someone found the last plate and put it in its place, and disappears from this world.
The legend seems to end well, but the story of this soul wandered among the people for a long time. It got to the point that when a disease was discovered that was transmitted with water from a well, it was immediately named after the same girl – Okiko-mushi.
Based on this ancient tale, a Japanese science fiction writer created his own story. Koji Suzuki wrote a whole 6 books about Samantha, but only the first two were filmed, the third book in the series has such a confusing and incomprehensible plot that so far no director has taken the liberty of making her film adaptation. However, the first book looks great in the film version and has huge fan bases.
So, a short story: the parents of a dead girl turn to a young journalist to investigate the death of their daughter. Gradually, the search for reasons and evidence leads to the fact that journalist Rachel finds a connection between the death of a girl and 3 more teenagers – they all watched the same tape before their death. The main character herself watches the cassette, which dooms herself to unnecessary problems in life. The cassette depicts a girl whose fate Rachel begins to explore with her colleague Noah. They find out that Samantha from the tape was killed many years ago by her adoptive parents – they drowned her in a well. Just from that same well, the girl climbs out at the end of the video recorded on the tape. After viewing the video sequence by a person, they call him and tell him that 7 days are left until the end of his life.
Time is limited, it is necessary to solve the case within the whole week. This is especially important because Rachel feels guilty towards Noah – after all, she showed him the tape from that unfortunate tape, everything becomes even more complicated when the girl realizes that her son also watched the tape, now she must save not only her life, but her life child.
The meaning of the film The Call lies in the danger of immoderate curiosity of people. Even realizing that they are in danger, warned by loved ones, they still cannot deny themselves the need to know something secret, not special for everyone. This fate touched Noah, curiosity is the fate that will destroy this hero.
As a result, the journalists find Samantha and bury her, it seems to the heroes that they did everything right, because Rachel does not die, although her 7 days have already passed. But soon Noah dies, and then Rachel realizes that she did not do something that Samantha wants. Or, conversely, she did, but didn’t do Noah? The second option turned out to be correct, she sees the rewritten video tape that she showed to a colleague, and realizes that she saved herself by unwittingly transferring the curse to another. Now it remains to turn this trick with the son in order to take the future away from him.
The controversial question is whether the main character did the right thing? After all, she doomed many people to death for the sake of saving just one, but what kind of son is for any woman – the most expensive and irreplaceable person in the world. The meaning of the ending lies in the fact that sometimes people are ready to do not just stupid things or bad deeds, but simply do terrible things for the sake of salvation. But saving not your life, but the life of the most precious person in the world. So, the horror film, which takes its roots from a terrible Japanese fairy tale, made everyone who looked at the picture ask themselves the question – what would you do in such a situation?
Write in the comments your meaning of the movie The Call. We look forward to waiting!
