SILENT HILL: The Weight Of Silence

In the opening scene of 2006’s SILENT HILL, Sharon (Jodelle Ferland) is missing, her nightmares calling her to a burning, desolate town. She begins to fall off the cliff, but her mother, Rose (Radha Mitchell) catches her just in time. When the camera pans down to race toward the fires below, it was at that moment I, too, felt my calling begin.

SILENT HILL is an adaption of the 1999 survival horror Playstation game of the same name. The video game was created by Keiichiro Toyama and the film was written by Roger Avary and directed by Christophe Gans. While names and genders have been changed, the plot of the movie is similar to the game. In the film, Rose takes Sharon, her adopted mentally ill daughter, to a ghost town called Silent Hill. A mystery unravels that reveals Sharon is actually the supernatural child of Alessa, a resident of Silent Hill who was repeatedly tortured and eventually burned alive. Alessa calls Sharon to Silent Hill to help aid in her revenge for 30 years of blinding rage and pain. Tangled up in the mysteries and atrocities of a forgotten time with Rose is her husband Chris (originally named Harry Mason in the game, played by Sean Bean in the 2006 film), and Cybil (Laurie Holden), a police officer who gets caught in the middle. 

I first visited Silent Hill in the game with my cousin. I spent most weekends with my cousin. After our parents did their usual blacking out, we would turn on the PlayStation and get to work. He was in charge of execution. Calm, coolheaded, and emotionless in the face of danger, my cousin could outrun a devil dog while yelling, “Fuck my face! Fuck my face!” better than anyone I knew. I was the highly skilled and experienced 14-year-old navigator in charge of memorizing the map. I had, after all, done a few stints as a Brownie. We were in progress of living our respective personal hells at the time, but thankfully we didn’t really know it.

The faint hum of the Playstation in harmony with the glowing darkness of Silent Hill on the TV screen was our escape into a controlled version of a heavy reality that felt similar to ours. We were the survivors. Clever, resilient, fearless, and immortal—we were Harry Mason finding his way out of endless torment.

When the film came out seven years later, I tentatively sought it out. I had a strong emotional attachment to Toyama’s series and didn’t want to spoil my affection for it. All the movie needed to do was feel like the video game. Not only did I end up loving it, but it exceeded my emotional needs. The Silent Hill experience brought to life on the big screen became the eureka moment on why this ashen world spoke to me. The game and the movie were telling my story of lifelong severe depression, PTSD, and what it feels like to survive in a world of unrelenting despair.

I remember seeing Rose walk into the embers-choked world of Silent Hill and catching my breath at its serene and cold beauty. The ash of the fires fell like snow.

It was a soft cloud of constant sorrow.

This scene is artful in its simplicity. The music is minimal. The set does the talking and you hear the sadness with your eyes. How can things that fall so soft and silent feel so heavy? Depression clouds your reality. It makes you think you are alone. The few people there with you are shadows of your pain. In Rose's case, she also entered that world with a hero. A lot of people live much of their lives in this gray-streaked world of depression, and those people are often loved by someone on the outside in a healthier reality. It is gut-wrenching every time Rose and Chris narrowly miss seeing and being with each other - even though each feels like the other is just nearby.

“I’m sorry. I’m not ok. I need your help.”

That message is never clearly received, and it is haunting. This missed connection happens in the school and again in their home. They never see what the other sees. They can only feel that they don’t understand. Fixing the distortion of their communication would be the gateway to Rose and Alessa/Sharon being free, but instead they are caught in an endless purgatory. Sadly, chronic depression distorts how we communicate, and it shapes how we access the world. It too can trap you in an endless cloud of hopelessness. It’s the weight of being alive without any of the joy. If living in the ash world is about endurance, then the nightmare siren world is about sheer survival.

I still have muscle memory from hearing that siren go off in the game. When I heard it in the movie, my heart raced, my muscles tightened, and my brain did a very big “Oh Shit!” 

When the siren blows in the game you have little to no warning. The physical world burns away as it is replaced with a minimal metal and fire version of the original structure. Creatures appear that you thought only existed in hell.

Your entire world changes and all you can see is the worst of everything while you are helpless to do anything except run. I hope you memorized the map! 

For me, this is what it feels like to have a suicidal episode. There is no rhyme or reason to why you’re there. The entire world is out to hurt you, and it's full of pain. Surviving is the only option. But, without a purpose, why continue? What inspires us to keep running and fight back? For Rose, it was her devotion to her daughter. For Cybil, it was a desire to save an innocent stranger. For you and me, it could be that we want to hang on until the outside reality can get our message.

“I’m sorry. I’m not ok. I need your help.”

And it’s possible that somewhere we still love ourselves just enough to keep running until we can get back to the ash-veiled world that is our comfort zone. It’s so important when navigating trauma and depression to prepare yourself for a world that isn’t what it seems. Memorize the freaking map.

The design in Silent Hill of the siren nightmare world is deliberate. It is perpetually aflame and constantly in a state of corrosion and decay. And yet, upon seeing the devastation, some called it cleansing. In the nightmare world with its blaring sirens, every possible escape is covered in barbed wire forcing you to injure yourself if you resist. There is facelessness and blood that literally poisons the Earth. All these Francis Bacon-esque inspired creatures feel as much at home in this video game movie as they do in my painful memories. It is not subtle, but neither is what your trauma has done to you. As I watched Rose almost succumb to a horrible death at the hands of creepy lava babies but then wake up startled in her ashen world, I wanted to cry for her. I’ve had my share of close calls, too. I NEEDED her to overcome this.

There is a strange language of empowerment in Alessa’s acknowledgement of pain and Rose’s faith demonstrated through love.

Lines of dialogue like “if she has faith she might survive”, “I need to do this”, and “you cannot deny her pain!” all feel like the heart of a broken person screaming to be heard as valid.

For all Alessa’s power fueled by hatred, she still cannot infiltrate the church.  She cannot face the source of her trauma without support. Her rage is nigh omnipotent, but she is powerless to heal without love. Rose’s love empowers Alessa, but to what end?

I wish it were that easy to have a happy ending. We all want to believe that love is going to be enough. The reality is...it isn’t. When the vengeful carnage of 30 years of pain is complete, the seed of rage doesn’t disappear. It becomes a part of you like Alessa became a part of Sharon. It changes her from that point on, with mother and daughter still trapped in their overcast reality.

Without true healing, Rose and Sharon were only able to subdue the generational trauma. They don’t leave their ash world. They normalized it and made it a more tolerable place to be.

I think that is the lesson to be learned at the end of all this. Revenge is not the same as justice.

Revenge doesn’t necessarily bring peace. Justice won’t always prevail. Nevertheless, we must keep trying. Because even in the sleepy town of Brahams there are people like Cybil who are awake and willing to help you for no other reason than you have value as a human. There are people like Rose who have so much love they are willing to follow you into hell. The only way to break that seemingly endless cycle of hopelessness is to keep trying to communicate.

I still wander in my own Silent Hill often. There are nights the siren blares and I am overwhelmed with the desire to die. Occasionally I burn in my own skin. The barbed wires puncture deeper as I bleed against the weight of my despair. Then I think about this movie. I am reminded that I have been through all of this before and survived. I remember that at some point the nightmare will end if I can just persevere. I scream out loud again.

“I’m sorry. I’m not ok. I need your help!”

Someone may be listening. I’ve felt them before.