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ATOM EGOYAN’s CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE CINEMATIC LANDSCAPE OF CANADA
channel can follow the fate of other kidnapped children and their families...
To add to the mother’s anguish, objects reminiscent of her daughter’s childhood
are placed in the hotel rooms she cleans. At the same time, Egoyan avoids
direct depictions of paedophilia and child abuse, portraying brutality through
the horrified expressions of the police and sparing the audience from graphic
images. The film also shows the girl’s subdued and almost affectionate attach¬
ment to her abductor, typical of Stockholm Syndrome (Hoffman), which makes
her situation all the more appalling. The atrocities committed by the kidnap¬
per and the subdued behaviour of the girl thus become shocking precisely
because of the restraint with which they are presented.
The film is centred around the anatomy of evil, the kind of evil that is almost
unimaginable to the average person. The movie does not seek to research the
origin of evil, nor does it attempt to explain what is inexplicable in terms of
normalcy. Instead, it merely presents its existence and displays the mechanisms
by which it operates. The chief villain is motivated primarily by the gratifica¬
tion of his own desires, but also by the business interest derived from the
video service associated with his activity. The evil character portrayed in the
film is completely unaffected by any moral considerations. The sole drivers of
his actions are purposefulness and practicality. Nevertheless, he also has
emotions, and this is expressed not only in his obvious joy of domination and
watching the suffering of others but also in his almost tender attachment to
the girl he has abducted, despite the fact that their relationship is clearly a case
of oppressor and victim. He is a formidable figure and lacks the banality of evil
with which Hannah Arendt described Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann, according
to Arendt, was an ordinary man, not driven by evil or psychopathic motives,
but merely following orders without thinking of the consequences. However,
the negative character in the film does not fall into this category, he is more
like the diabolical figures of Iago and Macbeth.’
The film draws attention not only to the existence of paedophile networks
but also to the dangers of the surveillance of people in today’s world. Here,
surveillance is not carried out by a state exercising power over its citizens, nor
by a madman bent on world domination or plotting the destruction of the
world, as in many dystopian or action films, but by a secret group of people
who play with human destinies to satisfy their perverse desires.
2 To use Arendt’s own words, “Eichmann was not Iago and not Macbeth, and nothing would
have been farther from his mind than to determine with Richard III ‘to prove a villain.’ Except
for an extraordinary diligence in looking out for his personal advancement, he had no motives
at all. And this diligence in itself was in no way criminal; he certainly would never have mur¬
dered his superior in order to inherit his post. He merely, to put the matter colloquially, never
realized what he was doing” (Arendt 287).
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