Untraceable

I'm not sure which is more rare; for me to see a movie on the first day it's released, or for me to see a movie featuring a variety of grisly murders as its central plot. Whichever it may be, yesterday I saw the new film Untraceable with my son. There had been a number of promos on local TV for it, and what captured my imagination was the line [loose paraphrase here!] "Everyone who logs on to this website is an accomplice to murder". The anonymity of the web used as a tool for murder made me wonder if there was more to be had in this film than just high drama; it smacked of the original drama of stoning and the anonymity the crowd provides for personal violence. For a modern venue of an ancient theme, I heartily recommend it.

The film is taut; it moves quickly from scene to scene without a whole lot of filler. We are given the character of Jennifer Marsh, an FBI agent assigned to computer crimes. We watch her solve an on-line porn crime, get a glimpse of her family and the degree to which she cares about them, and then encounter the primary plot of the movie. It begins with the live video of a cat being tortured and slowly killed; the more viewers log onto the website, the faster the cat dies. While gruesome, there's some debate as to whether or not this is a crime worthy of FBI attention. When the perpetrator turns to people and repeats the live broadcast and murder, he has their undivided attention. The remainder of the film documents the chase between the FBI and the perpetrator. What might easily be merely voyeuristic violence becomes it's own commentary on itself through the course of the drama.

The plot is intriguing from a mimetic point of view. After abducting his victim, the perpetrator sets up a scene of torture that will ultimately culminate in the death of the victim- but only in direct response to the number of people who log on to his website to watch the victim die. In so doing, each one triggers an advance of the torturous death, although no one person is solely responsible, including the original perpetrator. If no one responded to his invitation, the victim would not die. The victims die from the accumulated effects of people logging onto the site, a normally innocent activity that creates a deadly crowd in cyberspace.  The FBI try in vain to trace the computer activity and identify the perpetrator; for the sake of the movie, this proves impossible due to high tech maneuvers I don't pretend to understand. The bottom line is that when they go public and explain that logging on to the site speeds the death of the potential victim, the number of participants explodes. More, rather than less people participate. In the world of convoluted criminal cyberspace gymnastics, they, too, are untraceable. One can participate in murder without fear of reprisal.  In the end, the crowd remains impenetrable; it is the idiosyncrasies of the individual that are his undoing. Throughout the movie there are attempts to label the viewing public as accomplices to murder, but the naming of their activity for what it is clearly doesn't stick.  The power of anonymity in the crowd is absolute, and the commentary from viewers as they post at the close of each execution exults in it. The perpetrator is called a genius and lauded for his actions; there is little or no sympathy for the victim with the initial exception of the death of the cat which one viewer labels "sick". Given the number of people who log on to watch the next few human victims die, this is a distinctly minority opinion.

The film concludes with a final shot of the FBI badge of Agent Marsh filling the screen. The message is clear: Law and Order are the only means through which to contain this violence. Given a chance to participate in murder without fear of consequence, huge numbers of people will do so. Clearly, fear of consequences from being held personally responsible is presented as the antidote to human violence; eliminate the fear of suffering the same/similar fate as one inflicted, and the crowd is good to go for the next murder. It's a pretty gut-wrenching realization to recognize how easily our horror at the torture/murder can be neutralized by the logic that our own singular act of logging on [throwing a stone..]is not directly responsible for death; in fact, without the action of the rest of the crowd our individual act would be totally ineffective.  An undercurrent woven through the plot expands it from a simple commentary on human violence in crowds to a different sort of insight into the motive for violence. It is not an accident nor something beyond human control that initiates the violence; it is the personal pain of the perpetrator in response to callous indifference and profiteering by others in the face of real tragedy in his life that motivates him. In the end, it is the failure of the individual to recognize and take responsibility for the effect of their actions on others, hiding behind social distance and the desire for personal gain [regardless of the cost to unknown others] that sets the violence in motion. The perpetrator has simply taken his experience of what was done to him and magnified it, directing and controlling it in such a way that his own responsibility is diminished [in his eyes] and anonymous others are guilty.  Although his pain is replicated in the pain of the victim, it is controlled as he assumes charge of the process. He has identified with the safety of the crowd intead of the pain of the victim.

It would be easy for this film to merely replicate the dynamic it documents; viewing it left me very uncomfortable with the idea that this was entertainment. I do not advocate seeing it for "kicks"; but it  makes a powerful tool for teaching youth and young/mid adults about the power of mimesis. The films most obvious conclusion is that law and order are the way to salvation from violence and death, yet it also points to the missing factor that could have inhibited the entire process. The gospel call to love ones neighbor as oneself, not being careless of the feelings of others even if they are unknown to us personally, is present through its absence. It is implied that if the perpetrator had not been used by others in ways that violated him, he would not have violated others. Again, mimesis in action.  The action of the crowd is indeed untraceable; it is the action of the individual that can be traced and responded to.

Marketed as an action-packed drama, this film delivers more than it advertises. It is a powerful social commentary on both human dynamics and the extent to which our technology makes us vulnerable to ourselves. If you're looking for an immediate entry into the world people live in to illustrate the gospel truths, this may well help you make the point.

nancy hitt.

Comments

[czc]

The moral of the story???
It's wrong to watch people die?
Is that it?!
You can't label the viewing public as accomplices to murder because they aren't.
The ending wasn't clear.
One popular adaptation was, "She could kill people because she was a cop".