Movie Appreciation- Saw 1

How far can a man go to save his or his families life? The movie saw explores this argument. A man terminally from cancer devices a plan and kidnaps two people (known as the Jigsaw Killer). He chains their legs up to a pipe and keeps them in a room with a dead body. One of them is a surgeon and the other is a person who takes pictures of rich men to show their true self. Both of them do not know how or why have they got there.

The surgeon had presence of mind. He did not let his emotions take over his sense of judgment. On the other hand the photographer was in a state of panic and his rationality was impaired. The surgeon knew the only way both of them could get out was if the talked and worked together. Later they found a saw with which was not sharp enough to cut through their chains, the capturer wanted them to cut though their feet. The photographer had thought for a moment that this was all a part of realty television. In another scene another person, Zep, is taking the surgeon’s wife and daughter as hostage. The Jigsaw Killer had told the surgeon that if he killed the photographer before six o clock he could save his family. The surgeon had to choose between murdering a man he does not know and being the cause of murder of his family. The surgeon had an intuition that the Jigsaw Killer was one of his cancer patients.

The viewer feels that Zep was actually working for the Jigsaw Killer, however by the end of the film, the viewer gets to know that the killer had injected a slow acting poison in him and he had to murder a wife and a child (the surgeons family) in order to get an antidote from the killer. Zep faced an ethical dilemma but chose to save himself.

Later in the movie, the surgeon had found a mobile with which he was receiving calls from his captured family. However when the time was up he could hear gun shots being fired. He thought his family was being shot at but an ex- detective was shooting Zep. Getting frustrated at this he sawed off his foot and shot the photographer with a gun to save his family.

The Jigsaw killer wanted to explore human nature. He would capture people and play such gruesome games of life and death. He wanted to show people the gift of life. The captives usually had to choose between saving themselves and saving other people. The killer wanted to see how far a person would go to save himself- would he gouge his eyes out or cut a living mans stomach to get a key. There is always a clash of reason versus emotion and for most emotion overpowers reason. The captives would not communicate and sort out a plan so that their chances of survival would increase. Each one of them would think that only one of them could survive but that was not the case. They had to help each other to survive.

The traps set by the Jigsaw Killer were like art. Each trap was unique though horrifying, in its own way. In order for a person to escape a trap, he had to follow the rules, there was no other way of escaping, the killer had thought of every possible reaction of the captives. Even though the Jigsaw Killer was portrayed as a sadist, those that survived his traps gained a new respect for life and some did become his apprentice. The killer was teaching the captives not through words but by forcing them to survive the traps. A drug addict quit consuming drugs after surviving the trap but also became one of the apprentices of the killer.

In conclusion I would say that seeing this movie through the perspective of theory of knowledge has made me see more than I would have other wise seen. Seeing the reason behind the sadism of the Jigsaw Killer and the emotions faced by his captives and noticing things that I would not have noticed without knowing that words are not the only thing that comprises of language was a great experience. The movie explores the will, selfishness and desperation for people to survive. There was a captive who had a suicidal tendency but when he was given a choice to go through a webs of barb wire or to die in the room he was in before the exit shuts, he chose to live and go through the barb wire.