Dread Surprise, Essay Example

Setting         

The story is set in the television studio of the popular television psychic Fabio Damascus Jr. The setting of the television studio is elaborate, with various astrological motifs: for example, various horroscope and zodiac signs are projected on the scenography of the set. There are also some more grim and potentially horrific signs, such as a pentagram. Damascus Jr. performs his live television show from this location, behind an ornate desk, and seated in a chair that reminds one of a throne of an ancient king. The setting is therefore both a mix of references to various occult themas, although in a manner that recalls kitsch, which is familiar to the audiences of such phone-in television psychic shows. Featured on the desk is also a calendar, which shows the date for the day’s program: September 11, 2001.

Situation

The central problem of the story revolves around the psychic Fabio Damascus Jr’s television show. He conducts this show on a weekly basis, taking phone callers from viewers, who mainly inquire about their financial situation, love life and health concerns. The short film concentrates on what particular day in this live phone-television show: on this day’s show, however, Damascus Jr. receives a bizarre phone call, the content of which is anticipated by the attentive audience viewer who already sees the date featured prominently on Damascus’ desk. The man who phones claims to be a terrorist, who has highjacked an airplane. He, in a somewhat sarcastic manner, asks Damascus the question about what will be the future of this airplane.

Define Conflict

The terrorist phones Damascus, making some strange remarks on a metaphysical level at the beginning of his discousre, while Damascus welcomes him to his program. The terrorist asks Damascus various probing existential questions, such as »what are your thoughts on death?« Damascus is immediately taken aback by the query, as he is normally asked to read the future of his callers: here is a different caller, one asking him deep philosophical questions. Damascus begins to sense that this man is serious, he is put aback by the man’s queries: but then a crucial moment occurs. The caller announces Damascus that he has high jacked an airplane, as part of a team of terrorists, and intends to crash the airplane into various prominent locations. It is at this point that the central antagonism of the film is realized. The audience can hear the producer talking into Damascus’ ear to terminate the phone call, but Damascus, sensing that something serious is occurring and that this is not a crank call, disregards the producer’s requests, and continues to engage the terrorist in discourse. Damascus, therefore, as he further talks to the man on the telephone, senses that the terrorist is in fact telling the truth, such that this is a situation of the most profound importance. The conflict thus resembles a game of cat and mouse, as Damascus probes into the terrorist’s mind, ultimately attempting to convince the terrorist to abandon his plans to crash the airplane.

There are thus numerous levels of conflict in this scenario: firstly, the audience watching the film already knows what will occur on September 11, 2001. Therefore, they are aware that horrific terrorist attacks will take place: they understand, even before Fabio Damascus Jr. understands, that some event will take place. However, the audience also knows that they are watching a film and not a documentary, and therefore, that perhaps in the cinematic world a different outcome can occur. Damascus is thus immediately ignorant of the seriousness of the antagonist’s claims: Damascus, however, with time, ultimately takes these claims to be serious. At the same time, however, Damascus still does not know what the audience does know, that these are the September 11 terrorist attacks. The audience is thus torn between knowing the reality of this situation and perhaps hoping through a fantasy revision of this situation through a cinematic intervention through the most unlikely of heroes, the television psychic.

A psychological game of cat and mouse is thus staged between the television psychic Fabio Damascus Jr. and the terrorist. They talk about the immediate facts of the highjacking; but at the same time, they also talk about deep philosophical questions, such as the question of violence and terrorism, when does political activism cross the line, how can violence against innocents be used as a political tool. All this is set against a familiar background. However, at one point, in the midst of a discourse with Damascus on the question of death, the terrorist’s telephone connection suddenly cuts out. Damascus is horrified: he does not know what has occurred. At this point, the decisive montage of the film comes into play: the audience has to this point been torn between the reality of the events depicted and the hope that since this a film, perhaps an alternative ending as based in an alternative universe will occur. Nevertheless, dread and surprise are ultimately confirmed, when the film cuts from Damascus Jr.’s studio, to actual news footage of the days of the terrorist attacks. We thus learn that Damascus was unable to prevent the situation: we now cross from the world of pure fantasy, i.e., the psychic hotline studio, the occult symbols, the fantasy world of the paranormal reality, to the world of pure reality, by using actual news footage of the terrorist attacks to close the circle and the transition.