First cinematic and opening of the game, James is shown looking at himself in a restroom mirror. After staring for a short time, wet his lips and then makes an awkward gesture with his right hand over mouth and face. Then he takes in a deep breath while closing his eyes and stretching his body away from the mirror, as giving the impression he is tired. Cuts to a shot from one of the urinals, in Dutch angle and out of focus you see James entire body in front of the mirror while you hear his voice
James: Mary... Could you really be in this town?
Turns slowly into a normal shot while we gain focus of the background, and ends up in another dutch but leaning to the other side.
First of all, Let's appreciate the beauty of the whole opening sequence. Right from the beginning this game shows just how different it is from other games... The final shot is made with the "camera" behind the urinal, in your face, from there you could almost smell the urine! It's dirty, it's mature. The game expects things from the viewer: You got this everyday object in the front and in the background slightly out of focus the point of interest. It makes you work for it.
This first scene is already developing motives and themes that are going to be treated in depth later. Being in front of a mirror suggests looking inside one self. So the game is stating that this is going to be the journey of James Sunderland into himself. It's a discovery journey and as such a perilous one: cause it means traveling into the unknown were possibly danger could be awaiting.
Back to the mirror. This is a Lynchean shot. You can find characters in front of mirrors in many David Lynch's movies. You can see it also in Hitchcock, Cronenberg, Orson Welles, Scorsese and many other directors, but it is a signature shot of David Lynch. He's obsessed with it. You can find it in Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, Wild at Heart, Mullholland Drive, The Straight Story... you name it
Lynch use mirrors as a way of giving his imagery a surreal quality. In fact if I had to define David Lynch's work with one word, I'd use: oneiric. All his movies feel like you are watching someone's dream.
But specifically when Lynch uses this particular shot of a character looking at himself in the mirror, is usually a way he has of stating that the character is not exactly the way you see it: it has two faces, or a secret that in time will be revealed. Frequently the mirror acts as a space of encounter for the characters with their true nature.
Anyway, on a deeper level what James is contemplating here over the mirror is his suicide. He's having suicidal thoughts.
We know that cause later that's the first thing he thinks of when he sees Angela in front of a mirror.
Granted, in that scene she's pondering while looking at a bloody knife; but for all he knows the place is crawling with monsters, she could be using the knife to defend herself. In fact, I'm not sure she's thinking of suicide at all here. I'm not even sure that she suicides by the end of the game. We know that she used that particular knife to kill her father probably while he was sexually assaulting her... So the knife is not instrumental for suicide in her story, is for "aggressive defense", but suicide is the first thing that comes to Jame's mind! So, in my opinion, he and not Angela is the one that is having suicidal thoughts.
Sometimes we can use water as mirrors (like in calm ponds or similar); water is used as a mirror in many folktales and Myths; and the same can be said of the opposite: sometimes mirrors are symbolic of water, (particularly in dreamlike circumstances)
Immediately after this restroom scene he goes outside and start looking at the lake. Once you play the game more than once, it kind of gives you the idea that James has come to Silent Hill to commit suicide. As time passes, and he makes conscious the truth, he'll get more and more into wet rooms, some of them are just humid, some drip a little bit of water, till finally in the hotel basement the floor is completely flooded.
We also know that in one of the possible endings James commits suicide by drowning (and in fact he claims that's the reason why he is in Silent Hill)
James: Now I understand the real reason I came to this town
[You hear the starting engine of a car]
I wonder what was I afraid of?
Without you, Mary, I've got nothing...
[You hear the car accelerating]
Now we can be together...
And then you see an image from below water with bubbles and all, while you hear "Mary's Letter".
So, Water means suicide for him. That's what he's thinking at least unconsciously here in front of the mirror and the lake after. And he doesn't shoot himself, he specifically chooses death by drowning because that sort of parallels and accentuates the way he killed Mary.
The weird gesture he's doing in front of the mirror with his hand could just be him freshening up with water.
We should notice though that there's no trace of actual water here, and that his fingers are slightly open, so it couldn't hold it. But sometimes animations in the PS2 era were a bit rough (and we need to always remember that this was intended to be played on a PS2 and on a CTRV TV). Still, the man mainly responsible for this particular animation was Takayoshi Sato; and he repeated the gesture to perfection, showing that he knew it by heart, in The Making of Silent Hill 2
He doesn't seem to be freshening up. The gesture feels more like James checking out What's real on this image that he's seeing, and that's very appropriate for Silent Hill.
Also, I see, a sort of aggression to one self. To his narcissistic image (and in a narcissistic ideal set up: the Mirror). The fingers are slightly curved like in a claw position. And he's blocking destroying his image over the mirror, or symbolically peeling off the face... That's, again, reminiscent of the suicidal ideas he's having.
The gesture could also be aggressive in a different sense. He could be reflecting, unconsciously, on a similar gesture he used to kill his wife, by suffocating her with his own hands: here he's putting the hand over nose and mouth obstructing, symbolically as always - the coming of air.
Last it could also mean taking of his mask. Stop pretending and come to terms with the truth. The mask is what we show to others. The lies we tell to others and to ourselves. We don't know exactly how James has been showing to others, probably as an abdicated loving and caring husband. But we know the lies he has been telling to himself. Here we have a superficial lie: Mary died of that damn disease three years ago.
And an even deeper lie revealed by the end: That's why I did it, honey. I just couldn't watch you suffer.
But as James concludes:
James: No, that's not the whole truth. You also said that you didn't want to die. The truth is... part of me hated you. For taking away my life...
Mary: You killed me and you're suffering for it. It's enough, James.
That's the final horrifying truth. This wasn't euthanasia. He didn't kill her out pity... He was tired and he wanted his life back! There was a narcissistic reason. That's why he killed her... At least this final element is a part of the "whole truth". He didn't do it just because he couldn't watch her suffer anymore.
So, the image is telling you he's planning to suicide, and is even telling you how: by drowning, and when: as soon as he stops pretending and discover the truth (taking off the mask)... This could also explain the previous gesture, the wetting of the lips, which I read as simple hesitation move, he's not ready yet (though I confess I still haven't completely grasp this first gesture... I've seen it before in a movie... When Lynch uses female characters in front of mirrors, he usually made them check out their lips or paint them... Maybe it's from there, I don't know...) Look at this whole sequence, that connects two characters, mother and daughter in Wild at Heart (1990, David Lynch)
Anyway, let's finally move on with the rest of the things you can find in the room. The restroom was the first room they made for Silent Hill 2. The entire game kind of branched out from this bathroom. So it's not that weird to find these amount of details in it, cause it was the first room. They put a lot of love, effort and care on this one.
Also if you can think one room that could define Team Silent work in horror games, it is weirdly enough: bathrooms! (The high-school bathroom, and the Alchemilla Hospital one are among the most iconic places of the first game. You have this one. The wallet Bathroom. Then the bathroom were Eddie is puking. The scream bathroom in the Prison... you got more and more examples)
And what we can say about this bathroom as a whole is that it's dirty and beautiful at the same time. The man mainly responsible for the look of this bathroom is Masahi Tsuboyama (he was the art director, and so in charge of the backgrounds and the way the game looked in general)
The first thing that calls your attention as soon as you get control of the character is probably the graffiti in the wall over the urinals. Then you move and cut to this image.
It gives me the creeps each time I see it. It's so unsettling, probably because Akira Yamaoka's score has begin to work its magic here. Contrast this eerie theme we hear with the delightful guitar tune we get right away outside the bathroom, when James is explaining how he got the letter and what he's doing in Silent Hill. The Soundtrack is also telling a story. This eeriness, dreamlike creepiness is talking to us about something evil acting here. Well, let's have a better look.
I call him the Moth-man. Some people think it is an alien, cause it's right next to were you find the Blue Gem in a second playthrough (which allows you to see the UFO ending); but they forget that all this alien crap was added in later editions of the game (The Xbox RD, Director's Cut and GH, and HD... etc) but I believe it wasn't there in the original. It was something they added later (That's why I hate so called "Director's Cut" in movies, and apparently now in games too!)
For me it is a Moth. In any case it's just a very unsettling drawing. It has this wing-like arms that make him look like a giant moth. But it's also a humanoid figure, with a long neck, head, nose and eyes, perhaps some hair... a rounded body with stripes all over (that makes me think of an insect, like a bee or something like that) And finally there's a pair of legs with what definitely seem to be claws. The claws are telling of its demonic nature. In folktales claws are related to demons or demon like creatures. You can usually tell a devil by claws protruding through one of his shoes (that's a motif in tales).
To the sides and below we see Hebrew inscriptions. It's a graffiti giving the idea that it was made with a fiber, so it's a modern piece of art, but at the same time you get this feeling of something very ancient.
There's a long debate over the internet on how can you precisely translate the Hebrew inscriptions.
Most people agree there are a couple of Hebrew names in this wall given to God, and perhaps some names for demonic entities... It's really hard to tell. I'd like an expert give us a definitive answer on this... But anyway, what probably Team Silent wanted to convey with the Hebrew inscriptions is just this idea of something ancient... maybe also about its religious nature: again, a demon.
It reminds me of the opening in one of the greatest horror movies of all time (quoted as an influence by the developers); I'm talking about The Exorcist (1976, William Friedkin), were you have the statue of that winged demon, in the words of father Merrin "introducing himself".
But in any case the rest of what we can see in the bathroom might give us a clue of whatta hell this damn thing is. The first graffiti on the right wall, here:
You wouldn't believe it but people have actually identified words in this graffiti, and fragments of a phrase taken from The Bible:
"While I am decaying like a rotten thing, Like a garment that is moth-eaten"
(Job 13:28)
In the opposite wall, we can find fragments of another phrase also from the book of Job:
"Thy hands fashioned and made me; and now thou dost turn about and destroy me" (Job 10:8)
In the wall near the exit door, directly opposite to the Moth-man we have a Heaven's night poster, with Maria in it
There's also a very obscure inscription over the posters written in the same style and color of the others, and people came to the conclusion that it repeats the second phrase of the book of Job (Thy hands etc...)
First of all, with the first phrase we get a confirmation that the little drawing, it could be in fact a moth humanoid, could be...
There's a character in the game that is related to moths. I'm talking of course of Maria. In the end boss battle Maria/Mary appears as an inverted crucified evil entity;
and she attacks by throwing shadowy moths at you. Some people say that they are really Black Butterflies
(I think the HD editions of the game let us see that they are moths)
In room 202 of Wood Side apartments, what I call Maria's apartment, the same shadowy Moths surrounds you following your flashlight (though they are not aggressive here) All over the apartment we see red lights, bug cages and the bodies of dead butterflies. Butterflies and Moths are related, both are lepidopterans. Maria has a little tattoo in her right hip of a Butterfly.
Butterflies are symbols of many things.
In different cultures it represents the soul (but I don't see that acting here...)They are usually used in literature to represent the ephemeral quality of Women's beauty because of the short life-span butterflies are associated with. Just as their lives, beauty fades away... Some times in poetry women are compared with butterflies.(Maria sort of represents this ephemeral beauty of the female form.
Maybe how Mary Shepard once was: beautiful, sexy, attractive...
but she is in that age... were you can guess that decay is near)
So Butterflies are usually used as symbols of the feminine or Women in general, and particularly Women's genitalia. Yes! a butterfly is also a symbol of the vagina (by the way in the Butterfly apartment we have a very vaginal hole in the wall and you'll get a key that would let you go through another vaginal hole in the wall: the clock hole); in medieval representations of the female naked body sometimes butterflies, or flowers with butterflies are used to cover the female genitalia (and little birds for males)...
Maria is signaling to this sexual meaning (that's why her Butterfly tattoo is more or less close to her vagina): she's an overly sexualized character, with multiple sexual suggestions and double meanings: the way she moves, the gestures she makes.
In my opinion she's a hooker. She is dressed like one; the first time we see her she's in the park (we can imagine, probably picking clients)... Jacks Inn, the cheap motel, is the next place you can save after encountering her. She also owns a key to the back entrance of Heaven's Night, a stripper dance local... with sexual services insinuated by multiple signboards all over the town and a luminous sign inside the club that reads paradise over a female nude figure with two floating hearts (and let's not forget that her character's name is based upon the iconic last victim of Jack the reaper, the prostitute Mary Jane Kelly)
Maria is a projection, the embodiment of James sexual desires: What James needs. Similar to What Pyramid Head is (among many other things) the projection of James violent sexual urges: What James demands!
That's why they are introduced basically together: Pyramid Head looking at you from the other side of the bars (Maria will be the one behind bars later in the labyrinth) and almost immediately we need to go to the Butterfly apartment (an Introduction to Maria). That's also why they are both depicted in red colors.
Well anyway. Finally as good doctor Lecter says: "The significance of the moth is change. Caterpillar into chrysalis, or pupa, from thence into beauty." The Silence of the Lambs (1991, Jonathan Demme). One of the many movie influences in this game and specially of the butterfly/moth apartment.
Taking Job's phrase in consideration there's someone definitely changing here but not into something beautiful.
As a result of her illness Mary's body is changing, decaying, rotting like a garment that is moth eaten.
What doctor Lecter do not mention is that The moth is a symbol of death, and the changes death brings. In fact in his story the character that nurtures death-moths as pets is the serial killer Buffalo Bill.
A moth represents the decay, the rottenness of the body (we can see this horrifying changes in the bodies of the multiple monsters) So going back, it's my conclusion that the Moth-Man is really a Moth Woman and it's a representation of Maria/Mary. And it functions here, in the restroom, as a Warning, or perhaps as an introduction to this demon. Similar introduction to the one we see in the opening of The Exorcist. The message is clear: I'm here, and now you are going to face me.
"Thy hands fashioned and made me; and now thou dost turn about and destroy me"
It reminds James the crime he committed with his own hands; and how with this crime he created this "demon". Now has come the time were he would have to face it and destroy it or succumb to it. So, with all this in mind and probably way more, James will turn, finally go through that exit door and abandon the safety of this bathroom for a journey into the scariest of horrors.
In my analysis I tried to basically stick to the first room of the game, the restroom. There is a lot more that you could say about the things that are found here but I thing this will be enough for now, Just let me point out that this is only the very first room in a ten hour plus game. It's amazing how many things this game is able to convey, how many things this game makes you think of: and that's always the true sign of a work of art.
(by pelida77)
