The Abyss – Is Something Down There?

 (1989)

When Titanic won 11 Academy Awards for James Cameron in 1997, no one seemed to remember this piece of sci-fi masterwork he once made a few years earlier. To be honest, Titanic doesn’t impress me much. To me, it’s nothing more than an old-fashioned, surreal love story, but The Abyss is a lot more than that.

Why does The Abyss so fascinate me? Well, I guess Ed Harris is part of why. He’s so cool and manly in the film. And the story, which is so mysterious that no one really knows what’s happening, or say, what they’re dealing with till the end. James is very good at telling (love) stories by using stunning visual effects (the upcoming Avatar I guess is just another trick of that). It did win the 1990 Oscar for Best Visual Effects, that’s not why it attracts me much though. As a matter of fact, it was to make us reflect on our violent nature. Can violence bring us peace and solve our problems? We all know the answer, don’t we? Why, however, do we still think violence can be the choice?

Only if we overcome our violent nature, we’ll be able to understand the mystery and beauty deep down The Abyss.

 (1997)