Thursday, November 12, 2009

Question about silent hill movie/video game/Dahlia?

ok we are watching silent hill the movie, first of all i am not asking for the differences in the game and the movie i know them all so all of you trying to answer that shut your faces. Now the only person im asking about is Dahlia, she is the one who is alessa guillespies real mother she looks like a witch in the movie and in the video game of silent hill 1, all im asking is what was her role in the game of silent hill 1? i havent played it in forever so i would like to know please give me a good answer and please dont just compare the movie to the game thats not what im looking for i just want to know Dahlias story in the game.

Question about silent hill movie/video game/Dahlia?
Relationship to the Video Games


Although it is not direct adaptation of any one of the games, the film does contain numerous overt and subtle connections to the series. Many of these are purely thematic or aesthetic similarities to the games' distinctive style, but there are also various features which appear to be direct translations of their in-game counterparts.





Characters





Jodelle Ferland as Alessa Gillespie.The police officer Cybil Bennett, from the original Silent Hill, appears in the film. She retains much of her same attitude from the game, but her ultimate fate is different. Her appearance is very similar as well, with her blue officer shirt and leather pants. The one noticeable difference is Cybil's haircut; it is much shorter in the film than it is in the game.


Christabella, Christopher Da Silva, and Thomas Gucci are original and do not appear in any of the games. For Christabella, a little girl of the same name did appear in the Silent Hill graphic novel, Dying Inside. Also, the way Christabella speaks mirrors that of Claudia Wolf from Silent Hill 3. As for Thomas Gucci, his name was taken from a memo that is found in the police station in the first Silent Hill game.


The Red Nurse is a clear take off of the character Lisa Garland from the first Silent Hill game. Their particular situations are also similar, as they are both caretakers of the bed ridden Alessa.


Rose Da Silva has been explained by director Christophe Gans as a female version of the Silent Hill video game protagonist, Harry Mason.


The young Alessa Gillespie and her mother Dahlia also appear in the film, though the relationship between them is quite different from the game. Originally in the game, Dahlia was the leader of the cult, not Christabella, and it is she who burns Alessa in hopes of invoking the child's dark powers and using them to birth a god. It should also be noted that the plot point involving Alessa splitting herself into two halves and hiding the good half by disguising it as a newborn child is better explained in the game as Alessa's way of trying to keep her mother from using the girl's powers for evil. When the game's protagonist brings the good half to Silent Hill, Alessa shrouds the town in thick fog in hopes of keeping Dahlia from finding her.


The cult in the game and film both share differing, but equally important roles. In the games, they are polytheistic diabolists known as The Order, while in the film, they are witch-burning Puritans. It should be pointed out that these two cults are possibly completely separate cults. The Order may very well be the focus of a possible sequel.





Creatures


Many of the creatures in the movie are also taken from the various games in the series, including the towering Red Pyramid (Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2), the ever-present Nurses (based on the Bubble-Head Nurses from Silent Hill 2), the grey children (child-demon Mumblers from Silent Hill), and the creeping Patient Demon (based on the same creature from Silent Hill 2). The Janitor, an original creation of director Christophe Gans is brought to life by special effects supervisor Paul Jones for the film. He has some similarities in appearance and ability to the Victim Ghosts from Silent Hill 4: The Room, but seems ultimately inspired by one of the scenes in the first game in which you find a body in one of the bathroom stalls while in the “Otherworld” version of the school. The body, however, does not come to life in game.





The Grey Children are called The Mumblers in game, and they appear in the first Silent Hill game. In the film, they are burning children who cry for help as they overwhelm Rose. In the games, they appear as child-like creatures that carry knives, but the image of children in the way they were represented in the film would not pass certification by the software ratings board, So, the game version are essentially "watered down". Aside from appearance, their roles are identical.


The Straitjacket Creature is called the Lying Figure or the Patient Demon in Silent Hill 2. The movie version is very similar to its video game counterpart.


The Janitor is an original creation by director Christophe Gans and FX artist Paul Jones. He is based off of a decorative corpse that is hanging similarly in the bathroom in the first Silent Hill game.


The Red Pyramid, known as The Red Pyramid Thing or Pyramid Head in game, appears in the second Silent Hill game. In the game, Pyramid Head is a manifestation of the protagonist's guilt, while in the film he is a punisher commanded by Alessa. Appearance wise, they are very similar in film and in game. On film, his helmet is sharper and more detailed and his posture is more upright and powerful, while in game he has a slouched posture and his helmet is rusted and bloody. They share the character's trademark brutality and ominous appearance.


The Nurses on film and in game are nearly identical in appearance and action (although their general appearance recalls the nurses from the first and second games).





Scenes and Themes


Three scenes from the beginning of the first Silent Hill have been recreated nearly shot-for-shot.


The first features Rose and Sharon driving towards Silent Hill, only to crash after swerving to avoid a ghostly figure in the road.


The second shows Rose walking down an L-shaped alley, minutes before the third scene.


The third is where Rose is ambushed by the Gray Children after discovering a mutilated body crucified on a chain-link fence.


At least one scene was also taken from Silent Hill 2. When Rose enters Room 111 she finds a hole in the wall leading to another building, where she must jump across to access. This was taken directly from the game.


When Christopher receives calls from Rose but only gets white noise, this calls to mind the scene in Silent Hill 2 in which James first discovers the radio and hears a voice that sounds vaguely like his wife's. The same thing happens to the protagonist in Silent Hill 4: The Room when he first tries to use the phone in his ghost-infested apartment.


When Rose views the paintings at Midwich listing the school's values, the last picture says "God", and the figure depicted is female. This is a possible reference to "Silent Hill 3".


Some dialogue from the film mirrors the games. When Rose meets Dark Alessa face to face for the first time, she says, "You could be her twin". James says something similar when he first meets Maria (who bears striking similarities to his wife) in Silent Hill 2.


When Rose sees the Red Pyramid stabbing through the door, she says, "It's Him!" This is exactly what the protagonist says in Silent Hill 2 when he sees a painting depicting The Red Pyramid in the town's historical society. It is also shouted by Cynthia over the intercom in the subway station in Silent Hill 4.


The town itself has been recreated with a striking attention to detail, right down to the names of many of the town's shops. As a result, the street scenes are almost indistinguishable from those of Silent Hill 2 and Silent Hill 3. The memorable Midwich Elementary School from Silent Hill also appears, along with Brookhaven Hospital (from Silent Hill 2 and 3). When Rose wakes up after the Grey Children attack, she wakes up in a bowling alley that is very similar to Pete's Bowl-a-Rama from Silent Hill 2.


The concept of internal guilt, self-righteous murderers and the overall idea of “private hell” is taken directly from the second game while the themes of loss and loneliness echo that of the first Silent Hill game.


When Rose and Sharon are driving to Silent Hill, a song called "Letter from the Lost Days" plays on the radio, very similar to the scene where Douglas drives Heather to Silent Hill in the third game.


In the hotel, Rose grabs a knife from Anna. The same knife is given to the protagonist by a supporting character in Silent Hill 2. In the film the knife is used to cut open a painting. After using the knife Rose drops it.


The way bed ridden Alessa looks mirrors the final boss from Silent Hill 2.


The film also shares some visual symbolism from the games.


The persistant mentions and visions of fire suggest Alessa's burning and suffering.


The images of wheelchairs (in the alley and in the hospital) are suggestive of Alessa's hoptilization and death in the town.


The symbolism of fans, an infinite loop representing Alessa's constant death and rebirth (Alessa -%26gt; Sharon -%26gt; Dark Alessa -%26gt; Sharon), can be seen throughout the film much like games. Fans are seen in the alleyway at the beginning of the film, outside of the school when the Red Pyramid makes his first appearance, and in the room where the Red Pyramid makes his first attack.





Trivia


In the original script, there were only female characters. After submitting the script, it was returned to Gans with a memo saying “there are no men!”. When Sean Bean was added to the cast, the script was approved.


Silent Hill uses little computer-generated imagery, with the most notable exceptions being the fog that drenches the town, the otherworld transitions, and the insects that surround the Red Pyramid. Some of the creatures have been touched-up with CGI in post-production, but, for the most part, what is seen on film existed physically. Most of the creatures were professional actors or dancers covered in latex and makeup.


Screenwriter Roger Avary has said in interviews that as a boy, his father, who is a mining engineer, used to tell him stories about the town of Centralia, Pennsylvania, where coal deposits from the local mine caught fire and caused toxic gasses to force the inhabitants to evacuate forever. Avary, it seems, was fascinated since childhood by the idea that fires underneath the town would be burning for a hundred years and the story of Centralia was used as the basis for the township of Silent Hill.


Parts of Silent Hill were shot in downtown Brantford, Ontario. These include most of the street shots where Rose wanders and tries to follow Alessa throughout the town, the scenes where Rose looks at the bus maps on the poles for direction, the driving scene with Christopher and Gucci drive through Silent Hill, the entire scene where Christopher breaks into Braham's hall of records (the red "Expo" on the front of the building is the sign for the Brantford Expositor building) and the exterior of the Grand Hotel (which is actually the rear of the Expositor building).


Although the film is supposed to be occurring in West Virginia, during two different occasions, (both while at the gas station in the town of Brahams), you can clearly see the price of the gasoline listed for sale per liter, not the US standard of per gallon (similar to how the speed limit signs in Silent Hill 2 are in km/h instead of MPH), perhaps in reference to the games' often ropey recreation of the small-town America. The mechanic and cashier at Smitty's gas station have noticeably different accents than the characters from Brahams (Sister Margaret, Gucci, Cybil).


The animated end titles are similar to the titles used in the video game series.


The imagery of the creatures were influenced by artists Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, and Hans Bellmer.


One of the films seen listed on the theater's marquee in Silent Hill as Thomas and Chris drive by is The Omega Man, from 1971. The movie has a man survive a biological weapon attack that killed many and left a few hundred deformed, nocturnal people calling themselves “The Family”. The plague has caused them to become sensitive to light, as well as homicidally psychotic. They believed science and technology to be the cause of the war and their punishment, and Neville, as the last symbol of science, the old world, and a “user of the wheel”, must die — a clear allusion to the atmosphere of Silent Hill.


Konami Japan and Team Silent, the development team responsible for the Silent Hill game series, were directly involved with the production of this movie from the pre-production stage all the way to the post-production stage.


Approximately 100 different copies of Rose's outfit were made for the film, with soft colors fading into greys and then blood-reds as the film progressed.


It took Christophe Gans five years to obtain the movie rights to Silent Hill from Konami. He sent in a video interview to Konami explaining how much Silent Hill meant to him and he sent scenes that he apparently filmed on his own dollar with music from the Silent Hill games.


Christophe Gans has stated that the film is an adaptation of the first game, with the emotional melancholy of the second, mixed with the dialogue delivery of the third, with some camera movement inspired by the fourth.


In the scene where the miners are trying to kick in the door to the bathroom, the camera pans up the door, over the top and down the other side of the door to the miners. This was done all in one shot, where the left half of the wall was shifted into place after the camera went over the top of the door. This can be seen on the Origins segment of the DVD documentary.





Connections with folklore


The setting of the film is Toluca County, West Virginia, but there is no such county in that state. In the second game in the series, there is a Toluca Lake adjacent to Silent Hill. There is a real lake called Toluca Lake in California. There is also a Toluca, Illinois.


The series of games have multiple references to a cult which closely follows descriptions found in the Cthulhu Mythos given by H.P. Lovecraft. These references were largely absent from the film, as the fundamentalist sect portrayed there was much more an echo of puritanical Christianity, interested in burning witches to destroy sin, rather than raising old gods.





Dimensions of Silent Hill


In the movie, there are three different dimensions or versions to the town of Silent Hill.





The first world is modern day Silent Hill. This world is the version where Christopher and Gucci are in. This is also shown with Silent Hill 30-years prior to the current events in the film. This was showcased in Dark Alessa's montage scene.


The second world of Silent Hill is filled with fog and falling ashes. This is the main dimension that Rose, Cybil, Sharon, and Alessa are trapped in. This version is a sort of purgatory or limbo.


The third world of Silent Hill is covered in Alessa's Darkness. This is the hellish one that's covered in rust and stained in blood.





Notes


All three worlds seem to be impermeable to the other's realities, that is to say, the creatures that lurk in the dark realm disappear when the fog-filled realm reappears and the damage the Red Pyramid causes in one world repairs itself in another. However, there is evidence that events in one world will affect the others. For instance, Rose calls her husband to tell him that she is not doing well and he receives parts of the message. Also when Christopher is aware of his wife's presence and claims he can smell her perfume. In addition, when Rose opens a door, the same door moves in Chris' reality.
Reply:Dahlia Gillespie is an eccentric old woman who owns an antique store in Silent Hill. Underneath this façade, Dahlia is a key member of the Silent Hill cult and the mastermind behind Alessa’s birth and injury. Dahlia is Alessa's mother, though their relationship was anything but loving. Dahlia coerced Harry, via his quest to find his missing daughter, into helping her find and subdue Alessa in the Otherworld so she could make the girl birth the God. Upon the God’s birth, Dahlia was killed by either the Holy Woman in White (Incubator) or by Incubus.





Alessa Gillespie is the enigmatic apparition that Harry Mason encounters during his journey into the hellish town at the start of the game. It is revealed that Alessa was originally meant to take in her mother's footsteps and become a Priestess of the Holy Woman sect. When Dahlia and the other cult members found out about her powers they decided that Alessa would be the perfect vessel for the God. It is speculated that Dahlia is Alessa's birth mother and that Dr. Kauffman is the biological father. Alessa, who was troubled by many psychological problems, refused to take part in the cult’s activities. In order to hasten the birth of the God, Dahlia burned down her house with Alessa inside. Alessa would then split her soul in half and create a new baby. This baby would be found by Harry Mason and his wife. She would be named Cheryl Mason. Alessa would spend the next seven years in a coma suffering in a hellish nightmare, which ultimately becomes the basis of the darkness that Alessa spreads in Silent Hill. Upon Cheryl’s return to Silent Hill, Alessa would send out her soul. After Harry crashes, the souls of Cheryl and Alessa merge. At the final battle, the physical Alessa, clad in the robes of Valtiel, and the Soul of Alessa are merged and form the Holy Woman in White aka Incubator aka Mother of God. When Dr. Kaufmann throws a bottle of Aglaophotis on the Mother of God she prematurely expels the demon known as Incubus aka the Demon God Samael. Harry is then able to defeat the prematurely expelled and thus weakened Incubus. After the battle the Holy Woman in White reappears. She gives Harry a baby with the complete soul of Alessa and Cheryl, which in a way is the Holy Woman in White herself reborn.





Hope this makes things clearer
Reply:I have never seen or played the game, but if you have the DVD (not the VHS) there is behind the scenes footage about that. I remember them saying something about changing her character and making her hair grey. But the DVD may answer your question.


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