Weird Wednesdays: The Silencer

This screening was part of the Alamo Drafthouse’s Weird Wednesday series. For upcoming shows, click here.

In Weird Wednesday’s journey to cover the gamut of video game cinema, The Silencer represents the trend in non-adaptation films that make the bold claim that life, itself, is a game and we are merely players. With the domination of video games in the entertainment culture of the late-20th-century, people across the globe saw how easily they could follow the simple rules of these complicated, interactive computer systems and get addicted to the feeling of success that came with completing the level or beating the boss. Noticing structural similarities to the real world after spending time in digital realities, a question naturally came to mind: was life like a video game? Could our personalities and decision-making rationalities be boiled down to an instruction diagram on an arcade cabinet? Are we chasing societally manufactured points or beating allegorical bosses every day when we wake up?

The Silencer wrestles with these questions well and takes a stab at going deeper. If we choose to accept a Player vs. Game interpretation of our existence, with social structures, economic systems, and political institutions coloring the repetitive game mechanics of “living,” The Silencer addresses the power that the “game” has over our lives and examines the difficulty that comes with challenging the game in our efforts to make a life for ourselves in our own image.

Do we play the game of our lives or does the game play us?

In The Silencer, we are guided through this question from two perspectives: the player stuck in the game of life and a godlike being that appears to have an omniscient perspective of this game. The player is Angel, played by Lynette Walden, who lives The Silencer’s specific, repetitive game mechanic of “kill-fuck-repeat.” Receiving murder contracts through an arcade machine, she’ll keep killing as long as the shady employers behind these contracts keep providing the tokens. She’s good at her job (the killing), she loves to wind down with the guys at the arcade (the fucking), and is comfortable with her life and the balance of keeping the victims and the lovers separate (the repeating), until something goes terribly wrong. With the murder of her first lover and the bonding of a new lover, the arcade cook Tony, Angel finds herself needing to get out of this game, but quitting isn’t easy.

Enter George, the god of The Silencer, an equally cold-hearted killer in his own right, and the whiny and needy ex-boyfriend of Angel. Played by a wonderfully deranged Chris Mulkey, George examines Angel and her world through an arcade machine not unlike the one showing Angel uses to get contracts. George shares a 1:1 perspective with the movie-going audience at this machine, with scenes from the film displayed on the cabinet screen, and George operates as a narrative confidant for the crowd as well. In between his trips to interfere in Angel’s world, George watches from the machine and expounds upon Angel’s actions and desires, and how they flow or conflict with the rules of the game of life.

George’s broadest, but most poignant, rules of the game describe life as an immovable course in which your destination has been determined. Angel’s desire to live a non-murder-filled life with her new beau Tony are mocked, from both an objective and deeply personal place, by George. She will always need tokens so she will always need to kill, as far as her employers are concerned. Her life as a killer is the main obstacle between her and Tony committing as a couple as it always endangers her partner and, inevitably, leads her back to a life of casual arcade sex. With George’s invasions into her life, showing up to cause havoc during any moment that isn’t her preparing to murder someone, Angel finds no respite from her “kill-fuck-repeat” existence. As a godlike entity, George embodies the ruthless effect life can have on people, especially those trying to find any sort of “out” of their current predicament. As a confidant, George’s narration reminds the audience of the futility of her efforts: the cyclical nature of our own lives, the struggle to create a new life when we’re so busy getting through the one we’re currently living. While our hearts and hopes are on Angel to escape the game, our perspective, literally and figuratively, is shared with George at the machine.

However, The Silencer does not agree with this hopeless perspective and it chooses to emphasize George’s weakness, his humanity, to make this point. When George chooses to interfere in Angel’s life, it is only to, in an embarrassing fashion, proclaim his love for her and try to convince her to take him back. His face crinkles and his voice echoes with a whiny tenor as he screams her name, long after she has abandoned the scene and left for her next kill or sexual adventure. When George spends too much time intimately watching Angel, George’s narration gets a little too personal, leading his objective view of the world off track. George’s personal love and obsession for Angel manifests in many ways, from commenting on her requirement for condoms during intercourse (“If you’re gonna play the game, you gotta wear the uniform”) to his sexualization of her ideal weapon, a pistol with the eponymous sound-muffling attachment. Like a teenage boy playing Tomb Raider, the godlike power George seems to have over Angel and her world is undercut by a sexual objectification to what he sees on his arcade screen. George’s love for Angel is more than just a realm for ridiculous jokes, it is a weak point in George’s, and the game’s, power. George cannot directly interact with Angel without losing his cool and George cannot seriously maintain dominion over her life as long as his feelings remain unchecked. In the game of life, the game claims to have all-powerful control over what we can or cannot do, but these structures and rules that bind us all share one thing: flawed human beings at the joystick.

Is life like a video game and do we have any control over the limitations at play? The Silencer finds its answer through the push-and-pull of these dueling perspectives: Angel, the player in the center of the capitalist “rat race” dogma that rules over her life, and George, the omniscient, godlike horny boy from hell. Director Amy Goldstein centers these two in an over-the-top-violent-and-sexualized world, drawing the tantalized audience in as she paints a familiar picture: a woman trying to strike out on her own and play the game her way, and a powerful, incredibly annoying man who wishes her to continue suffering in a world that offers no escapes, no extra lives, and certainly no respite from his gaze. Amy Goldstein seems to see this world in her own experience and offers a world where Angel finds the escape so many of us work towards and desire. The Silencer sees life as a game, but one that is more open-ended than the 2D sidescroller portrayed at Angel’s arcade. Angel knows that life can be more complex, enriching, and beautiful than the kill-fuck-repeat levels she plays every day, but it means going past the final bosses and surpassing the will of the ultimate enemy: George, The Game, God, an embodiment of the machine itself.

The Silencer may challenge us with portrayals of systems that wish to dominate our lives and determine our futures, but the film ultimately reminds us that we, the players, wield control. The circumstances may be soul crushing, the choices may be few and far between, but the game of life is worth every token.