The Dark Night (film)

The film presents a harsh image of the church and monastery in Toledo. From the beginning, the Carmelite priests treat St. John in a cruel manner, despite the fact that he is also a Carmelite. The friars in the monastery abuse John; we see both the physical and mental manners in which they cause serious harm to Juan. In the first scene in the monastery, the friars yell at him and tell him that he has to obey them and renounce his beliefs. The friars neither listen to Juan nor think about his propositions. It's obvious that they are not tolerant to other religious ideas; they do not like threats to their religious practices.

Saura creates a mechanical image of the priests in the scene when they are whipping John in a line singing religious hymns. One of the friars apologizes to John and refers to him as “brother.” Here, Saura presents the paradox of the conflict that the movie displays: the tensions are between different groups of the same Catholic orden. Saura relates the fight between the Carmelite groups to the Biblical fight between Cain and Abel in Genesis. The fight between these Biblical brothers is very important to the Christians because it denounces familial divisions and lack of love between family members. The act of relating the two fights is an act that perhaps Saura does to denounce this time period in Catholic history.

In addition to whipping John and locking him in a small room, the Carmelites also do not given him enough food. He only gets bread, water, and a bit of fish. They treat him like an animal. When he eats, it appears as if he has never before eaten in his life. The fact that John eats fish is very important; fish is a symbolic food in the Christian community. Fish signifies salvation because fish live in the water and the act of baptism (a sacred act that represents the salvation of the soul from one's sins) also occurs in water.[2] Therefore, the fish in the film represents the presence of Christ and that John's sins are pardoned.

John looks very sick and sad; his health deteriorates throughout the movie. During the movie it is obvious that John's mental health gets worse while he is in solitary confinement as well. We can see in his face and in his body the physical effects of the abuse that he suffers. In the way that he talks to God and that he looks at other people with deep sadness and pain, we know that he suffers greatly. Despite the fact that John lives in these terrible conditions, he loses neither his hope nor his faith.

But, Saura does not portray all of characters in the convent as brutal and dogmatic. The interactions between John and the friar who takes care of him change significantly during the movie. At the beginning of the film, the warden refuses to talk to John. The lack of human contact and sympathy is very sad. John is separate from the world not only because he lives in isolation but also because he has no connection with another person. However, this situation changes when the warden listens to John's story about Justina. He is interested in John's interactions with her and with the Devil because he can see John's suffering and interior struggles. He decides to help John. Saura represents a truth about humanity: the connections between human beings are based on shared experiences and vulnerability. After this interaction, the warden has a strong interest in John's verses and asks him about them.

There are some moments when John breaks the fourth wall with the audience. The first time, he is talking to God, but his eyes are focused on the camera. This is a moment when the audience is “confused” with God. Saura demonstrates the power of the religious lectures and beliefs that John holds by directly incorporating the audience in this moment. John always continues to talk to God. He begins to create and recite his poems while looking at the camera as well. The effect of these moments is that the audience experiences his pain. The contact between John and the audience's eyes creates a deep human connection - exactly what John lacks in his time during the monetary in Toledo.

The music demonstrates the emotional suffering that John feels and highlights important contrasts in the film. In the first scene, the director uses ominous music when John is traveling as a prisoner to the monastery to foreshadow the suffering that is about to happen. The music changes in the scene when the nun appears in John's room. A women's voice sings opera music. It emphasizes the contrast between passionate and sexual femininity and the nuns’ strict and pious life in the church. The music in the scene when the hands attack John in his bed serve to add to the suspense and emphasizes the trauma and suffering that he experiences.

The majority of the film is very dark because it represents John's experience in his solitary room without light. He only has a small window and very little contact with the sun when he walks to the dining room. The first time that he enters the solitary room, the light illuminates only his head. The rest of his body and the room itself are dark. A small amount of light shines on the bed. We hear the strong wind outside of his room. It appears to be a hostile and harsh place. The walls of the room, the blanket, and the pillow are dirty and shabby.

For John, the darkness represents the Devil and the light represents God. He describes the light as something very beautiful. His time in the room represents the fight against the Devil to find a better way to follow God.

John and the warden visit an old priest on his deathbed. In this scene, John relates the light with the lover (how he refers to God) and therefore affirms the light's symbolism. John says that because the old priest is close to death, he is beginning his journey toward the light. It appears that the old priest can see this light at the beginning of his conversation with John, but right before his death, the priest says that he cannot see anything. This scene is a concrete example of the fight between the conflicting ideas of the two Carmelite groups.

There is a scene when John touches himself while the light from the window shines on his body, moving up from his feet to his head. Perhaps this represents the almost sexual relationship that John writes about in his works about the intimate relationship between God and the soul. He hears own voice reciting one of his works. The light is even brighter in this moment and lights up his face; it is a powerful display of John's love and faith in God. He sees something that he describes as beautiful in the light. The warden watches him through the peephole with an expression of wonder. John's ability to survive and maintain his strong will demonstrates his individual power and the power of his beliefs.

John recites verses of his works in his room constantly. He changes different words and phrases as part of his creative process, but he always speaks with the same serious and emotional tone. John says that his songs are about the relationship between the soul and the spouse, God. In one scene, he recites a verse from his famous work “The Spiritual Canticle[3]” about a dove to the warden. The warden recognizes the beauty of the words, but he doesn’t try to understand the verse, perhaps because he is fearful of thinking about John and the Discalced Carmelites’ radical ideas. John describes the inspiration for his works as a “mystical intelligence” about the love between the soul and God. He says that it is impossible to describe with words what he doesn't know how to feel.

The warden brings John paper so that he can write his poems. This simple act shows his respect for John's ideas, despite the fact that he does not necessarily share them. When John has the paper and begins to write “The Dark Night of the Soul,” the light appears more strongly than in the previous scenes. John looks much happier but still, he is very sick and his health is poor. Here, Saura reveals a bit about John's creative process. He receives his inspiration from the light and his time in the jail. He suggests that the proximity to death that John experiences is a reason that he has such a strong connection to his own religious beliefs.