While I remain a staunch advocate for the theatrical experience as the primary way to enjoy cinema, I’ve long missed a lot of these special screenings of classics – both cult and populous – that have become prevalent as of late. These screenings celebrate milestones of cinema, be it restoration, special format or anniversaries. “Se7en” celebrates all three, being restored for theatrical viewing, formatted for IMAX, and turns 30 this year. A seminal entry into the thriller genre and David Fincher‘s distinct directorial career, “Se7en” remains one of the best of its kind, with no amount of time passed hinders its unwavering effectiveness. Timeless, haunting, and near perfect, the film’s herald return to cinemas was well worth the journey. I’ve probably seen “Se7en” 100 times as it is a top 5 Fincher and if pressed, in my top 10 favorite thrillers of all time. Seeing it on the big screen in a near sold out crowd on the biggest screen available was like watching it for the first time all over again.
Fincher’s meticulous attention to detail in every frame is magnified by thousand times over on the big screen, creating a visual feast of a bleak world fully realized and lived in. Its timelessness is due to a number of factors, but largely the nondescript city with which “Se7en” takes place. It is everywhere and nowhere, the worst underbelly of any major city rotting from beneath with violence and apathy. Its unnamed downtown allows us to see our own worst fears manifested in rain covered streets, antiquated awnings, and run down buildings. Fincher doesn’t have to fill his city in “Se7en” with extras to make it feel alive. Its own ugliness breaths with life without the need for bustling streets of nameless faces. It’s a Fincher staple of vision, and everything that he expands on and perfects in latter works are placed as strong building blocks here.
The film also works within the confines of its own genre tropes and never attempts to subvert them, another testament to “Se7en’s” masterful execution and excellent script. Both Mills (Brad Pitt) and Somerset (Morgan Freeman) are so archetypal in their characters they don’t even need names. And yet, we know so much about them from the moment they meet, and never once do we feel the need to ask them to be anything other than the young, emotionally charged hot shot and the jaded, intelligent, and measured old timer detective on the verge of retirement. What sets them apart from their cinematic thriller counterparts is that Andrew Kevin Walker’s script isn’t concerned with hero cops, merely the illusion of them. Whether hot tempered or resolute in the work, neither man saves anyone.
“Se7en” lets the audience and the detectives exist in the aftermath rather than grant them any kind of savior arcs, with only strengthens the conflicting worldviews of Mills and Sommerset. One wants to be the hero and save the world, the other doesn’t believe in heroes and knows there’s nothing worth saving. The juxtaposition of ideals exemplified in the crimes and criminal they are investigating grant us tremendous insight into who they both are as people without ever spelling anything out for the audience. “Se7en” brilliantly imbues each man with so much depth and nuance while keeping them almost completely everyman. It helps too that both Pitt and Freeman are excellent in their roles, a perfect cop duo that know exactly what world Fincher is trying to create. The final confrontation is so disturbing and haunting and unsettling without any need to assault us with grotesque visuals. “Se7en” implies enough to turn your stomach, and both men are just so damn good in this scene you feel every single moment.
“Se7en” is comprised of every crime thriller trope there is, but it never feels trite or cliche. It simply does them all well, and becomes a precedent setting film despite many others existing before it. It is often imitated and never duplicated, its mild predictability existing on the surface for its first two acts but so tightly wound and dread inducing you never quite know what will happen next. And then “Se7en” drops the floor out from under everyone in its third act and sends you reeling with terror. Brutal serial killers with religious messaging or heighten intelligence or calm cruelty aren’t new, but “Se7en” makes you feel like it’s the first time you’ve seen something so horrifying and it never needs to show us the acts to do so. It is both humane and inhumane, genre defined yet transcendent, restrained yet shocking. This balance is so hard to achieve, and only someone like Fincher could pull it off this well. The patience of “Se7en” forces us to sit in every new horror that arises and surrounds in a place that feels inescapably rotten.
I could go on and on, scene by scene with all the things I love about “Se7en.” its color pallets of grays and dark neon reds and dim lights, the costumes of both protagonists designed to look like they were ripped from the 40s, the electric script that buzzes with tension with each escalating crime, and an unforgettable culmination that has found its way into the cultural zeitgeist and remains to this day. I loved this film before, but seeing “Se7en” in IMAX was something special. Everything I loved became heightened. I found myself holding my breath during scenes I have committed to memory, the arresting display so gripping on a giant screen it all felt fresh and new. This is how something so mesmerizing and unique and unsettling was meant to be seen, and I feel a renewed sense of adoration for a film I already held in the highest esteem.
[Also, the brand-new 4K is amazing. You can pick that up from Amazon here when it’s back in stock.]
It just doesn’t get better than “Se7en” in IMAX, and genuinely special experience that made an unforgettable experience all the more everlasting. I don’t know if they’ll be bringing it back for another run, but if they do and you can find a screening near you, I encourage you to seek out the experience. And if for some reason you’ve never seen “Se7en,” first of all what are you doing with your life and second, make that time extra special by making that first time in IMAX.
You never forget your first, but “Se7en” in IMAX is the closest I’ve ever come to experiencing that same first time high. That’s the power of cinema, and what’s in the box is worth discovering in IMAX again.
