Jacob’s Ladder is a psychologically horror film in 1990 in the United States of America which talked about a vet, Jacob, experienced a disorder between the reality and the virtual words through different dimensional time zones and finally being awaked up and finish all horrible things. To better adopt psychological knowledge in the movie, the director filmed this movie based upon a real book and subsisted sufficient amount of the related knowledge to ensure the accuracy of contents.
In the movie, it demonstrated Jacob’s psychological disorder by symbolizing discernible objects such as HDA which is hallucinogen used by the USA army in Vietnam War. Overall, the movie used the literature rhetorical device “flashback” to illustrate the condition that Jacob’s facing. Other characters, for instance Jacob’s brother Isaac, served for expanding the character’s relationship to well support the main topic-psychology-of the movie because Isaac is supposed as death in the war, however, it showed up in Jacob’s lives. Additionally, other tier characters are properly function on devising the atmosphere of the movie and description of Jacob’s awful psychological situations.
In the beginning of the movie, Jacob’s lying on the ground with drugs which were confirmed as the key through the entire storyline. At the meantime, Jacob had the hallucination of being dragged by two brawny persons. During the film, the image of the experience on the battlefield always displayed and went across the corners of the movie. For example, while being treated in the hospital, he flashed back to the days in the army. Abruptly, a man clasped in front of his eyes which resembles the raising trend of the movie. After that, Jacob saw a stranger who engaged Jacob to explore to destroy to go crazy. As the time passed, Jacob was continuously confused about the time now he was in. Finally, he recalled that he was cooperating with a psychology doctor who appeared in the beginning of the movie. He succeeded in deterring all things went worse and died due to falling.
Personally, Jacob might get the disease which combined PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and sequela from HDA. Many scenes and objects symbolized the prophecies that foresaw all these events. Hallucination was extremely important because it was either the symbol of PTSD or the symbol of the effect of HDA, and the hallucinational events linked the entire storyline of the movie. The stranger vet who always guided Jacob to find the truth was a director directing Jacob to go deeply. The dog, seeing after firstly meeting the stranger, predicted what would things happen in the later part of the movie and also depicted the psychological condition of the protagonist. The existing of Isaac is the transition point, which pointed the deterioration of psychological condition of Jacob. When witnessing a zombie in the subway, it meant Jacob’s condition even got worse. Since Jacob always saw himself doing the similar acts, he might be an OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) patient too. In addition, the ladder in the movie meant “HDA” which implied the psychological condition of Jacob too.
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