It is to kill your ego, and with ego’s death, you will be arisen to a new world, unveiled by the veils that the ego presents, which seperates you from the god, which is within you.

The same saying, I have met, in Osho’s book, Ego, and if I remember correctly, Krishnamurti and Eckart Tolle mentions this (Actually, counting Eckart Tolle among Krishnamurti and Rumi is not fair, in my opinion. Osho, not sure.)

The ways to strenghten the ego, which makes you suffer, from the teachings of sufism:

Power – Macha
Money – Green seperated from the money with difficulty
Worldly belongings – ?
Sex – The korean guy

that are used to strenghten the ego, and ego comes to the place, where, you do not obey nor follow the god, but, the ego itself. Thus, this is blasphemy in a way.

Regarding the movie, I was amazed, and I think the death scene might be related to the “die before you die” thing. Another explanation, could be, during the scenes, he said that I have to do that, I do not have a choice, this was because he thought he was dying, so he would not do these, if he did not think, so persuaded himself to think that he was ill / or manipulated himself.

Actually zack and avi were him, in my opinion, and they never existed. Avi might be the brain, whatever zack is, I do not know, could be the heart, and these two, helped him get free from the ego, so they cannot be bad. And Mr. Gold, not being able to touch only the two of them… Hmmm… Strange… Ego is defeated by the heart, or love, in sufi teachings, and there is the soul. But Avi really resembles the brain to me.

Mr Gold could be the ego, and yes, ego does not give second chances or time, it wants. Macha, the pure resemblence of ego, maybe, also gets fed by the charity donations, which is not strange for one who knows ego, even charity could feed ego, if used to get approval. Green bowing to macha and admitting his strength, and macha being surprised, is Green finding macha at the end, and admitting his power. Ego, after being identified, cannot live for long, according to Krishnamurti, which sufi philosophy denies, and which I also believe in, because it has to be battled constantly.

As for the Green’s fears, the confined space may be a resemblence to his cell, where he stayed for long, and which presents a big threat for ego, as he starts to think and see about the ego, or the thing within.

I just watched the movie, and I guess I will be watching it many more times. It is the greatest film ever, in my opinion.

Sam Gold is in all of us and as stated by Avi, he sees all but cannot be seen. Jake must expunge the evil within himself. His seven years in solitary was his purification during the Tribulation.

In the futurist view of Christian eschatology, the Tribulation is a relatively short period of time [some say seven years] where anyone who chose not to follow God before the Rapture and was left behind (according to Pre-Tribulation doctrine, not Mid- or Post-Tribulation teaching) will experience worldwide hardships, disasters, famine, war, pain, and suffering, which will wipe out more than 75% of all life on the earth before the Second Coming takes place. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Tribulation

I would say that at least 75% of the characters shown in the film end up dead! When Macha confronts Jake in the elevator, the elevator wall decoration appears behind his head as a halo indicating that he has purged himself from sin. He can simply walk past Macha because he is pure and cannot be touched – evil has no power over him. The devil cannot kill God. Ray Liotta’s performance in that scene represents the impotence of Satan in the presense of God.

It is possible that the events take place within Jake’s mind while in solitary. In this interpretation, Jake is in the elevator when he becomes pure. The elevator is really his cell which he never left for the seven years of the Tribulation and when he becomes holy, he simply walks out and the second coming has begun. But it could also be that he really did experience the events in the film.

Finally, has nobody commented on the three days Jake was given to live. When he found out he had three days, that is when he “died”. Three days later he finds out he is not dying – “he is risen”. Not sure it fits in the interpretation I have presented, certainly not in a chronological sense, but symbolic none the less. Perhaps this was just a hint to the viewer of what was really going on. Gee, I guess that’s what a symbol is…

It may or may not be apparent, but I am not a theist, I am an atheist. I am not saying this interpretation is correct; I am offering it as one of many. I have only just finished watching the movie, so I may have more comments after a second viewing. I wouldn’t say this is the greatest movie of all time, but I did enjoy it. Entertaining and made me think. What a refreshing change. Can’t wait to watch it again.

My reaction to this movie is that I can’t easily make any sense of all the symbolism, egoism, and mysticism, but I can’t help myself. I have to try to process and make sense. Stupid ego. While there are many theories and brilliant observations, which I’m sure was an intentional byproduct of this blog and production in general, still the only thing that makes sense to me is that there are some loosely tied together concepts which are simply open to interpretation.

There were times when Jake hears his own voice talking where I was so on edge and thinking that any second that Jake will have an epiphany and it will all make sense, but that never really happens.

In the end, like life, it is what you make of it, even if it doesn’t make any sense. My ego tells me this is unacceptable, that the game really was to make a mindf**k movie which revolves around idealigical concepts which are blurred further by gangster chess pieces and angelic loan sharks and layer upon layer of misdirection and information perpetually revolving, unwinding, revolving some more, and evntually we have a knotted up tale which seems to have no beginning and no end. it is just a knot which is impossible to cypher, unravel, or unrevlolve.

So here is my sequel. Mr green becomes enlightened and decides to take his money and start a Super-PAC and backs Newt Gingrich, stops playing chess and starts playing Scrabble with a caveman and Brian Orakpo and learns that sometimes scrabble words are hurtful to cavemen, but they are amusing to linebackers who play for the Washington Redskins. Hang in there it will all make sense.

Tell you ego that we are you, and the only way to get smarter is by playing against smarter opponents, and the best place to hide is in a C4, and that corporations are people. In the end Mr. Green wakes up and realizes that he is actually renown talk show host Mr. Colbert and was having a terrible nightmare and that there were never any convicts in solitary confinement with him and that Vincent Pastore is a guest on his show with musical guest Outkast, and Ray Liotta is now president and starring in the prequel to Revolver called Rayvolver. In the final scene Stephen figures out the ultimate scrabble con, Sarah Palin admits that she has no idea what she’s talking about, and to top it all off, and here’s the twist, Mr. Colbert is also f**king Madonna which ties in nicely with the Kabbala theme. And during the credits Fox News will explain the dichotomy of having an agenda and maintaining mock objectivity and being paradoxically credible.

everyone here is talking about ego’s all because the end of the movie says so, but that is part of the illusion of the movie, yes ego’s do exist but that’s a minor part of the movie.

in the beginning of the movie, it states the playing a smarter opponent, which is at the end of the game you, you go from the later to the former(i get the concept but not its entirety).

it also states, #1 rule in business is protect your investment, the title of the book is Etiquette of the banker 1775 – the year is interesting for 1776 and the whole creation of the US and all, not to mention the 12 dollar bill used which goes so deep and long i cant explain it here….

the destroying the ego is to set himself free of himself, you can only really be free when you have lost everything there is to lose, thus rock bottom. break yourself down to rebuild yourself into the former…doesn’t end there.

the books the prisoners were reading were astrophysics books and quantum mechanics books, thus the two conmen were bracing him for a new reality, a reality that MR. Gold lived in and so did they but gold being eternal for he has been their for eternity with the conmen just getting their. The reality is we are in the 3rd dimensional realm, the two conmen and gold have skipped to the 4th dimension, thus they can adjust the 3D realm as they please, hence knowing about the elevator and the shooting, including the disease and curing it, but they needed him to arive their on his own, it cant be forced.

someone help me with this, cause its too much, emails up top, thanx

I think your blog is super informative and would love to feature you on my company’s film blog. How can I get in touch?

Best,
Dan

1) Why does Zach take the watch from the fat Asian guy at the hotel? I think this has to do with another element of the movie which is the illusion of TIME. The theory that time does not exist could be related to this since it is not clear whether the whole movie is happening in Green’s mind while he is still in jail, or if he in fact did get out and parts of the movie really did happen and others did not. This also has to do with the part where he is run over by the car and then time goes back and when they know things ahead of time.

2) Another crazy interpretation could be that all of existence is a game of chess being played again and again by God and the Devil. I do not really believe this is the intention of the movie but just a fun concept to think about (BTW I do not believe in neither one of them)

Finally, I recommend that people do not waste time calling each other ignorant, or try to decide whether or not the movie is a masterpiece or a piece of crap, or which interpretation is correct and which one is not. The great thing about movies and books like these are made is that it makes us think about and discuss these ideas, which I think is what in the end is all about.

In the scene where testudo is used, it is used as a general marching formation and even worse, when assaulted with chariots.

Testudo means very slow movement (turtle), so it’s obvious that the director choose it for the visual effect despite the fact it was very illogical from a military perspecive.