After reading the recent blogs on Deadgirl, I was thinking about my favorite horror films and trying to see if there was any feminism in the stories. I'm partial to Asian horror films and one of my favorites is The Eye 2 from Hong Kong. This isn't exactly a sequel though. The Eye* is about a blind woman receiving a cornea transplant and is seeing ghosts. The Eye 2 does not follow the same characters as the original, rather it also deals with seeing ghosts and is also written by the Pang brothers.
[Warning: May Contain Spoilers after the jump.]
Joey is a woman who is having an affair with a married man. Because her love life is going nowhere she decides to commit suicide. She checks into a hotel and tells them to give her a wake-up call. If she doesn't answer, she tells them to come into the room. She takes a bunch of sleeping pills and while still awake calls her lover. She wasn't dead when the hotel workers found her so she was rushed to the hospital. While there Joey finds out that she's pregnant.
She considers abortion but ultimately decides to be a single mom (the story wouldn't go anywhere if she did get an abortion). She starts seeing a ghost follow her around, as well as other ghosts following every other pregnant woman she sees. She learns that because she was at the edge of death, she has gained the ability to see ghosts. The one who is following her belongs to the wife of her ex-lover. When Joey called him during her suicide attempt, she overheard and jumped out the window. But it isn't revenge that the ghost is after, it's after life. She is going to be reincarnated into Joey's baby.
It is explained that the soul can't enter the body until it's born. There is a creepy scene showing one of Joey's friends from birthing class, having her baby and the soul entering the baby's body. I'm saying this is pro-choice because the anti-choice movement says that a fetus has a soul. This movie shows that it doesn't until it's born.
Of course, cultural differences may be shadowing my view of it. I don't know anything about the politics of abortion in Hong Kong. Since reincarnation isn't a widespread belief here as it is in Hong Kong, it's not something you really here about when talking about abortion. I'm unsure about differing opinions on the matter. Do some people believe that the reincarnated soul enters the body during pregnancy? If so, wouldn't that be used in arguments against abortion? If that is the case then are the Pang brothers are the arguing that it's just a fetus until birth?
*I have not seen the American remake, so this is all based on the original.
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Just going off of your description, this sounds like one of those movies that might just really be up for interpretation as to whether it sends a pro-choice message or not. Though i can see how it could start some thought-provoking discussions.
But my first thought: it feels anti-choice to frame the discussion of what our legal rights should be around when a soul first enters the body. Ultimately, having a soul, consciousness, beating heart, etc. is irrelevant to a legal/ethical discussion of the matter. No matter how sentient an entity might be, it still has no right to live off the body of another without their consent. I feel this is why the ability to consent, to chose, such intimate aspects of our own bodies is the focus of discussions by those who are pro-choice.
Of course, not to say it isn't hella cool to ponder life's little mysteries like when do we first truly become who we are and such :-)
I wouldn't say the concept that a fetus lacks a soul is inherently pro-choice but it is definitely the opposite of what the anti-choicers are preaching. Souls don't really have much to do with being pro-choice, but I guess it's an argument for abortion not being murder. Zerk said it well above. It's definitely an interesting concept to think about and creepy enough for a movie like The Eye 2. I mean, ghosts following you around and then becoming your baby's soul? *shudder*
It also makes me wonder if maybe the main character would want to abort the pregnancy, knowing that the child would end up being her ex-lover's wife. It'd certainly be awkward to raise that person, wouldn't it?
I see where you're coming from which I why I put a question mark in the title, it is up for interpretation.
It's been awhile since I've seen the movie but I think when she found out that the ghost was going to be reincarnated into her body and who it was, it was too late to have an abortion. The idea of it being the wife of the ex-lover makes it more creepy.
Also the idea of talking about souls and politics is always sticky since we can't prove they exist at all much less when they enter the body. Also as I said in the blog, cultural differences may cloud this judgment as I know nothing about politics in Hong Kong.
This is kind of an update. I saw another Pang Brothers' movie last night called "Re-cycle." Much of the movie takes place in a surreal universe of things that we have abandoned. Part of it is a tunnel of aborted fetuses, it is said that they continue to grow in this universe. The main character had an abortion 8 years prior and it is learned that the child that had been helping her was the fetus she aborted. I looked it up and critics did accuse the film of carrying an anti-abortion message but Oxide Pang said "That just happens to be one of the topics in the movie. We are not out to say if abortion is right or wrong."
So if the Pang Brothers have any opinion on abortion, they're not letting the public know what it is.