| I include
this image from the comic book of "The Crow" rather than an
image from the film to prove that Gabriel - or Gabrielle - has always been
a part of Eric Draven's world. I also include it, as the poem illustrates
just how cat-like Eric becomes in his quest for vengeance.
The world of the Crow is a dark, evil place where the supernatural image of the dead rising from the grave isn't half as frightening as what is alive and preying on the populace. For those who haven't seen the film, a year after Eric and his fiancee Shelly are brutally murdered, Eric rises from his grave to become a dark angel, avenging the horror of the death of his lost love, systematically hunting down and slaying the perpertrators, believing them already dead because of what they have done. I could draw a number of analogies between Eric's dark quest and the feline species - the hunter analogy; the playful way he sports with his "victims" before he physically kills them - but I have decided to stay with the real feline in the piece, Gabriel; and concentrate on him. |
|
It somehow seems fitting that the first living creature the newly-arisen Eric meets (is that crow really alive?) from his life is Gabriel - in a way, the white cat represents what he is to become - the hunter on the pure, cleansing quest. When he touches him, the memories of the night he died - and Gabriel's memories - come flooding back into him, causing him intense pain and focusing him on what he must do. |
| Is it a coincidence
on the writers' parts that Eric came back as an avenging angel - and his
cat was named for one? In the Bible, Gabriel was the leader of the
Host of Angels, and helped to banish Lucifer to Hell.
|
| The film,
while very good, isn't perfect; and my last point shows one of the
problems I had with it... but it supports the idea that the writers
wanted Gabriel to have more of a symbolic role than a "real" one, if you
cross your eyes and think REALLY hard about it!.
The real
story of "The Crow" begins a year after Eric and Shelly's
deaths. The building they lived in was boarded up, and the police
line across the door to the loft they lived in looked as though it hadn't
been touched... but when Eric walked in, Gabriel came out looking pristinely
brushed and well fed - certainly not the wasting away wraith one would
expect from a scrounging kitty. Was this just a continuity problem
movie makers couldn't get around without blowing the budget, or was it
a symbol for something deeper?
|
|
|
 |
|
|