Below Zero is full of twists, shocks, and clever symbolism, but what is the importance of the deer that Miguel keeps seeing throughout the action of this Netflix hit? Skyrocketing to the number one most-watched spot on Netflix over the weekend, the Spanish thriller Below Zero is an ingenious fusion of Assault on Precinct 13 and Law Abiding Citizen that has been impressing viewers and critics alike with its brutal action and inventive twists.
Taking place almost entirely inside an armored vehicle, Below Zero tells the story of a new prison guard, Martin, whose first day on the job goes from bad to worse when he is given the task of transporting a group of unruly prisoners from one facility to another. Unfortunately for him, a mysterious figure wants to make sure that one of their number doesn’t survive the journey.
A tense and twisty thriller, Below Zero forces viewers to align themselves first with the beleaguered Martin, who is attempting to keep it together through the first day from Hell, then with the surprisingly likable cast of prison escapees he is transporting, and finally with Miguel, the older man whose quest for vengeance interrupted their transfer with bloody results. It’s a mile-a-minute plot whose pace makes it easy to overlook some subtle symbolism, like the recurring visual motif of Miguel spotting a possibly imaginary deer during his attempts to secure brutal, bloody revenge. However, easy as it may be to miss, the deer represents Miguel’s lost daughter and as such, its tendency to run when spotted can be read as a tragic reflection of his inability to score closure in the wake of her murder.
It’s never commented on by Miguel, and never seen by the rest of Below Zero's cast, so there’s no knowing whether the deer is real or the product of Miguel’s troubled mind. However, in either case, the animal is a perfect embodiment of the troubled character’s tortured quest for revenge. A beautiful but flighty animal, the deer is always glanced by Miguel but bolts before he can get closer to it. The deer that he sees numerous times throughout the action of the movie may be seen to represent his dead daughter, who he has lost for good despite the violent revenge he is enacting to find her body’s location. It’s a tragic, poignant way to show that he’ll forever be hunting the past, despite eventually discovering where she is buried in the movie’s closing moments.
As Ramis’s “how did that help your sister?” comment to Rei earlier in the movie underscores, Below Zero consistently calls into question whether seeking vengeance is a helpful or worthwhile method of coping with trauma. Miguel seems gleefully relieved when the Clockwork Orange-style teen psychopath Nano finally discloses the location of his daughter’s corpse, but there’s no knowing whether this will bring him peace, or if he will forever be searching for the deer he can always see, but never reach out and touch again.
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February 05, 2021 at 05:58AM
