Gothika: What The Anima Sola Tattoo Means (& Why It’s Important) – Screen Rant • 12.31.20
Gothika's final bad guy has a tattoo on his chest of the Anima Sola, but what does this religious motif mean and why is it important to the movie?
In Gothika, one of the movie's villains has a tattoo on his chest of the Anima Sola, a religious motif whose meaning is related to the movie's story in several ways. The motif's name, Anima Sola, loosely translates to "solitary soul" and is a depiction of a pious woman's soul suffering in the flames of purgatory as she awaits her transition to paradise. While this depiction has many interpretations, its most important meaning in the movie and in real life is as a symbol of purgatory. Purgatory's religioususage refers to it as a temporary place of suffering that exists between death and paradise. However, it also has a more general, non-religious meaning, which simply refers to any temporary state of suffering.
Gothika tells the story of a recently hospitalized woman named Dr. Miranda Grey (Halle Berry), who discovers she has the supernatural ability to commune with the undead. As she discovers her powers, she also tries to solve several intertwining mysteries: why did she kill her own husband, Doug (Charles S. Dutton); who has been raping Chloe (Penlope Cruz) at the hospital; and why did the head doctor's daughter, Rachel, commit suicide. As Miranda's story unfolds, the mysteries unravel, all of which seem to involve a villain with an Anima Sola tattoo on his chest.
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Gothika is essentially a ghost story in which Rachel's restless spirit seeks revenge against Doug and Sheriff Ryan (John Carroll Lynch), the men who raped and murdered her. She possesses Miranda to murder Doug, and Miranda is blamed for it. Rachel herself is the Anima Sola, i.e. the solitary soul of a woman temporarily suffering in purgatory. She is shown several times as a tormented ghost enveloped in flames. However, Rachel is not the movie's only Anima Sola. Miranda and Chloe are also both Animas Solas, as are all the women who suffer at the evil whims of Doug and the Sheriff. They are all in a temporary state of suffering. In this way, the Anima Sola tattoo mostly functions as a movie conceit, an ornamental embellishment to the story. It fits the story well, but is not required and can even be removed without disturbing the plot.
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Gothika: What The Anima Sola Tattoo Means (& Why It's Important) - Screen Rant