How Credence Can Be a Dumbledore: Fantastic Beasts 2

Bloggers and vloggers alike have scoured the texts and concluded: there is no way that the character heretofore known as "Credence Barebone" (Ezra Miller) can be a brother to Albus Dumbledore biologically (that is, through the same parents who gave birth to Albus, Aberforth and Arianna), which leads to two possibilities. The first is what I think many are settling on as the most likely answer--although that's also not stopping us from coming up with more outlandish theories as well--and that is, quite simply, Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) is lying to Credence about being a brother to Albus Dumbledore. There are a couple of good reasons to suspect this: first, in the same breath Grindelwald tells Credence about being a Dumbledore, he blatantly lies and tells Credence that his "brother" (Albus) wants his total death and destruction and doesn't want Credence to attain to that which he himself has; this is obviously a lie, intended to drive Credence's hatred of someone he has never even met (much like the news of today's world creating divisive politics). In the beginning of the film, there is also the "gift" which Grindelwald gives to Abernathy for having posed as Grindelwald and had his tongue removed: the forked tongue.

A very important point has been raised by several people simultaneously: if Dumbledore can't move against Grindelwald, then why was he able to duel against him when Arianna was killed? Therein, we surmise, lies the answer: if Dumbledore or Grindelwald move against each other, then "blood is going to be spilled," not necessarily their own blood, but the blood of someone important to them, in that specific case, it was Arianna. Initially, when Dumbledore tells Harry Potter about it, Dumbledore has been afraid all those years that he was the one who accidentally cast the fatal spell; when Aberforth tells the story to Harry in The Deathly Hallows, Aberforth says it could have been any of the three of them, including himself; when Harry has "died" by Voldemort's wand and ascended to King's Cross Station where Dumbledore meets him, Dumbledore then says he thinks it was Grindelwald who did it because Grindelwald had lost control and, even though Dumbledore head seen that coming, he didn't want to admit it until it was too late. NOW, however, because we know of the blood pact, it's possible that none of the three were responsible for the spell that killed Arianna: it's possible that the three males (Grindelwald, Aberforth and Albus) only wanted to incapacitate the other two males, whereas Arianna--unable to realize what was happening, and unable to control her magic--was actually trying to kill Grindelwald (because she all ready killed her mother), and because of the blood pact (Arianna and Grindelwald shared blood because her and Albus shared blood), Arianna was killed herself; had Albus Dumbledore been trying to kill Grindelwald, Albus would have been the one to die, not Arianna, and the same with Aberforth. So, when Dumbledore tells someone, "I can't move against Grindelwald," he might be saying, "I can't move against Grindelwald or I will die just as my sister died." Let's consider Goblet Of Fire: even though it wasn't Harry who put his name into the Goblet to enter the Tri-Wizard Tournament, it was a binding, magical contract so he still had to compete; likewise, even though Arianna didn't enter into the blood pact between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, the blood pact was a binding, magical contract between Dumbledore's blood (and anyone else who shares his blood) and Grindelwald (and anyone else who shared Grindelwald's blood).

The forked tongue reminds us of The Goblet Of Fire when Peter Pettigrew cut off his right hand to aide Voldemort's return and Voldemort "gifted" Pettigrew with the silver hand in its place (which ended up killing him). Why did Grindelwald give Abernathy a forked tongue? So he would be more like his master. The forked tongue is a sign of the liar, and hence, has always been attributed to the devil himself, aka, the "Father Of Lies." A second indication that Grindelwald is lying is the death of Irma: Grimmson, the bounty hunter for the Ministry of Magic, is tasked by Grindelwald to protect Credence, and it's just before Irma can tell Credence anything that Grimmson shows up and kills her, thereby protecting Credence "from the truth" (but no one but Leta knows the babies were switched, I hear you argue, and that is correct, but it was still Credence who was given to Mary Lou, and he could have found something out; besides, no one but Leta knew, which means Grindelwald was NOT protecting Credence from mis-information [that he was Corvus LeStrange] but what Grindelwald also thinks could be true, that is, Credence was a LeStrange). This brings us to the major argument against Grindelwald lying: the phoenix.

Here is an important point: if Dumbledore can't move against Grindelwald because of their pact, then why is Grindelwald bothering to enlist Credence? We know that even Grindelwald's acolytes understand that Dumbledore is the only one standing in their path, but I would like to suggest that--even before the Niffler takes the blood pact vial--Grindelwald knows Dumblefore will figure out a way around the pact or of stopping him through some other means, so Grindelwald anticipates Dumblefore's defiance of their pact. The pact, then, acts like the famous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 signed between Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler: even though Hitler and Stalin knew they would be going to war against each other, they signed the treaty to buy themselves time. Germany needed to make sure that the Soviet Union would not open up a second front to World War II, splitting German resources, and the Soviet Union needed time to produce war weapons and mobilize, and didn't want to pose a threat to Germany before the war between the two was inevitable. In short, the blood pact--while it may have had a different purpose initially--is, by the time of Fantastic Beasts 2, essentially acting as this treaty between Germany and the Soviets: buying each other time. 

Apart from Dumbledore's pet phoenix Fawkes, we really don't know much about the phoenix, however, members of the critic community are guessing that the Elder Wand which Grindelwand controls would be capable of summoning one or even conjuring one. We all admit that this is a bit of a stumbling block to the theory that Grindelwald is just flat out lying, however, given the level of power he has, summoning a magical bird doesn't seem that difficult of a feat to perform. Now, the next theory, can actually co-exist with the "lying theory," and it bases itself on the line Dumbledore keeps saying about Grindelwald, "We were more than brothers."

This is an augurey (the drawing is concept art from Pottermore, the top image as it appears in the film) and the auguery is important because it supposedly has the same kind of regenerative powers as a phoenix but it's not a rebirth by fire, it's more a rebirth through darkness.

Why enter into a blood pact?
There's a saying that, "Friends are the family you choose," instead of the family you don't choose, and for a young Dumbledore--anxious to be freed of taking care of his younger, orphaned siblings--we can see why Dumbledore would choose Grindelwald to be his intelligent, advanced, ambitious and exciting brother instead of Aberforth (at one point, I think it's in the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore says of Aberforth, "I don't even know if he can read," which shows you how little he thinks of his brother and how distant they are). So Dumbledore saying, "We were more than brothers," is merely saying, "We were blood brothers, because we choose each other," rather than just being saddled with someone (like Aberforth and Arianna who Dumbledore did not choose). Now, please recall what happens in Goblet Of Fire when Peter Pettigrew concocts that "potion" to restore Voldemort's body: he takes some of Harry's blood which then becomes a part of Voldemort; in a sense, Harry and Voldemort become "blood brothers" (although Harry certainly doesn't choose to do so) and Voldemort then becomes Harry's protector because Harry's blood now runs in his veins (the same way Aunt Petunia's blood protects Harry because she and Lily share the same blood). This is the scenario I think Rowling is going with because, when Harry comes along, Dumbledore understands it because he's all ready been through it himself with Grindelwald.
What about Credence?

There is quite a bit we don't know about phoenixes (pictured at the top, from Pottermore) but we do know that they are closely related to Thunderbirds (bottom image) which Frank was one from FB1.

If Dumbledore and Grindelwald are brothers, then Grindelwald is "including" Credence in on their blood brother pact: if Grindelwald has chosen Credence to be their third brother, then Dumbledore can no more hurt Credence than Dumblefore can hurt Grindelwald. Please recall, in Fantastic Beasts, Grindelwald (disguised as Percival Graves) used Credence to help him locate an obscurial, presumably a little girl who had suppressed her magic, NOT a long-lost LeStrange or Dumbledore sibling. Knowing about Arianna's power (she accidentally killed her mother) and that he and Dumbledore are not going to pursue their plans together--but Dumbledore may actually try and stop him some day instead--Grindelwald was seeking a powerful "second" for the next duel he and Dumbledore would have, and he wanted his own obscurial on his side, and that ended up being Credence.

Let's remember a few things we know about obscurials: first, Arianna died when she was 14, so according to FB&WTFT, IF Arianna was an obscurial, she was quite old. Second, we learn in Crimes Of Grindelwald that love can actually heal an obscurial, and if a child feels sufficiently loved, then they don't develop an obscurial, even if they suppress their magical abilities, which we know for a fact that Arianna did after her attack at the age of 6 (there are some people suggesting that Credence is the son of Arianna, that when she was attacked by the muggle boys, she was also raped, but I seriously doubt that, even in the wizarding world, a 6 year-old girl would be able to conceive a child at age 6, which then leads to Credence being roughly 7-8 years old when she died,.... he definitely would have had memories of her and the family). So, we haven't had it confirmed that Arianna was an obscurial, and in COG when Dumbledore tells Newt that an obscurial can be healed with love, I think that was Rowling's way of vanquishing the rumors that Arianna was an obscurial: she was definitely loved, she definitely felt safe, she just never learned to control her powers, and there is another example of a young girl in a similar situation: Merope Gaunt. She has constantly abused by her father and brother and didn't show any magical abilities, but she didn't develop an obscurius in spite of not having any love in her life to protect her, whereas Arianna did (from her mother and at least Aberforth, and there's no reason to suspect that Albus didn't show her love, he just regrets he didn't show her more love). The point of this discussion is to draw out some points of criticism of what seems to be a theory gaining popularity, namely, that when Arianna died in the duel, her obscurius (remember, we don't know that she had one) left her and found Credence and that's how Credence is a Dumbledore, is because Credence has Arianna's obscurius,... oh, but that was destroyed wasn't it at the end of FB&WTFT? 

For me, this is the cinch on this theory: when we first meet Credence, and we first meet Grindelwald, Grindelwald is disguised as Percival Graves. Why is that important? Because Dumbledore's father was named Percival, so it's like "from the grave, Percival Dumbledore" gave birth to another son (Credence) in sharing Grindelwald's blood from the blood pact with Credence. Yes, as far as we know, Credence hasn't made a blood pact with Grindelwald,.... yet. But in taking the wand Grindelwald hands him (hand to hand, like the pact we saw between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in the Mirror of Erised) it seems that Credence has decided to accept--at least for the moment--the identity Grindelwald has handed him, Aurelius Dumbledore: Credence, then, is a "Dumbledore" by blood, just not by birth (as Grindelwald could say the same of himself); having Dumbledore blood would also answer why the phoenix--if it is a real phoenix--comes to Credence at the end of the film, of if it's just because Grindelwald--having Dumbledore blood--can summon a phoenix when in need of his own, and since Dumbledore has the blood pact vial, it's possible this is a sign of Grindelwald's forthcoming defeat; we don't know the ability of a phoenix to decipher or interpret moral uprightness or value, only that phoenixes are very loyal).
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner
P.S.--I still have my full review of FB 2, but the explanation I wanted to provide seemed best to its own post, so more is on the way!

The Nun: Newest Clips

Opening this weekend is The Nun, which excites me terribly: the more I see, the more excited I get! Some new clips have been released and it's worth our time to explore the meaning behind them. A few of these you might have seen before, but for the most part, this is new material:

Let's start with the name "Valak."
Valak means "the defiler," is--according to Wikipedia--depicted as a boy riding a two-headed dragon and capable of finding treasures, and The Conjuring universe has employed the "theology" behind this image well. A "boy" doesn't seem to have any power, and seems "harmless" because he's just a child; this is how sin presents itself to most of us: it's just harmless, it doesn't have any power over me, but this is where the two-headed dragon comes in. Dragons, as reptilian creatures, are symbols of sin, specifically Original Sin, but even the devil embodied because of the temptation in the Garden of Eden being in the form of a serpent (so any reptile can symbolize sin or Satan). That there are "two heads" means there are two governing functions to the dragon, because our head "governs" our body and tells our body what to do (we can still function without an arm, or without our legs, but we can't without our head). The first head is the governing function of the role of temptation and sin so we will become damned for eternity, that's straightforward enough; this head seeks out the treasure of that which we refuse to give over to God so we can distance ourselves from God and therefore bargain away our eternal souls for the sake of some sin to which we have committed ourselves. The second head, however, is the "good" which can come from being tempted, and this is the "saving Grace" of God, namely, that God reaps from that which he didn't sow: the devil sows the seeds of discord, the sin, the temptations and the fall, but when we turn to God and give it over to Him, He then sows the fruit of our battle and uses THAT as the treasure which we store up in heaven in the form of Grace and salvation. Now, let's talk about the blacked-out faces of the nuns in the clips.

We have all ready discussed this image at length in the initial trailer release, what we didn't realize at the time was how prevalent the "blacked out faces" of the nuns would be throughout the film which the new clips tease.

We know that the face of a person symbolizes their identity, it is a person's identity, because it is by means of our face that other recognize us for who we are. So, to have their faces completely blacked-out means they have their identities completely blacked out; sound familiar? The devil has had his name blotted out from the Book of Life, and the nuns with blacked out faces at least suggest the very same. Why? "Valak, the defiler," is likely the one who takes something that is good, and turns it into something that is bad, and we have all ready seen this in The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist when Valak is first introduced by taking Lorraine Warren's marriage to Ed and making it a bad thing (please see the hyper-link at the film for a more detailed explanation). At some point, Lorraine was likely considering becoming a nun, but she met and married Ed, and Valak uses that "shadow of a doubt" against Lorraine tempting her to think that she didn't do God's will in marrying Ed, rather, she should have become a nun. This is the thing about evil that Christians have to keep in mind: there is no consistency to the devil, so what he tempted us with five minutes ago, could change in the next ten seconds to tempting us with the exact opposite.

In the clip above, at 1:15, in the upper-right hand corner of the screen, there is a body covered with a white sheet, and it may be Father Burke's body. There are two types of death, there is the death when we are all ready dead, and the death just emphasizes that (we lost the spiritual battle, in other words) and then there is the death of self-sacrifice, that one is so completely dead to themselves and alive to things of the spirit, that they can completely follow Christ and lay down their lives for love of someone else. The body is covered by a white sheet: we know that white symbolizes faith, hope, purity and innocence, and a holy person who has been alive with these virtues, still lives after death by merit of these virtues, however, a person who is dead to these virtues--such as the thickly painted white face of the demon Valak--turns white like a corpse in decay because their soul cannot bear these virtues. So, when we watch the film, we need to notice the white sheet and determine whether the person beneath the sheet had a holy or a unholy death.
In the same scene, Sister Irene, which means "peace," is told by a nun to pray and look forward, no matter what happens. Sister Irene, stumbles and looks around, she's not completely obedient, and because this nun has obviously battled this spiritual temptation before, she has the right of authority over Sister Irene, who owes that nun her own complete obedience; not being obedient is the doorway to letting a demon in to lead us away from God, and it's possible that whatever happens once the wind begins blowing in this scene, that it's all actually in Sister Irene's head, just as the scene (the clip is below) of Valak meeting Lorraine in the hallway of her house and leading her into the spare room to "attack her" is also in Lorraine's head. If you have time to watch The Conjuring 2 before watching The Nun, it would be well worth your while.

Let's take a quick look at an important clip from The Conjuring 2 because the same elements at play in this clip are going to be prevalent in The Nun (the clips is below but I would like for you to know what to look for), especially the way God uses the devil to do God's work. In the clip below, at 4:11, a statue of Mary suddenly appears that wasn't there before. At 1:01 into the clip, there is no statue of Mary in the corner where Lorraine is thrown; at 1:47 there is still no statue of Mary, but the music has started playing reminding Lorraine that God is the king of righteousness and is there with her protecting her; the light goes out, and that is the "Light of Faith," Lorraine's temptation to believe she didn't do God's will has begun. At 1:54 there is still no statue of Mary in the corner. At 4:11, just as Lorraine hits, the boxes, there is a statue, and we see the back side of it, and this is Mary. It's the backside of Mary because the back usually symbolizes our past, and in this case, we see the backside of Mary because she puts herself with Lorraine in this temptation to help Lorraine win. Because the statue is located in the same area where the "shadow" originates from in the room, we can say that when the shadow first appears, it's actually Mary herself, why? Mary wants one thing and one thing only: for ALL PEOPLE to be saved and come closer to her Son (I used to be a Protestant, so if you are not Catholic, I understand your hesitancy to accept this, but trust, Catholics do NOT worship Mary, but we honor her because Jesus honored her and because she is the first and greatest disciple of Jesus since He first revealed Himself to her).

Mary unites her will to God's Will in all things, so if God wants Lorraine to be tempted by Valak, Mary wants Lorraine to be tempted by Valak as well, even going so far as to aide Valak in tempting Lorraine so Lorraine can come out of this battle victorious for the sake of her soul, and the souls of others (because we can't help people win a spiritual battle if we haven't all ready won that battle ourselves). This is going to be at work in The Nun, so as you watch it this weekend, be conscious of what it was that was good in an of itself, and then how it was defiled and made evil and people fell for it, because there is certainly a lot of that in our world today. I am in the process of moving, but I am planning on seeing The Nun Friday and getting up at least a short post, so, God willing, I will be able to finally test my theories and see if they were right. (Again, if you would like to review The Conjuring 2, you can find the complete review at this link).
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner

Analysis Of Symbols: Halloween 2018

As discussed below, there are many changes with this new Halloween and it basically ignores all previous Halloween's except the original film. One of the significant changes is that, originally, Michael Myers was the brother of Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) and he was under an ancient curse to wipe out his whole bloodline. Because the large knife he used to plunge into his victims (the echoes of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho) and the promiscuity of Myers' victims, the "slasher films" prominent throughout the 1980s came to be seen as the moral teachings of what sex actually does to the soul and try to convince teenagers to wait to have sex. With Myers being Laurie's brother, this added an incestuous dimension to the film and, although Michael Myers is still incarcerated for having killed his older sister Judith, Laurie is not related to him, meaning that we really don't have a motivation for why he's killing,... at least not at this point. The film makers have stated that they would like to make two more films after this Halloween: those films would be shot back-to-back and be scheduled for a quick turn-around time, but they are waiting to see how this one does first; so, "final confrontation?" It doesn't necessarily have to be the "same" villain or the "same" heroine; this could indeed be the final confrontation between Michael Myers and Laurie, but one of them could be still standing at the end and go onto the next film.

POLL: Over the many years I have done this blog, people have suggested that I make videos for YouTube; I have started a poll, in the right-hand column of this blog (mobile users, please navigate to the Week's Most Popular Posts) so you can let me know which you prefer: reading posts or watching videos. Please take a moment to record your vote so I know the medium you most prefer to receive this content. Even if this is the first time you have visited this site, you are welcome to vote, but please, so there is an accurate accounting, only vote once. Writing is important to my own thought process, so even if there is an overwhelming number of readers who prefer the videos to the written posts, I will continue writing posts at this blog; however, there are times when I would be able to post more and more regularly because the writing process does take me awhile, so that is the reason I am taking a poll to discover how you want to interact with The Fine Art Diner. Thank you so much for taking the time to vote!

It's just a simple pumpkin, however, there are a number of devices employed in this image to provide clues as to why it appears more menacing then it should. First, the eyes are not symmetrical. There have been plenty of "crazy eyes" lately, but the right eye being larger than the left eye demonstrates that the right eye, being bigger, "sees more" than the left eye that is smaller. Next, the "nose" is slanted to the right side, and also fails to be symmetrical; the nose symbolizes a person's character (yes, I know the pumpkin isn't a person, just generally speaking): because the face is the seat of a person's identity--the means by which others distinguish us from the crowd--and the nose is the most prominent feature of the face, it reveals a person's sense of honor and their overall character; then there is the mouth. The right side of the mouth is much smaller than the left side of the mouth. Now, the right side of the pumpkin (lined up with the big eye, the nose and small mouth) is flat and even; the left side of the pumpkin (the small eye, basically no nose and big mouth) is slanted, and we can tell by looking at how the tree grows in the background. What we can deduce is that the pumpkin provides a visual commentary on the differences between the Right (the political conservatives) and the Left (the Liberals): the Right sees more and has a greater emphasis on their sense of honor, whereas the Left has a greater emphasis on their appetites (more on this below) and slant everything to their advantage. 

This is really a well-done trailer, and it truly looks horrifying: while remaining "true" to the original John Carpenter Halloween of 1978. Speaking of Carpenter, he has returned to guide and produce the film's resurrection, and that includes a cleaned-up time-line that basically erases all the other sequels but for the original film (so Laurie [Jamie Lee Curtis] never died, his psychiatrist didn't die, there weren't other murders, etc., but most importantly, Michael Myers has been in custody since the end of the very first film, and this is going to have repercussions for how we understand the film today. There are a few changes, however, and we will discuss these as well as whether the film appears to be socialist or capitalist.

Let's start by assuming that this film is going to go pro-socialist (I don't think it will, but let's just argue that for a moment) and see where that takes us with what we have. Michael Myers is a white male, and we know that socialists hate white males because they have been the dominant power-holders in Western civilization for a really, really long time. Laurie is female, and as Hillary Clinton declared after her presidential loss in 2016, "The future is female," so the idea of Laurie (a minority who has been oppressed by the fear of Michael Myers for forty years) killing the white male who has terrorized her for so long is finally going to destroy him once and for all is an appealing plot to those who want to start a revolution against the capitalism white male power symbolizes in the eyes of socialists. There are, however, some massive problems with the surmounting details of this trailer and while I could definitely be wrong--as always, we only have about 2 minutes of a 2 hour film--I think we have sufficient evidence to counter this pro-socialist narrative and see one that casts the villain as a socialist.

Not much is known about Martin's character at this point (Jefferson Hall, top image holding the mask) apart from being some kind of investigator/documentary film maker (does he have academic credentials in psychology, or is this just a project he randomly picked to work on?) but there is an important detail we do know: he is after facts.  Holding up the mask to Myers and trying to get him to look at it is Martin's attempt to make Myers "face reality" and hold him accountable for what he did. These are both traits the Left hates: those who want facts instead of lies, and those who look to reality rather than utopia.What does Myers do in this scene? One could argue Michael Myers does nothing, but the truth is, Myers refuse to turn around and face his own real self in the mask and he refuses to accept accountability for what he did. THIS IS THE LEFT. This is the reason Myers is "tethered" to the weight in the courtyard where this scene takes place: Martin is trying to "pin him down" and make him confirm the truth, but Myers refuses to do so; we have seen similar scenes to this in Hitman: Agent 47, for example, when Agent 47's car is speared and tethered by officials in an effort to hold him down; Dom in Fast and Furious 8 is stealing nuke codes from the Russians and his team launches tethers at his car to keep him from going anywhere and in The Mummy we see the Mummy in the forest being stabbed with tethering devices by Prodigium soldiers (there is also a scene in the new trailer for the upcoming film The Nun where a demon disguised as a nun pins a holy nun against the wall). Trying to "pin down" Liberals, such as Hillary Clinton, and make them face facts is like trying to get Michael Myers to face you and accept responsibility for what he has done.
In the second image, we see the dead body of a car mechanic who has been murdered by Myers and the mechanic is naked; why? Myers needed to get out of his inmate clothing so he stole the uniform of a car mechanic. On one level, we have seen something like this before in Man Of Steel: after having saved the crew on an exploding oil rig, Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) steals some clothes from a truck parked at a house, but this truly echoes the plight of Kent: he doesn't have an identity of his own so he is having to "steal" the identity of normal people; what about Michael Myers? IF Myers is going to be a socialist figure, then it makes sense that he would "dress himself in the uniform of the working man" to wage war against those who stand in his way to power. Now, if you will look closely at this middle image (you can click on it to enlarge) the dead man's body lies in a pool of blood, and there is a metal object on the ground beside him; it's almost like he's been castrated and the metal object is the phallic symbol; why? As you have heard me say countless times, socialists have labeled the white man as their enemy because they are the "power holders" in Western civilization, and this mechanic is skilled, he's a worker who performs a service to people who have cars, so this would make the mechanic a "worthy kill" in the eyes of Myers who wants to assume the identity--not of a skilled worker--rather, of someone who has been "left behind" in a prosperous economy and wants more of his "fair share."
The murder of the car mechanic receives greater emphasis from the bottom image: Martin, the investigator who holds up the mask in the top image, has been murdered by Myers and his dead body is now being used as a battering ram in the women's bathroom as Myers attempts to get to Dana, Martin's female partner in the investigation. Why use Martin's body? Having killed a white male, Myers has gained power because he got away with it (think of the #MeToo movement and the way men have been removed from their position simply because they have been accused, with no due process or trial, just by accusation, and the more men who have been removed power, the greater the power of #MeToo and #TimesUp has become) so the "trophy" of Martin's dead body becomes the means to be emboldened to seek out more trophies (this is discussed further below with the teeth).

Conservatives have a joke about liberals: if they want free healthcare, free food and only the cops to have guns, they should go to prison, and that is exactly where Michael Myers has spent nearly his entire life. When we see the security at the hospital where the documentary film is being filmed, those security measures are to keep the inmates inside the prison; this isn't very different from the opening scene of The Man From UNCLE when we see the security around the Berlin Wall and the measures the socialist/communist government was taking to keep "citizens" inside the Wall during the Cold War. When we see the security around Laurie's house, it's to keep Michael Myers out, it's for her personal safety and protection, and this is one of the main points of separation between a socialist and capitalist narrative of the film: Laurie is not a victim.

This top image is of the mannequins Laurie uses for target practice; notice how they resemble the mask of Myers, with their dirty, white color and the holes and decay? That's because the color white symbolizes the person whose soul is alive in faith, hope and charity, or the dead corpse of a person who is dead to faith, hope and charity (a corpse turns white as it decomposes). Laurie's greatest strength is that she knows exactly what Michael Myers is: someone who has no soul (this is symbolic because if he were an actual person, of course he would have a soul, regardless of how evil he was, but this is a fictitious work so Michael Myers is someone with no soul). This means that Laurie--who prays every night as she tells the sheriff--is protecting her soul from the soul-less-ness of Michael Myers.
On another level, we can see the difference between Laurie--who is prepared and armed to do battle--with Dana, the woman trapped in the bathroom stall by Myers and who has no protection. It would generally make sense to say that, had Martin not been killed, Martin would help to protect her, however, since Martin is dead, he's now being used to kill Dana (and this is a primary objective of socialists, to demonize "toxic masculinity" and the impulse men have to defend and protect women, because if men stop being masculine, they are no longer going to recognize the impulse to protect women, children, their homes or homeland). There is another dimension to Myers attacking Dana in the women's bathroom: the transgender problem. The last two years of the Obama administration saw legislation being forced upon schools, businesses and any public building to allow transgendered individuals to use the bathroom which they "identified with" rather than use the facilities of the gender with which they were born.
The new Halloween shares some similarities with the 2016 film Cure For Wellness which takes place in an "asylum," the doctor wears a mask to hide his real identity and, most importantly, many patients lose their teeth. Teeth are a part of the mouth and obviously allow us to eat solid food. As part of the mouth, teeth contribute to symbolizing the appetites, and we know there are bad appetites (sex, drugs, gambling, any self-destructive pursuit) but, as Cure For Wellness and Halloween are pointing out, there are also good appetites: personal success, integrity, virtue. When Myers opens his hand and the pulled teeth fall out, we don't know if they are the teeth of the mechanic who has been killed, Martin's or someone else's, but it's a terribly threatening situation, and it could be Myers (as a socialist figure) accusing Dana of a specific appetite: wanting privacy in the bathroom. (We have seen pulled teeth used in another great horror film, The Blair Witch Project, when one of the boys had what appeared to be some of his pulled teeth wrapped in a piece of his torn shirt). 
Let's take a detour. I know I have been on a Harry Potter kick lately, however, there was an important detail which links up here nicely and we have more information on it then the Halloween trailer. In Chamber Of Secrets, the Slytherin Chamber Of Secrets is located in the girls' bathroom; why? The "genocide" of the muggle-born students is a socialist agenda (think of the Holocaust launched by the Nazis and NAZI stands for national socialist party of Germany), and socialism is a matriarchal system (emphasis is placed on survival of the species rather than on the development of the individual as in a patriarchal system) so being in the girls' bathroom--where waste is disposed of--is the perfect place to release a monster that will dispose of the "waste" of the muggle-born students who Salazer Slytherin believed should not be at Hogwarts. So, back to Halloween, we have the "face of socialism" in Michael Myers attacking a woman's bathroom stall; this should be a place of privacy for her as she "disposes of her waste" but the real waste Myers has come to dispose of is Martin, the white male heterosexual documentary film maker, and now her; in other words, women who think it's okay to attack white men because of their masculine/white privilege should be wary because the same monster is apt to come looking for them as well. Rather than quelling his appetite for murder, having killed the mechanic and now the film maker only makes Myers want to kill more, and that's the problem with revolutions (as anyone who has studied the French or Soviet Revolutions knows) when the monster is unleashed, he's impossible to stop and is even likely to kill the very ones who unleashed him to begin with. In this circumstance, the teeth aren't indicting Dana, it's Myers making a statement to her that he has appetites himself and they are violent ones (because he has pulled the teeth out of the head of his victim[s]).

"I've prayed every night that he would escape."
"Why the hell would you do that?"
"So I can kill him."
This brief dialogue reveals a number of important clues regarding the universe in which this story takes place. First of all, there is a God (Laurie prays every night); secondly, there is a hell (the sheriff can't invoke a place that he doesn't believe exists). This is fundamentally opposed to socialism because socialism emphatically denies there is any god so the government can become god and create all the "morality" and ethics for that society (consider, for example, how difficult it would be in China to enforce the one-child rule via forced birth control and abortions if the citizens were Christians, the government wouldn't have a chance). But this dialogue, and numerous images in the film, also lead us to the undermining of another important socialist tenant: the government is supposed to take care of you because you can't take care of yourself.

The first shot we see of Laurie--after all these years--is the scar on her arm from when Myers stabbed her. The arm symbolizes strength, and in stabbing Laurie in the arm, Myers intended to weaken her by making her see that she is his victim and she isn't strong enough to overcome him; the opposite happened. Laurie has used that scar to strengthen her and insure she won't be his victim again.
In the bottom image, we see a young girl babysitting a little boy in bed. Now, why does Myers like killing babysitters? Because these young girls use their free time to watch the kids of couples who have sufficient expendable income to not only go out and enjoy themselves for the evening, but also to pay a sitter to watch their kids for the night. The sitter, in turn, has some extra money with which to buy things she wants/needs or to save that money. babysitting is, in other words, a service that has arisen out of the free market addressing the need of parents who occasionally need someone to watch their kids, and the need has been met by (mostly) young women who are happy to exchange their time and experience to earn some extra money (and the idea of "earn" rather than just "give" is important, because "basic income" is being touted more and more across the US, so instead of providing a service like babysitting, young women like the one above would just be given $400 a month by the government). At least in the trailer, the white babysitter and the black child appear to be getting along well; the boy asks her to shut the closet door, and she can't because Michael Myers is hiding in there. (In The Conjuring, we also saw the witch Bathsheba hiding in the armoire, the stand-alone clothes closet). It's possible that there is something specific about this closet we don't get from the trailer, however, my first thought was, "Liberals want to make blacks thinking that whites are racists, and they want to 'bring white racism against blacks out of the closet' and expose it" but, just as Myers doesn't belong in this closet--it's not his house--so that manufactured racism the Left is always talking about also doesn't belong at the feet of conservatives because it shouldn't be there, and it's only there to kill white people, not actually do anything to help black people. So, while socialism wants women to think they need a socialist society to level the playing field against men, Halloween is attempting (at least, I think) to demonstrate how socialism actually hurts women, by leaving them unprotected, not able to offer a service like babysitting or find a babysitter for your own kids when you yourself want to go out.

Laurie is armed and dangerous.
She has been training and preparing herself for this final showdown, not leaving her safety to anyone else, especially the government. Laurie has taken responsibility for herself and her property, which socialists argue people are not capable of doing: to socialists, people are dumb animals who have to have all their needs provided for them. Laurie proves otherwise. Socialists particularly want women to feel at a disadvantage and helpless since it's their plight in society and the workplace that socialists want to capture: women don't have power, socialists tell them, so give us power and we will make life better for you. The problem is, and I believe Halloween is going to do this in every scene, many people believe that socialism really wants to take care of them and really wants to make their life better, and this is the reason why Michael Myers escapes from a bus,...

Why a mask?
When we commit sins, the beauty and brilliance of our souls diminish with each act of sinfulness we make; our soul is the greatest testament we have to our individuality and our dignity. Without our soul, we have no individuality, we have no identity. The greater our virtue, however, the greater our individuality. Horror villains typically have a mask or disfigured face because they represent how sin has eaten up a soul and left it with no identity but the scars of addiction and eternal death. When we see a villain like Michael Myers, the fear comes from the possibility that, "It could be us," our soul could come to look like him: no body. Giving ourselves to addiction and sinful behaviors doesn't increase our individuality because those behaviors are self-destructive and hence, we sabotage ourselves when we commit them, rather than ennobling ourselves. 

It's rather a familiar cinematic device: a group of highly dangerous criminals are being transported on a bus and the bus crashes, allowing the inmates to escape (Fast Five from 2011, when Dom is being transported and Brian and Mia wreck the bus and The Fugitive with Harrison Ford of 1993 are two examples); so if it's so familiar, why use it again? This is the type of "silly plot point" that horror-genre critics despise, so why risk using it? "Seriously," they ask, "They take Michael Myers out of the prison on Halloween and think everything will be okay?" But this is the very point: because Michael Myers and the danger he poses has been forgotten, people have to be reminded. Even if it's a "prison bus," a "bus" most often reminds Americans (at least) of the big yellow school bus which picks kids up and drops them off after school; and a bus serves as a "vehicle of education," so when we see a bus, we are going to be "schooled about something" and, in this case, it's the danger of letting what Michael Myers symbolizes to roam about freely.

This is a part of the "documentation" of Michael Myers, and this is at least the third time we have seen "paper work" on an important character (consider James Bond's papers retrieved from the fire at his home in Spectre, and the MACUSA papers on Newt Scamander in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindlewald). There is something very interesting about this photo (yes, he stands with his back to us and his face to the wall, and that would be an indication of refusing to "face reality" and the real world, preferring, instead, to live in a world where he can create his own reality like a painting on a black canvas [the wall]): his right shoulder appears to be severely bruised. Why does this matter? The shoulders symbolize burdens we take on, we don't take on are willing or unwilling to carry; the bruised shoulder indicates that he has a "chip on his shoulder" and the burden he has made his own is to make everyone else feel the same pain he has felt, regardless of whether that is a realistic assessment of reality or not. 

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Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner

The Nun Trailer (2018)

At this moment, I am truly excited about this film. As you may recall, the first film, The Conjuring, was definitely pro-socialist, but then, the follow-up, Annabelle, was definitely pro-capitalist; then the biggest surprise came when The Conjuring II: The Enfield Poltergeist (made by the same writers and director as the first one) did a complete round-about and was pro-capitalist! There is always the possibility of making a mistake when I analyze a two-minute trailer from a two-hour film, so you and me need to keep that in mind, but I am excited and think this is going to be a really great film on several levels!
This is an interesting poster, most notably, the nun's face is cut in half by the boundary of the poster, and the eye that shows is yellow. When a character is presented in this situation, it demonstrates that there is a part of the character we are not seeing, a part of the character we can't see. Her eye is also yellow; as we know, yellow symbolizes our dignity so, as a nun, when she was alive, she was supposed to recognize the dignity of her calling in being a Bride of Christ, however, she failed to do that, so she became a demon instead. Also interesting is the visible eyebrow: we know that eyes symbolize our "sight," as in spiritual sight into ourselves/others, or even our ability to see things in a truthful light; the eyebrow, the hair above the eye, symbolizes our ability to think upon what it is our eyes have seen, so, when a character has "damaged eyebrows," or no eyebrows, that character lacks the ability to meditate upon the truth, which is the whole point of entering the religious life, to mediate upon God and the Truth He has passed onto us, and how we are called to manifest that Truth in the world.
We can also faintly see veins in the eye area, and this is a technique that has always impressed me (think, if you will, of the aged Louis [Brad Pitt] towards the end of Interview With the Vampire and how his pale face showed those same veins). The purpose of veins is to carry blood throughout the body and insure healthy circulation so there is a healthy body; when we see an emphasis on veins like this, it suggests the exact opposite: this is a "bloodless" person who doesn't have any healthy circulation, therefore, not a healthy body. When we examine a character's cheeks, we need to think of Matthew 5:39 when Christ tells us, whoever hits you on your right cheek, turn and offer them the left cheek as well. When a character has normal or fat cheeks, they tend to let things (like insults or harm against them) roll off, they don't hold a grudge; when we see characters with shard cheekbones, like Angelina Jolie's Maleficent, these are characters who hunger after revenge and don't let any insult or slight escape them, and it may prove to be true with the protruding cheekbones we see of Valak.
The face symbolizes our identity, because it's our face by which others identify us; the nose is the most prominent feature on our face, so our nose identifies our honor and whether or not we have an overall good or bad character; when we see a character who has something wrong with their nose, or something happens to the nose of a character, it's usually a sign that they have done something to disgrace or shame themselves. Below, I will discuss Valak's nun's habit (that's an entire subject in and of itself) however, this poster brings to light an interesting detail. Please note, if you will, the side of the face at her eye level and then to your left and the different "layers" of her head coverings: there is the layer closest to her face, then a slightly crinkled layer, then the outer layer of the heavier, black exterior head-dress (this has a proper name, and I am sorry I couldn't find what it's called). Note how that inner-layer is "crinkled," almost like it's shriveled, and because it's on her head, anything on the head is going to denote our thoughts or our thought processes, so something about the core of her thoughts is shriveled and distorted.
What about "The Nun" title? Obviously, the "T" in "The" is a cross, but what's the purpose of the cross? To fight the backwardness of the reversed "N" in "Nun." "Nun" is a palindrome--the same word spelled forwards or backwards--but with the "N" reversed the way it is, it's not just a palindrome, it's also a mirror-image, that is, if you held it up in a mirror, it would still spell "NUN" but with the first "N" reversed. This is going to be an important image for the film, for example, we know the nun who became possessed by the demon Valak killed herself, so it might be a commentary upon the way "death" is taken up by religious: when one becomes a monk or nun, they are called to "die to the world," but this particular nun died to God in killing herself, so she turned her vocations backwards. The same kind of device is at work at the beginning of the trailer when we see the painting of Valak which Ed Warren painted from his dream and then the lights go out and we still see the glowing eyes of the painting, the (photographic) negative, if you will.

Work has been absolutely crazy, please, please exclude another long delay in getting posts up, however, I hope this will excite you as much as it does myself! The first trailer for The Nun has been released, and it's loaded with material for us to discuss. The Nun is a part of The Conjuring universe based upon the real-life journals of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. The third film in the series (after The Conjuring then Annabelle) was The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Poltergeist, and it was in the opening sequence that viewers were first introduced to the malefic but ambiguous figure of the demon Valak inhabiting the body of a Catholic nun (when Lorraine goes into the basement at the Amityville house they are investigating). Now, in The Enfield Poltergeist, I interpreted Valak/the nun as a temptation for Lorraine Warren that she should have done something different with her life rather than marry Ed, specifically, that Valak was tempting her to think that God wanted her to become a nun rather than marry Ed (please see The Conjuring 2 for more); that interpretation still holds because that is what the film makers decided to do with it in that film, however, we now have a significantly expanded body of information from which to draw (the trailer warns you to watch it until the end, however, after the release date is given, there is nothing else to see):

By the way, the woman portraying the young nun is Taissa Farmiga, the sister of Vera, who portrays Lorraine Warren in the other films (and, in The Nun 2, we are being promised that the stories of the nun will be linked to Lorraine and why she experienced Valak in The Enfield Poltergeist). Now, here are the two official synopsis-es providing us with some additional information the trailer has not yet provided:

In 1952 Romania, a nun, a Catholic priest and a novice, sent by the Vatican, investigate the mysterious suicidal death of a nun at the Cârța Monastery. (Wikipedia, The Nun)

When a young nun at a cloistered abbey in Romania takes her own life, a priest with a haunted past and a novitiate on the threshold of her final vows are sent by the Vatican to investigate. Together they uncover the order's unholy secret. Risking not only their lives but their faith and their very souls, they confront a malevolent force in the form of the same demonic nun that first terrorized audiences in 'The Conjuring 2,' as the abbey becomes a horrific battleground between the living and the damned.  (Written by Warner Bros., Internet Movie Database)

This is what remains today of Carta Monastery in Romania where much of the film's events take place; does it look somehow familiar? It reminds me of the monastery opening the first scene of last year's The Mummy with Tom Cruise. Both Carta Monastery (pictured above) and Waverley Abbey in The Mummy are Cistercian--emphasizing self-sufficiency through labor--so the similar aesthetic would have been applied to the construction of both holy houses. By linking up with The Mummy through visual and locational clues, The Nun--in effect--wants to "quote" The Mummy and remind audiences of what they saw in The Mummy so The Nun can join-in on that same dialogue. Another important link-up (although many films do this, it's not unique to The Nun) is provide us with a specific date of something taking place in a religious house (and, by the way, neither monastery nor abbey are still in use today): The Mummy opens in 1157 and The Nun takes place in 1952, which actions of those dedicated to the service of God had taken leading to the events being depicted in the film. 

Let's start with 1952 and Romania.
What was happening in Romania in 1952? Like the rest of Europe, Romania attempted to recover from the ravages of World War II, however, under the Paris Peace Conference of 1947, Romania fell to the Soviet Union and became communist (if you examine this brief but painful history of Romania post-WWII, you can see all the trade-marks of the brutal communist regime at work). In 1952, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej solidified his power and leadership of Romania as General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party through his party purge (getting rid of his rivals) making Romania the most loyal satellite of the USSR: this lead to the re-distribution of valuable Romanian resources to the USSR and the furthering of the communist agenda throughout the world. All of this, I am certain, is important for the understanding of this film (please see the caption below for more explanation). Now, let's turn our attention to the reason Sister Irene and Father Burke (Damian Bichir) go to Carta Monastery.

These two stills are seen in the trailer above when Sister Irene looks down a hallway and is then followed by the nun with the blacked out face (top image), followed by an attack from another nun (bottom image). We have no idea where in the story this scene takes place, but we can still make some important deductions about it. Sister Irene walks down a hallway, and this image hearkens us back to The Conjuring II: The Enfield Poltergeist when Valak appears to Lorraine Warren in Lorraine's home at the end of her hallway. Hallways--as we have seen in both Spectre and John Wick Chapter 2--have the same symbolic significance of a bridge, that is, the hallway/bridge shows a progression, something has changed or is about to change; whereas bridges are exterior to the character (symbolizing things which are likely beyond the control of the character) hallways are interior thereby communicating to the audience that a progression takes place within the character and their free will is at play, i.e., they are about to make an important decision which will effect their own outcome. Without the sub-titles on, it's impossible to hear/understand (an excellent strategy of "noise," that is, the interference with our ability to hear because the noise serves a purpose, for example, Sister Irene has a calling to fulfill, she can hear the calling, but we can't, and the "noise" of what the nun behind her says puts us in our place and why Sister Irene has been called); so, what does the nun tell to Sister Irene? "Sister, please, this way," and when Sister Irene begins to question her instead of going down that way, the other nun side-swipes her to force Sister Irene's will.
A word about Sister Irene: she's a novice, which means she has not yet made her final vows to become a nun, she's in the "courtship" stage and discerning whether or not the life of a nun is actually her calling. We saw Valak challenge both Ed and Lorraine regarding their calling to matrimony is The Conjuring II, and now Valak challenges Sister Irene about her calling as well (what was right for Ed and Lorraine is different compared to what is right for Sister Irene because of the individuality and gifts each have been blessed with by God; our vocations in life is how God wants us to use our gifts to glorify Him and gain salvation for our souls as well as, hopefully, the souls of others, so one cannot simply state that the religious life is absolutely the greatest good, nor the married life the greatest good; rather, the greatest good is for the one being called to a particular state to answer that call so their gifts can be maximized and their full individuality revealed: a woman might become a nun out of fear for not finding a husband, for example, and so her gift of faith is undermined by fear, while a woman who was called to become a wife might become a nun instead so she doesn't have to take care of a husband; this is what "discerning" is, not only understanding what God is calling you to do, but understanding your motivations for wanting or not wanting to do something). The name "Irene" means "peace," and we see her holding the lantern--the light symbolizes the inner "illumination" of her spirit, but also the light of illumination of her calling to be a nun and carry the light of hope to others. We see Sister Irene walking down this hallway, and we also see her looking down a hallway but not going down it; this might be a manifestation of a choice she has made or will have to make in the narrative. After she decides not to go down that hallway (what she is looking for--and this should be taken on a deeper level--isn't down that "path" the hallway represents) then the blacked face nun appears behind her, suggesting that Irene has made the right choice, so now evil has to come in and tempt her or, more likely, frighten her from taking the right path she has decided upon (the nun coming out from another hallway she didn't check). It's not a coincidence that the "tactic" the demon(s) use is reminiscent of Jurassic Park: the raptors, if you recall, hunt in groups of two, so one raptor acts as a decoy to draw the attention and focus of the desired prey, while the second raptor hunts the prey ("Clever girl"). What's the point of quoting this scene? So that we understand that, just like the raptors, these demons are hunters, and we are the hunted.
Now, what about the black-faced nun? I would like to suggest that this is an example of "erasure," that is, something is stricken out to show that far more is being implied than what is being seen, because what the artist/film maker wants to say, is impossible to say, but some means must be employed to achieve at least a partial understanding of what the artist/film maker needs to communicate (please see Sous rature for more, as well as scrolling down to the image of the Zero Dark Thirty poster in my post for The Man From UNCLE where I discuss "under erasure" extensively). So, to try and clear-up this muddled mess, the nun's face is blacked-out because the importance and true-nature of her presence, her being, cannot be communicated, so it's "erased" to show that she is an agent of evil, and we might even add, that Sister Irene herself is at risk for losing her identity if she makes the wrong decision (the "face" symbolizes the seat of our identity, it's how others identify who we are, which is why blacking-out the nun's face is such a serious concern, it means that her devotion to evil has completely over-taken her entire being; for more on this topic, please see the first caption under the mask of Michael Myers in Lessons From Horror Films: Why People Do Stupid Things). The nun with the blacked-out face "distracts" Sister Irene while another nun out-flanks her and pins her against the wall; this is the part I think will relate to Romania in 1952, and to the rest of the world today. Romania, like Sister Irene, were going down their path, when they themselves were distracted by Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej's rise to power and his purges, and--like the nun who out-flanks Sister Irene--the Soviet Union moved in Romania and took them by total surprise, pinning them down into a position from which they couldn't escape; similarly, we can interpret the nun with the blacked-out face to the distraction of identity politics throughout recent international elections (the face is the seat of identity) so that the real socialist-thrust of the movement could side-swipe us and pin us against a wall (for more on the role of identity politics in recent elections, please see this excellent article at The Intercept).
One last note about this brief scene: when Sister Irene is about to turn to look behind her and see the first nun, she switches the lantern from her left hand to the right hand; why? The left side is typically associated with evil (practicing witches, for example, refer to the path of witchcraft and Satan worship as the "Left Path") so Sister Irene, sensing she is about to face evil, switches the symbolic "light of illumination" from her weaker side--the left hand--to her stronger side, her right hand. She knows she is about to face something evil, and she's preparing herself. It's not just that God has given Irene the gift of vision to "see" the spiritual battle against Valak that must be waged; we, the audience, have also been given the gift to "see" what is happening in our country and in the world by the under-handed ploys of socialists trying to destroy the world and bring in their New World Order, and because we can "see" the evil they manifest, like Sister Irene, we, too, must fight this spiritual battle on all levels.

At the time of this posting, it's scarcely been two weeks since the high-profile suicides of fashion-designer Kate Spade and celebrity-chef Anthony Bourdain, and we now have the fictional suicide of a nun in a distant land and a distant time. What I am about to say does not reflect suicide in real-life: it's a horrible dilemma in which a person finds themselves, and I am in no way judging them, so please, remember these two troubled people in your prayers, as well as their loved ones, and everyone facing the temptation to end their life. Art, however, is a experience both connected to reality but beyond it, where the discussion of events are real, but the arena is entirely sealed-off in by its own rules and purpose, so, again, this is a total and absolute disclaimer that what I am about to say applies only to fictional narrative and not real individuals and their souls.

Father Burke (pictured left) is portrayed by Damian Bichir, who was an interesting choice for the role (we'll discuss that later after we discover what Father Burke's "haunted past" means). Just as Sister Irene's name means "peace," I don't think "Burke" was chosen without purpose. I will be the first to admit this is a stretch and not a likely possibility, however, Edmund Burke (pictured right) was a political philosopher and conservative politician who was a defender of the moral fabric of society and the Church; when I saw that Bichir's character was named "Burke," this was my first thought, although it's probably just a stretch of my imagination. It's also possible, though not likely, that his name refers to Archbishop Raymond Burke, a staunch conservative of the Catholic Church, and one of the first leaders Pope Francis "moved" to a symbolic role away from real policy making and power. Hopefully, when the second trailer drops, we will learn more of his role, in the meantime, we will just have to keep our options open.

At least at this point, we don't know why the unnamed nun kills herself, nor do we know the method she has employed to end her life. What we do know, however, is that this demon makes a habit of possession, which has been the theme since the very first Conjuring film. "Possession," in The Conjuring was a play on words, because when the Perron family moves into the "haunted house," they take possession of it, and in taking possession of the house, Carolyn Perron becomes possessed because Carolyn wanted that house (please see The Devil's Hour: The Conjuring for analysis on how the film is pro-socialist). In the following films, however, "possession" became a device to illustrate how socialism "takes over" people and a system, in effect, the demon is a parasite feeding off the person and wrecking everything in its path. This is how I think (after having seen two minutes of a two-hour film) the role of the nun's suicide is going to be reflected by Romania in 1952: Romania committed suicide in allowing themselves to become communist, and were then over-run by the USSR sucking up all their resources for their own country and projects. So, where does Sister Irene come into play?

If you will recall, in The Conjuring, the Annabelle doll (which is real and actually kept locked-up in the Warrens' personal museum to this day) was dramatically changed from the original "Raggedy Ann" type doll that was the original Annabelle from which they exorcised a demon (you can find the original and The Conjuring doll at this link, scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see it) and they had every right to make that artistic change; we can see the same being done with the habit of the nun on the left, vs the real Cistercian habit pictured on the right; again, they have every right to do so, however, comparison with the original helps us to draw out the differences and understand what the film makers wish to communicate with the stylized changes. So, the demonic nun's habit is predominantly black. Black, as we know, always symbolizes death: the "good death" of the devout, spiritual religious is to die to things of the world so they can nourish the spiritual values that will be their treasure in heaven; the "bad death" is to die to things of the spirit, and nourish the worldly appetites (power, sex, money, addiction, etc.). Knowing this is a demonic nun, we know she is dead to things of the spirit; why? The white piece surrounding her head and extending to her shoulders tells us. The shoulders symbolize the burdens we carry, whether we willingly take them on or they are forced upon us (super heroes, like Thor, for example, wear a red cape because he takes the burden upon himself and he is willing to spill his blood for those he has vowed to protect). The nun's white shoulder covering should symbolize the burden of faith, which is what white symbolizes; so, she wasn't willing to carry the burden of faith, and because the piece also covers her head, it might be a sign that she rationalized away her faith in God, or she didn't have sufficient faith to get her through her trials and temptations. The black belt she wears is meant to be a sign of chastity and the resisting to temptations of the flesh; when we learn more about her, we will be able to comment upon this further, but for now, it's interesting that they did, in fact, keep the belt as part of the habit. Just as a note, when we first see Valak confronting Lorraine Warren in the Amityville basement, Valak wears a brown habit (I think it's a Franciscan or Carmelite habit) because brown denotes humility in its virtue; when Valak wears brown, however, it means "dirty," of the earth, because Lorraine is being accused of Valak for marrying Ed (and having sexual relations with him) rather than becoming the Bride of Christ; they have since changed Valak's habit to make it black, however, that doesn't negate the symbolic significance of when Lorraine first encounters him wearing the brown habit.
Her face, of course, is deathly white; why? Because of Western funeral practices today, we often don't experience this, however, when a body begins to decay in death, it turns white, and that symbolizes that the person's soul has died, and her face is, after all, the seat of her identity. Her eyes are blacked out (black make-up surrounds her eyes) because she cannot tell the difference between "good death" and "bad death" (recall our discussion of the "yellow eye" we see in the poster at the very top of this post, and please also look at the very last image montage of this post for examples of women with blacked-out eyes from other films). Her mouth is also blacked-out; why? The mouth symbolizes the appetites, so since it's black, she has an appetite for death, or things which cause death (sin). Her hands are the only other part of her body visible; hands symbolize our honor, because our hands do our deeds, and if we have done honorable deeds, our hands are clean; if we have done dirty deeds, our hands are dirty. Her hands have blackened nails and are shriveled and bony, because she's a corpse, but she's also one who has done the work of the devil, rather than the honorable work of God. This is just a superficial, general analysis, once again, when we learn more about the story-line, we can complete our understanding of why they have dressed her in this specific way. 

Sister Irene can see the nun, Valak, the same way Lorraine Warren can see spirits, that is why Sister Irene is chosen to go on the mission with Father Burke; however, I predict at this point, that it's also Sister Irene's ability to "see" (in the meditative, spiritual dimension) which is why God has granted her the visions so Irene can accept the mission, do battle and claim victory for her soul. We can't know what gifts God has given us until He sends us the test or battle to put those gifts to work. It's of critical importance that it's the Vatican which has sent Burke and Irene to the monastery because that demonstrates the authority of the Church, the Hand of God at work, the obedience of the two Catholics and not the whim and self-direction of two individuals who have decided what they want to do on their own.
Why is this important?

Finit hic, Deo, Latin translating roughly, "Here ends God." Now, we know that God is, literally, everywhere because nothing exists without God willing or allowing it: God is even "in hell" in the sense that it's His divine justice enacting the torments of the damned and not just some random, accidental chaos. It's not to say, "God ends here" and there is no one to protect you, rather, this is the section of the battle grounds, the testing arena where God is with you, but you will sink or swim on your own; God has allowed this evil to exist because, as Pope Saint Leo the Great wrote, "There is no great victory without great battles."
There is, however, a second meaning to "God ends here." Think of socialist/communist countries where God and religion are outlawed, such as Cuba, Vietnam, China, the former USSR and its satellites; God is still there in those countries, but God is illegal; why? The government tries fulfilling the role of God to the people, and the government doesn't like competition.

Well, there was a great film made (completely panned by everyone but myself) called The Devil Inside about two young priests being trained by the Vatican to do exorcisms, but the two priests started doing exorcisms on their own, which means they were committing the sin of pride in thinking they knew better than the Vatican did; even though people make mistakes--including those in power--God allows these trials for us so that we can become like God (which was the promise the serpent made to Eve in the Garden in eating the forbidden fruit) but God wants us to become like Him in holy obedience because Jesus was obedient, even obedient to death on a cross.

This is an interesting scene for a couple of reasons. First, a "forbidden hallway," like we have above, is a passage (as discussed earlier) but one guarded by the cross. Now I don't think the director is Catholic, or has a Catholic background because to Catholics, two pieces of wood nailed together are just two pieces of wood nailed together; the reason it's a Cross and not just a cross is because Jesus died on it for our sins and paid the debt we could not, which is why Catholics always have a Crucifix, that is, a cross with a representation of the body of Christ upon it, that's where it's power to fight evil and protect us comes from. Be that as it may, this image looks a lot like the scene from Monster Squad when one of the kids has to go into a room that has been protected by crosses to guard the amulet so Dracula can't get it; the same kind of theory is used throughout the recent Tom Cruise version of The Mummy, when quicksilver guards the tomb of Ahmanet from being opened, and specifically, the four watchers statues surrounding her sarcophagus, but in terms of Christianity, it's at Waverly Abbey that the Knife of Set was kept in the reliquary (a statue containing one or more relics of saints to guard over the church and alter) and the Stone of Set being buried with the Crusader monk at the start of the film. What's important about this image is the validation that it's the visuals of Christianity which protect from evil and have power to keep evil from creeping out into the rest of the world, especially at a time when there is such a powerful, secular war being waged against Christianity and Christians.

On the last note, we should remember that "Valac/Valak," the name of the demon possessing the nun, and whose name was given in The Conjuring II, is "an angelically winged boy riding a two-headed dragon, attributed with the power of finding treasures." The "angelically winged boy" is the "good" that appears to people that allows Valak to deceive them: for example, becoming a nun is a good thing, however, it's not what God intended for Lorraine Warren, and that disobedience to God's will, or the lack of faith that God will direct your path and where you need to go, is the two-headed dragon, the doubt or indecision (the head is where our ability to think and reason comes from, so two heads means confusion and not able to make up the mind). The ability of Valak to "find treasure" is the demon's ability to see good, Christian people and the "treasure" they are storing in heaven, and steal it from them. Remember, we see the same treasure-thief in Smaug the dragon from The Hobbit, and it's up to little Bilbo Baggins to steal back that which was taken, specifically and symbolically, our relationship with God that was robbed from us with Original Sin. For our own world, we can see Valak as presenting himself to be some good, e.g., universal income, because you don't want people to suffer, do you? And then the two-headed dragon sweeping in of people not working at all and prices rising. So, at this point, I am very excited about this film, and I all ready can't wait for the second trailer! (I have also posted on the follow-up trailer, noted as the "Coffin Trailer" which you can find at this link here!).
Eat Your Art Out,
The Fine Art Diner

At the very top of this image we see Valak as painted by Ed Warren in The Conjuring II, and the same image which opens the trailer. Below that is Charlize Theron's character from Mad Max; next is Cate Blanchett from Thor: Ragnarok and, at the bottom is Katheryn Winnick as Lagertha in The Vikings. Besides being all females, each of these characters has their eyes blacked-out; why? The eyes symbolize our ability "to see" that not readily available to regular sight, it's our spiritual vision, our ability to look at ourselves and see our motivations, fears, hopes, dreams, sins and faults; we know that black symbolizes death, but none of these women are actually seeing "good death," (dying to themselves) rather, they have become the vision of death (quite literally for Cate Blachett who actually portrays Death, and of course the Valak-possessed nun). What's so eerie about these images is that woman symbolize life, women give birth, but not these women, they have become vehicles of death and death is what they see, but death is also what we see when we look at them. This is a fairly recent strategy in make-up (to black out women's eyes) as far as I know (if I am wrong, kindly drop me an email and let me know!!!) so what recent development regarding women can we say has given rise to this trend of painting their eyes out? Feminism. Feminism doesn't advocate women giving birth--rather, birth control and abortion--feminism doesn't advocate women looking at themselves and improving themselves, rather, looking at everyone else (especially white men) and blaming them for all their problems and demanding that everything be changed to accommodate them. There is a lot more to say about this, however, I am going to wait until the second trailer.