#NEW EVREN ESSAY DROP

[kavalyera]

anyone wanna talk about the two yellow coded characters of john wick (helen and vincent) are so interesting in how they are set up in the series?

they share the same color, yet the meanings and symbolism between them differentiate so much. helen’s yellow provides warmth and comfort, that’s why she’s in bright scenes where the sun is out. that’s why her shots are the most brightest even if they are flashbacks. when john thinks about her, she’s almost angelic from how he remembers her. she’s the embodiment of light itself, contrasting heavily against john’s darker and much colder palettes.

but yellow with vincent is almost the complete opposite. for him, the sun is uncomfortable and hot and the first scene he’s in, the entire room is drenched in this golden yellow. it symbolizes his pride and his wealth that he’s accumulated through brutality most likely. it is nothing like the warmth helen holds. for vincent, the sunlight is twisted. it’s no longer a sanctuary for john to turn for helen is not there, there’s only vincent who wants nothing more than to see john dead and his enemies suffering.

it’s another piece of duality in jw, in which helen serves as a catalyst— a beginning while vincent serves as an ending to john’s story. while helen helps john live, vincent hunts him down in a manic chase. helen’s light is soft, loving, warm; everything you would expect from the typical dead, loving wife who wears a cardigan trope. and then at the end of the series, there is vincent, whose sunlight swallows other people and frames him as this icarus like figure. helen has angelic wings, she is the embodiment of hope for john— vincent is the other way around. vincent is john’s impending doom.

we see this play out in how helen and vincent have differences too. helen dies peacefully, she’s come to accept her illness in the bare amounts of screen time she has. vincent is shot dead, and moments prior to his death, he seems so scared about the idea of dying.

helen barely does anything, however she has the most influence over the narrative as a whole. vincent does everything he can to gain agency, yet all of it is meaningless in the end.

in the scenes at the louis vittion foundation (yes they filmed it there), vincent is shrouded in a dark green and a sickly yellow that percectly encapsulates his character. a shady, prideful man showered in nothing but his ego and riches

while the duel could have been vincent’s light, i argue it is helen’s sunlight. the quiet, almost soft atmosphere, the adrenaline rush coming down, and the soft breathing of the remaining characters, and how john looks at the light before he drops dead on the steps of sacre cœur.

while vincent’s light starts the movie, it’s helen who ends john wick chapter 4