Repressed trauma has a way of tormenting people throughout their lives, to such an extent that one might find the distinction between reality and imagination start to fade away. Steven J. Mihaljevich’s psychological horror feature, Violett, is a haunting, poetic spectacle of dread and despair that showcases the harrowing depths of trauma and its tragic effects on people who find themselves caught up in it. With surreally evocative horror visuals peppered throughout, the movie acts more like an experience to be lived through rather than something that has to be dissected with facts and logic. The makers wanted to treat the narrative as a blank canvas that can portray the enchanting, terrifying beauty lying in the recesses of an afflicted mind—and they have managed to create a beautiful work of art while doing so.
Spoilers Ahead
Why Does Sonya Remain Paranoid For Her Daughter?
In the outskirts of an Australian suburb, Sonya lives with her husband Stan and their daughter, Violett, in a house that is as beautiful as it is haunting—much like Sonya’s own macabre imagination. Sonya lives in constant fear that something wrong might happen to her beloved daughter, and her mind conjures up dark, sinister interpretations out of ordinary situations, fueling her anxiety and paranoia exponentially. Stan is a supportive husband, but despite his efforts to sympathize with and help Sonya, she remains distant, resulting in a rift in their relationship.
Sonya’s fears are aggravated with the occasional news of children going missing from the township, and she starts to fear every presence that she comes across—to such an extent that only Sonya’s mother is allowed to visit their house. When she is not worrying herself to death by getting creeped out by every regular incident and done with her daily chores, which include taking Violett to school and bringing her back home, Sonya tries to put her mind at ease by playing the violin—but even the notes of her tunes can express only sorrow, anxiety, and pain. However, while spending her time with Violett, painting with her in the outdoors, Sonya is her best self—and she dreams of spending a carefree life with her daughter in an idyllic, heavenly landscape. Sonya’s mother occasionally visits her to try to talk her into patching up her relationship with Stan. Sonya remains distant still, and even though she loves her mother, there is a deep-seated estrangement between them that Sonya cannot shake off.
Sonya’s father, a sadistic, filthy human being, was abusive towards her, and growing up, Sonya’s experiences at the hands of the cruel monstrous being she had to call her father affected her psyche in a major way. Sonya’s father was a butcher by profession, and Sonya was exposed to the morbid nature of his trade at a young age. On one occasion, Sonya’s father tormented her with a sheep skull, terming it a demonic artifact, and the memory of being forced to spend a night in the slaughterhouse with the sheep skull affixed to the wall is forever etched in her mind, as Sonya’s imagination turned it into a demonic nightmarish creature. Sonya’s mother’s decision to leave her scumbag of a husband came too late; by then, her daughter’s mind had been plagued by darkness in a way that it was impossible to even hope for complete recovery. Sonya’s past continues to torment her in the present, affecting not only her but her close ones as well.
How Did Sonya Learn About Violett’s Passing?
Sonya’s troubled state of mind starts to leave a major impact on her daily life; she grows paler by the day while surviving without food or sleep, and any effort made by Stan to help her goes in vain. She grows more apprehensive about people outside; she sees a witch in the form of a local elderly fruit-seller lady; she sees a seemingly deranged, psychopathic painter as her neighbor who keeps blabbering ominous warnings; her personal ambition of becoming a skilled violinist is thwarted by her fears of rejection and humiliation. The root of the evil thoughts agonizing her is her father, who arrives in several morbid visions as well, threatening to take Violett away from her.
Another occasional irritating visitor to the house whom Sonya suspects to be a sinister presence as well is an elderly Handyman, who continues pursuing Sonya about letting him do some minor repairs on her house’s plumbing. A fed-up Sonya agrees on one occasion, and while doing repair work in the house, the Handyman finds a digital camera that had been hidden beneath their kitchen sink. Sonya recognizes it to be a present she had given to Violett as her birthday gift and becomes curious to learn how it ended up there. After returning home, Stan learns about it but remains suspiciously silent, and Sonya suspects him to have stolen the camera for reasons unknown after being unable to find it afterwards. Stan denies the allegations, mentioning that everything Sonya has been experiencing is a product of her afflicted mind, which prompts Sonya to call Violett to validate Stan’s words. Stan tries to shake Sonya out of her delusion, and she sees the nightmarish demonic creature returning to her life once again. Finally, Stan is forced to reveal the truth to her: Violett is no more, as she went missing while returning from school alone, and the authorities never found her body. Sonya’s pain of losing her daughter had resulted in her leading a false life with her imaginary daughter, who in her mind was alive and well and loved painting in the outdoors along with her mother. The fruit seller and painter were her mind’s projections, but the Handyman was a real person whom Sonya had suspected to have connections relating to her daughter’s disappearance. However, the poor guy had nothing to do with it and was unnecessarily harassed by authorities after Sonya had revealed her suspicion to Stan.
At present, Sonya is devastated after facing her reality, and Stan decides to take her to a mental rehabilitation center to help her process her grief. Sonya gradually learns to deal with her trauma from her childhood, as well as the loss of her daughter, and seemingly comes to terms with the truth. Sometime later. Sonya’s mother and Stan bring her back to the family home where memories of Violett still linger, but Sonya has accepted the truth and no longer gets haunted either by the harrowing trauma nor gets enticed by the false reality. After what seems to be a lifetime, Sonya is able to rekindle her relationship with Stan at long last, but Stan seemingly knows the entire truth about Violett’s disappearance, which starts tormenting him for keeping it from his wife.
Did Sony Learn About Her Daughter’s Death?
Violett’s camera had recorded something sinister, which Stan wanted to hide from Sonya, and the footage shows Violett playing with the sheep skull while Stan reprimands her harshly. The hints portray a dastardly picture of Stan murdering his own daughter in a fit of rage and covering up his crime to keep it from his mentally agonized wife. No longer being able to keep up the charade, one day Stan decides to take his leave from Sonya and hastily rushes off after disposing of Violett’s camera in a puddle. Sonya almost immediately goes on his pursuit and recovers the camera, and by then, Stan has reached the secret grave of her daughter, where he had buried her. Tormented by grief and guilt, Stan digs up Violett’s grave and puts a sunflower on her exhumed corpse—the flower was a recurrent motif in the movie that Sonya and Violett were seen painting, and Sonya’s dream sequence of a better life featured fields of sunflowers as well. Unable to carry his mental burden any longer, Stan takes his life over Violett’s grave by shooting himself to death, and Sonya arrives too late to do anything about it. The authorities arrive soon; everyone has a rough idea about the history of the ghastly death of Violett, but nothing definite. A distraught Sonya, sitting nearby, decides to play the recording that Stan was trying to hide so desperately, and the truth shocks her out of wits.
In Violett’s ending, the recorded footage reveals that after Stan left, Sonya saw her daughter playing with the sheep skull, which was similar in appearance to the artifact that her father tormented her with; Sonya had become unhinged. In her manic state, she unwittingly ended up killing Violett and, in shock of the incident, lost her consciousness. Stan arrived too late to rescue their daughter, and knowing the troubled state of Sonya’s mind, he decided to bury their daughter in secret and come up with the lie of Violett being missing when Sonya regained her senses. Stan was trying to save Sonya from the misery, but seeing her going through a downward mental spiral was not as tormenting for her as was rekindling their relationship and living a life based on a horrible lie. A terrified Sonya looks back at the cops swarming over the grave, possibly wondering what she should do next, as she considers the option of deleting the video, the only evidence connecting her to her daughter’s murder. It remains unknown as to what Sonya decides at the end, and the movie concludes on a cliffhanger.
What Is Going To Happen To Sonya?
Sonya’s life is once again put in the absolute depths of misery, as she has to carry the knowledge she’d murdered her own daughter and unwittingly become a reason for her husband’s death—all her life. It doesn’t matter whether she reveals the truth to the authorities and accepts her fate or not, as her mental agony will remain the same anyway. Sonya’s tragedy is the classic example of people with repressed trauma from pain and violence who, unable to find closure, end up unwittingly propagating the same—as her father’s abuse resulted in her violent outburst triggered by the harrowing memories of childhood. Sonya’s afflictions can also be interpreted as an artist’s tragedy as well, as her identity as a prolific artist and musician and the undertone of horror and darkness tinting her creativity and imaginative worldview are strong signifiers of such.
