Gran Torino

I saw the movie Gran Torino recently, and noticed a particularly interesting use of light as symbolism. The main character, Walt, makes allusions throughout the movie to a guilt he carries concerning an incident from when he was a soldier in Korea. He is persued by a young priest, who promised Walt's dying wife that he would get her husband to come to confession. At the end of the movie, when Walt is preparing to provoke his own murder, he goes to church and goes through the ritual of confession, but interestingly, only mentions mundane, little sins, making no mention of Korea. Viewers discover why when he takes his teenage neighber and mentee into the basement, trying to calm the boy's lust for vengeance against the gang members, and tells him what it was like to kill a man. He then locks the boy in the basement, and through the screen of the basement door makes his final confession- telling about the teenager he shot. During the scene, the light cast shadows on the boy's face so he looks like he is behind a confession screen. While the dialogue doesn't explain why Walt didn't tell the priest his story, the light effects reveal that he meant to absolve his sin in a more personal way.