I'm not quite sure what to make of Repression, a recent film also known as Marionette. But let's shift our gaze toward the ghost of Batman's past... Alejandro G. Iñárritu's film about a washed-up actor trying to make a comeback on Broadway has the kind of weird ending that puts Inception to shame. A major theme of the story is to ridicule the self-centered "greed is good" mindset of the decade, and make fun of the high-powered players of the finance world who embody that ethos the most. And sure, when Alfred sees Wayne in Florence, it's exactly how Alfred describes it earlier in the film. Quotes related to Repression within Things Fall Apart. The novel is considered a masterpiece of American literature and a classic moral study. Sam, for her part, seems to start hallucinating just like her dad. Not all filmmakers like their movies to have simple endings. What's it mean? Lost and terrified, she becomes susceptible to the manipulations of Black Phillip, a demonic character who seems to be a high power of dark evil. In the film's final shot, the duo walk down a street while someone (or something?) If there's a "real" meaning, he hasn't seen fit to share it—and the panel of religious experts convened by the Los Angeles Times was unable to come up with any kind of consensus. But we never know if it's really happening or if it's a dream. Posted by 6 years ago. But there's more going on beneath the surface. There are a lot of theories that attempt to explain the hows and whys of The Matrix Revolutions' head-scratcher of an ending, in which Neo lies on the brink of defeat until he realizes he doesn't need to beat Smith, but assimilate into the system—after which Smith is wiped out and the Matrix reboots under the dawn of a brand new day. ", Deciphering the ending of Black Swan starts with comparing it to the ending of director Darren Aronofsky's previous film, The Wrestler. His job as an executive is no coincidence. In the opening scene, a performer at a private sex show Adam attends prepares to crush a spider on a silver platter; after a strained visit with Adam's mother, a giant spider is seen looming over the city. Famed psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud believed that humans have many thought processes occurring just below the level of consciousness, and that these subconscious thoughts have a significant impact on human development and behavior. Following an outburst of unsanctioned violence in which he kills a European messenger who tries to stop a meeting among clan elders, Okonkwo realizes that he is no longer in sync with his society. Unlike many films that court a certain air of ambiguity, The Witch makes its supernatural content explicit—instead of having to wonder if it's really happening, you can just sit back and wonder what it means. Psychoanalyzing The Hangover: Repression and the Modern Man. But don't confuse it for randomness, as everything about the film from its opening epigraph ("Chaos is order yet undeciphered") implies there's deeper meaning at work here. I suppose my final verdict is that Repression is an interesting failure. Even for the late '60s, it's pretty nutty stuff. The Others Ending Explained: What Really Happened, And Why It Matters ... they are examples of the slab of "twist endings" that populated movie theaters the ‘90s and beyond. That's all the exposition necessary for viewers to know that Batman jumped out while the plane flies the bomb toward the bay. Photo credit: Aidan Monaghan/NETFLIX. Unlike a few of the movies on this list, figuring out The Babadook isn't that difficult—provided you keep up with the sudden change in perspective in the final act. Mean Girls - Gretchen and the Follower Mentality His body count is called into question as the story progresses and Bateman frequently experiences things that aren't real. The title comes from a Chinese aphorism about hiding strength from the world. It's a film that bears little resemblance to any Alfred Hitchcock movie I've ever seen. Overall, though, it doesn't work as well as it might have done. Throughout the movie, the colonel appears to have very strong ideals what it means to be a man and raises his son to believe in those same ideals. hangs over the entire story, until the only thing that's truly clear is that Bateman is utterly insane. Tom Jolliffe double bills Inception and Shutter Island… In my latest double bill we’re gonna kick it back a nice round decade to 2010. Reams have been written about Darko's meaning, but the nugget-sized version is essentially this: Donnie was a sort of locus point for a tear in the space-time continuum, and although he spends much of the film unaware of it, his actions throughout the bulk of the film take place in an alternate universe where he's needed in order to set the universe straight—basically by arranging it so the jet engine ends up in his bedroom. The headmistress’ rigidly-sculpted hairstyle and heavy, dark-coloured clothes implied Victorian repression, whereas the layered chiffon of the girls’ dresses was intended to evoke impulsive sensuality and transitory beauty. 1773 'The thought would turn my stomach. “Economic repression of black and brown people can have an ending. Based on the second novel from Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho is a satirical horror story about the inner life of Patrick Bateman, a high-paid investment banker in 1980s New York. Midway through, he meets a scientist who once worked with the military to experiment on soldiers with psychedelic drugs meant to put them into killing frenzies. As he told Vulture, "It allows people to make up their own mind of what it means.". She does her best to relate to him, and in her spare time she find solace in a local book club - which seems to meet with astonishing regularity compared to every book group I've ever encountered. A24. Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Monaghan, and Vera Farmiga play the lead characters.It even has Russell Peters in a guest role. So what was Nolan trying to tell us? 2. The best explanation was the long one on Salon.com. Never mind her patients, she too begins to disintegrate mentally. After repressing severe trauma for five years, one young woman experiences the aftermath of unearthed truths, linked to those closest to her. Hey, look, sometimes the explanations are just as confusing as the endings, okay? The implication is that a part of whatever evil has infected the town has followed Rose and Sharon home, keeping them in this cloudy purgatory, likely through Sharon. If you follow the basic progression of the film, the movie ends with him having sex with her and using quizzical techniques that Dodd used on him. Instead of a feelgood romance or a fun coming-of-age story, they got a moody, elliptical remake of a hit Spanish film. Even after 15 years of its release, the much ambiguous ending of ‘American Psycho’ calls for debate amongst fans. Alejandro G. Iñárritu's film about a washed-up actor trying to make a comeback on Broadway has the kind of weird ending that puts Inception to shame. Alfred Hitchcock) Rear Window is a clear example of the voyeuristic male gaze in cinema. (Photo: Focus Features /Courtesy Everett Collection) Warning: This post contains spoilers for the third act of Phantom Thread. Lynch himself has steadfastly refused to help untangle the movie, which moves in jittery circles around an actress (Naomi Watts), a mysterious woman (Laura Elena Harding), and a film director (Justin Theroux)...all of whom are mixed up in a dreamlike and frequently nonsensical series of events. In the end, Thomasina's family has been devastated by infighting and madness stoked by provocations of the evil in the woods, resulting in the death of her father, and leading her to kill her own mother in self-defense. He didn't really care anymore, and that makes a statement: perhaps, all levels of reality are valid. Given how open to interpretation Joker is, we’ve deviated from our usual Ending Explained approach to include multiple takes on the film’s ending from IGN editors who have seen the film. Hear me out, you guys… I really want to see a new Austin powers movie set in the same continuity as the previous ones staring everyone’s favorite “the next James Bond” Idris Elba. The ending is telegraphed repeatedly, through nearly every character and every line, making it one of the most surprising, and paradoxically most foreshadowed, twists in movie history. His apartment full of corpses has been cleaned up. But that's a lot better than being a boring failure. It all ends in the cosmonaut's fiery death, the Tree's rebirth, and an ending in which Izzi's spirit hands Tom fruit from the Tree...which he plants in her grave. "Some people have suggested that the whole second part of the film is nothing but a nightmare. Often involving sexual or aggressive urges or painful childhood memories, these unwanted mental contents are pushed into the unconscious mind. One of Hollywood's foremost auteurs, Malick has never been in any real rush to explain his movies, and Tree of Life is no different. In the first dream, he loses some money his father gave him. People can have an ending. Alfred doesn't know she and Wayne have become an item, and he'd quit before Batman and Catwoman teamed up to save Gotham City. Couple this with Villenueve's suggestion that both protagonists are "maybe two sides of the same persona," and you realize the mystery of the double just may be an invention of the dictator in Adam's mind. Meanwhile, the ending to Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy isn't as vague as Inception. Unlike Moon, Source Code is a fast-paced thriller. In 2015, the director gave the commencement speech at Princeton University, and told the grads to "chase their reality." Shirley movie cast: Elisabeth Moss, Michael Stuhlbarg, Odessa Young, Logan Lerman Shirley movie director: Josephine Decker Shirley movie rating: 4. That's when we realize the creature wasn't supernatural at all—it was her years of repressed grief, which had grown so powerful it threatened to destroy the lives of everything it touched. "It's a movie that is set to a game," said director Denis Villenueve. Jacob's Ladder follows the last days of a war veteran and postal worker named Jacob Singer as his reality becomes completely undone at the seams, invaded by demons and hellish visions. Ultimately, the movie's ending is every bit as open to interpretation as the rest of the film—and although viewers are welcome to delve into any or all of the many theories attempting to explain what Lynch might have meant by the whole thing, the best explanation was arguably posed by the late film critic Roger Ebert. Sam seems to leave the real world to enter a fantasy where her father lives, soaring above the clouds. The final shot shows Dom Cobb reuniting with his kids. As this film disallows the vicarious redemption of a happy ending or neat explanation, it repudiates the superficial empathy of much dramatic fare. It's all a bit clunky. But it was never our intention to, in any literal sense, depict some bad dream, and yet it is true that we were aiming for a logic of the irrational. Cookies help us deliver our Services. There are ideas in there that I believe, but I think I wanted to leave it open, so that anyone can bring their own beliefs to the table, and that it could awaken them, and people can have a conversation. This bi-monthly column explores psychological horror and representations of mental illness within the genre. And the plot twists come thick and fast... As I've often said, I like ambition in a storyline. Maybe Bell just needs a new wallet. Rather than telling a straightforward story, suggested film critic Matt Zoller Seitz, "I just think [Malick is] opening up the top of his head and letting the memories and fantasies and personal anecdotes pour out, and arranging the pieces in such a way as to prompt you to remember your own life and reflect on it, and think about your own place in the cosmos, however small or large you may imagine it to be.". Sharon is, essentially, another part of Alessa, Silent Hill's girl-gone-bad who was burned as a witch and sought supernatural vengeance on the town that killed her. Either he's done nothing, or his crimes have been of so little interest to his peers that they haven't caused a single ripple. He convinces Thomasina to follow him into a world unrestrained by the Puritanical values that her domineering father preached, offering an alternative to holy penitence and self-denial—"wouldst thou like to live deliciously?" Some fans have theorized that this is all a dream—that Batman actually died in the explosion, and that Alfred simply imagined seeing his friend taking in the Italian sunshine. It's just a matter of how you look at it.". The character of Erica Albright is fictional and may or may not have been based on Jessica Alona who is claimed to be former girlfriend of Mark. She starts the movie in a very childlike way—waking up from a bad dream and going to tell her mom about it. There's "hard to understand" and then there's Donnie Darko, Richard Kelly's cult classic mindbender about a suburban boy (Jake Gyllenhaal) who's visited by Frank, a mysterious figure in a rabbit costume and warned that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. But sometimes that plan backfires, resulting in endings that are just plain confusing. In the final scene, Riggan's daughter Sam enters his hospital room to find his bed empty and the window open. One of the wisest scripting moves made by this fantastic movie is making it clear at the very beginning that yes, there really is a witch in them there woods. ", In the next breath, however, he pointed out that 2001 concerns itself with "elements of philosophy and metaphysics" that "have nothing to do with the bare plotline," so whatever Kubrick's summary tells you about Bowman's fate, you can trust there's more to it—and that any extra meaning is entirely up to you. (The ATM that says FEED ME A STRAY CAT and the shootout with police that follows, for example.) Things Fall Apart ends with two related tragedies. With Ryan Hope Travis, Tahj Vaughans, Trevon Lee, Demetrius Paschel. It's interesting because the town itself mirrors this fractured psychology—different dimensions, different doubles of the same person. Enemy follows Jake Gylennhaal as Adam, a history professor who discovers the existence of his exact double. You'd think that finally finding the woman on the beach would mean that Fink is at the end of his trials, having reached his reward and a place where he feels safe. "This is a world where eradication of the enemy is seen for what it is: a symptom of the problem, not a solution," concludes the essay. The image of the bee on the sill of Daphne's window as she gives birth is a curious one precisely because it … Ultimately, viewers are told that much of what they've seen is a lucid dream in Cruise's brain, which has been held in cryonic stasis for more than 100 years, and that the more troubling elements of the narrative are the result of a glitch. "Perfect," she says at the end, her goal achieved. Times have become much more liberal and free, as Dallas's engagement to Fanny Beaufort indicates. The story centers on a 400-year-old sword called Green Destiny because, as director Ang Lee explains it, the color green represents the yin, the female mystery, which is at the heart of his female-led film. The fact that she has bird tattoos on her arm and that her father played a superhero with bird-based powers suggests the strong connection between the two. Of all the movies on this list, this is the one with the ending that feels truly inexplicable. Who knows if she'll one day live to regret it—as the movie ends, she embraces the hedonistic freedom of Black Phillip's cult. That's what this film is.". He communicates with her through gravity, thus guiding her to unlock the equation that helps humanity escape Earth. 6. Yet despite this detailed symbolism, what endures above all is the film’s dream-like atmosphere. How are we expected to achieve a healthy equilibrium of moderation in a patriarchal system of repression and shame? The best of them is presented by the Matrix 101 fan site, which offers a detailed (and eventually rather moving) analysis that's far too long to break down here, but boils down to this: Neo brokered a detente of sorts with the machines, allowing the continued existence of the Matrix "free zone" known as Zion while healing the corruption in the program personified by Smith. Freud believed that the human psyche is composed of three main processes, which he called the Id, Ego, and Superego. Perhaps the writing wasn't disciplined enough. Repression: Repression refers to the act of bringing under control by force or the act of suppressing one’s thoughts or feelings. I remember watching the trailer for this movie before The Neon Demon was released, and i've been waiting this long to see it. But Mitchell uses it as the setup for a pretty devilish little film. It's a film that bears little resemblance to any Alfred Hitchcock movie I've ever seen. For film buffs of a certain stripe, Terrence Malick movies are always an event. Movie Reviews • Entertainment • Movies • News. "In a timeless state, his life passes from middle age to senescence to death. Directed by Tahj Vaughans. We know this, because later, while Alfred is in Florence, he sees his former Master Bruce sitting at a table, enjoying a meal with ex-Catwoman Selina Kyle. Related: The Favourite: True Story & Ending Explained Released in 2015, The Lobster was Lanthimos’ first English-language feature and received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Once she got down, Emma's big monologue, in the basement, we started to understand the relationship and what it was. The Black Swan Nina who emerges from the mirror is built up to through the movie not just by the escalation of the Nina in the Mirror, but also by the subplot of Nina going through the stages of growing up. Finally, Bruce Wayne himself, Christian Bale, thinks that he's alive by the end of the movie. In the second dream, Bell sees his father holding a torch, riding ahead into the darkness of a snowy mountain pass. These scenes, which have considerable potential, are in fact rather disappointing as the script shoe-horns in various pretentious observations which seem to connect to the themes of the story. The picture represents the idea of Hollywood. Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain features a trio of interlocking stories, each hundreds of years apart, all about a couple (played by Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz in each installment) coming to terms with being separated by death—and culminates in a wild whatsit of an ending. What we can do is offer Kubrick's own assessment of the ending, in which astronaut Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) comes into contact with an extraterrestrial monolith and goes through a bizarre succession of experiences—vast space travel, seeing himself at different ages, and finally being transformed into a floating space fetus. This piece is just one massive spoiler for the ending of His House. He spent the first two films on an apparent collision course with the near-invincible AI program known as Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving). As the movie ends, he expires on the battlefield, his tormented journey through Vietnam, and his mind, fractured by war, over at last. 4. 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