Saturday, March 03, 2007
Cherchez la femme
What was so captivating about the bathing beauty in the picture? He notices the picture on the wall and loses himself in it from time to time. And of course the movie ends with his meeting her at the beach and asking her if she's in pictures, and she says no like it's the most ridiculous thing one could imagine. What's your take on this?
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9 comments:
First off, I didn't realize the connection to the picture on the wall. Second, I don't think she said no, she just acted like he was crazy. I wondered whether she acted like he was crazy because everyone knew that she was in pictures.
I think she was captivating because she represented beauty on the beach, the opposite of the ugly, clautrophobic hotel.
She said, "Don't be silly." I understood that to mean no.
I did, too. But frankly, I was baffled by the significance of the picture.
I took it to mean, "Don't be silly, of course I'm in pictures." But I also wondered whether she meant the opposite.
I just got a new phone, and it has these background pictures. A few are beach pictures. And I know the sort of people who would want that on their phone -- I had a co-worker at SRS who had beach pictures all over her cubicle. It was an escape from her everyday life. (For her it wasn't fantasy -- she went to beaches several times a year on vacation.) I think the picture could be seen as an escape for him.
I think it was significant (and annoyingly surreal) at the end that he met her because she had been sort of a muse to him while he was struggling — and when he is "free" from the struggle, she is right in front of him in the flesh but is still just as inaccessible to him as she was in the picture (especially now that he is a big failure). When she says she's not in movies (I think that is surely what she's saying), I took it as sort of an indictment of movies, like why on earth would I be in movies? Not every attractive woman in Hollywood is in the movies, you big dork. It sort of highlighted how this world of Hollywood, which had taken over his whole existence, was really just a paltry little thing in the scheme of things.
I’m with you on this one, kc. It is also worth noting that not only has Hollywood taken over Fink’s whole existence, he still knows almost nothing about Hollywood. He never goes to movies, and wouldn’t recognize a famous movie star anyway.
I loved the ending ... kc's explanation is a better analysis than anything I thought of.
What was that to dive-bomb into the sea when they were talking ... a bird?
Wouldn't it have been great if they ended the movie just as she started to turn around, before we saw her face? Left her as a potential Medusa amid all the other not-as-they-seem characters?
I think on imdb (or somewhere) it said that was an actual pelican that just happened to dive into the scene; it wasn't scripted.
Once that happened you know they quit filming—you gotta use that take.
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