MovieChat Forums > Lost Horizon (1937) Discussion > Why would the girl want to leave and lie...

Why would the girl want to leave and lie about her age?

posted 18 years ago by FinnurE
13 replies | jump to latest

I forgot what here name was, but the girl that wanted so badly to get away from Shangri La with Robert Conway and his brother said that she was only 20 years old and that the chinese guy was evil and a liar and so on, but then later after they've left she starts ageing rapidly and eventually dies. Now my question is why, given that she knows that she is really old and knows that Shangri La really is a paradise would she lie about her age to Conway's brother and want to leave? It didn't make any sense to me, how is it in the novel?

[–] christianjbrooks 18 years ago

She left because she was being abused by Chang (sp). There was a scene where she said that he hated when she spoke to other men and even went so far as to lock her up for "infidelity." She tried escaping but he caught her.

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] CarolynK 18 years ago

I believe that the film is trying to portray this situation:

She wishes to leave to be with George, whom she loves. In speaking to Robert, George exaggerates her desire to leave, in order to convince him to join them. No one ever told Maria that she would age. This Shangri-La is an extremely patriarchal society, in which ownership of women is shared equally among all of the men - a truly egalitarian society would have, instead, awarded females with sovereign status to be with whom they choose. In this situation, why would anyone care to tell a woman the consequences of leaving Shangri-La? Instead, they divulge this information only to the men, considered to be responsible for her well-being. The film presents and supports these notions. It is not critical of their fallacy, but this male chauvenism is the product of the time in which the film was made.

[–] jsrooker 18 years ago

In the movie it is stated that Maria arrived at Shangri La while en route to her betrothed. In my opinion, she never got over this and was a little mad as a result, sort of in the same manner as George, just restless and unable to enjoy the community. When George arrived and she found a kindrid spirit, she latched onto him, was completely obsessed with him. I think she knew she would age and die if she left, but her inner pain and craziness convinced her that the only way she would be happy would be to stay with George, no matter what the consequences. Her obsession with George led her to indulge his theories, to agree with him only to make him right. That's what I think anyway.

Also the character of Maria bothered me, because she was supposed to be Russian, but spoke with an awful hispanic-esque accent. Gotta love old Hollywood. :)

[–] freshspoo 17 years ago

Maybe she had an unhappy love life. George was the answer to her dreams. She
thought being with George was worth leaving. She probably didn't believe she
would physically age. I don't think anyone abused her. She used this as an
excuse for leaving because she didn't want to admit she was unlucky in love.

Marge

[–] Invariable Self 17 years ago

I like the answers people have given in this thread, but I have my own hypothesis:

I think the character of Maria is meant to be a slight attack on the Bolsheviks. She is described as being Russian and she is willing to leave paradise in order to die miserably on the mountain, just as the Russians abandoned Tzarist Russia only to end up with Stalin. In other words the character of Maria is meant to suggest that the overtones of Chinese communism in the film are not an endorsement of
Russian communism.

I.S. Oxford

"The books have nothing to say!"
-- Fahrenheit 451

[–] maxi13 9 years ago

hollywood wasnt that anti-communist at that time.
russia was even an allie some years later.
sure, US didnt love the USSR, but the cold war started after WW2.

[–] LibraryUser 17 years ago

I agree with JSROOKER above. To me in the movie Maria seems definitely emotionally disturbed. Shangri-La is thus not perfect. Not everyone likes it, and it cannot help everyone. Not sure I'd like living there for long myself.

(In the novel this character is named Lo-Tsen, and is Chinese. For the movie she is split into two characters, Sondra and Maria, whose personalities are quite different from hers. Lo-Tsen is extremely quiet and refined, and a potential love interest for Conway. She is a shadowy figure, never present, so described only in her absence; we never read of anything she's said to anyone. We are suddenly told in chapter 11 that she simply wants to leave, without any explanation. My impression is that Lo-tsen was probably a little crazy, like Maria in the movie. Thus Shangri-La is not right for everyone.)

[–] dioro 17 years ago

Maria was bored and lonely. She fell in love with George and when he was hell-bent on leaving, she wanted to go with him at all costs. Obviously, as a poster above had mentioned, she didn't believe she would age so rapidly. She just said those things because she was desperate to leave with George.

[–] zappalover 17 years ago

Agreed. Maria and George were kindred spirits who could not stand an environment they profoundly boring, without purpose or meaning. They were desperate to escape, perhaps at any cost, including the possibility of death. Their feelings of despair fed and built on one another. They were the flip side of Bob and Sondra and gave the movie some balance and tension.

"A Lincoln is better than a Cadillac? Forggidaboudit!"

[–] wal2914 17 years ago

I believe that she never imagined she would age. I also believe that some people don't want to live in an idyllic paradise, perhaps because their own goals and ideas are in conflict with such a place.

You wouldn't believe what we want from you. In your worst nightmare you wouldn't believe.

[–] skiddoo 13 years ago

It's really very Orwellian. You give up your freedom and get eons of "peace" in return.