Their customs seemed more akin to south pacific especially Tahiti than coastal South America. Apart from that what was the significance of the mass desertion of the village just before he leaves with the bag of pearls?
shareThat's a good question. Maybe they had not seen a white man before, and thought Papi was some sort of "God". Maybe the desertion was not a dersertion but in fact more a gift to Papi - i.e. they gifted the village to him? I haven't read the book, but their may be a better explanation their.
shareAfter my original post I wondered if the fall from the 'heavens' (cliff) was witnessed by the natives as a godly act. The chief was facinated with the butterfly tatoo and eventually got his very own. I haven't read the book but still, it is interesting to speculate :)
shareI have no idea, but the villaige situation reminded me a lot of parts of The Thin Red Line, which is no bad thing.
"Do we get to win this time?" -- John Rambo
Sure, the indians loved him so much and didn't want to see him leave so they all wet into the huts.
shareWell, my opinion about the reason that the indians left the village, you have to look back at the scenes before when the indian chief was doing trade with a greedy-looking foreigner (an escaped prisoner, judging from his outfit). You saw that the chief wasn't very satisfied with the trade partner so in the next scene we saw that foreigner dead hung upside-down in front of the indian chief cottage. Papillon was looking at him and then was called in to make the tattoo for the chief. I think that the indian chief knew that after killing the foreigner, the tribe may have to move, and before moving the indian chief wants to get a tattoo as of Papillon as the memory of him.
shareYou really are best to read the book, I have read past the indian village part and he leaves the indians still living in the village, they are all sad to see him leave especially his 2 young wives (both pregnant)he promises to return but having not finished the book I am unsure if he ever does! I would never have left!
shareI first thought that he was hallucinating but then i relised he had the pearls they got from the clams, but i think it was left up in the air as to what happened, but yeah the post where its stated they had to move and and the cheif wanted the butterfly tatoo to remind him of papillon sounds very logical
shareRead the damn book!
The cheif wanted the tatoo of a tiger (not butterfly) because he liked it. No other reason.
The people do not want to watch him leave as it is awful for them so they don't look.
We're not talking about the book, we're talking about the movie.
shareSo Emily307 thinks the makers of the movie came up with a different reason than in a book, but just forgot to tell it to the audience? C'mon I think they most likely just wanted the scene to have some mysterious feeling in it thats all, but knew that the readers would know the motives etc. better.
Why did Papillon leave in the first place? Obviously he is a man who is there for the "escape" or perhaps he just wanted to live in a more western like society...