what's the significance? to show his instability: concerned neighbor looks on and wife comes out in negligee and asks what the heck he's doing and when she leaves he 'wonders where she's going' One other question: when he goes to London what documents does he get inside the apartment?
shareON a prosaic level, it did seem to be almost out of control - you don't know what is burning, and the smoke was pretty black.
I'm not sure if he would even be allowed to have a bonfire in London at the time - clean air laws and all that...
we discussed this film in class today and we thought that u could argue that that scene was like a fantasy of his, like something that never really happened, but more of what he would like to be like. the more crazy less passive david locke.
and then the cut to rachael is looking down at where the bonfire should be, it is the present and she's just looking down cuz he was never there...
He's burning away the connections to his old life. He remembers being out there, these flames eating away at his past, while she remembers him standing there, distant and dissolving in flame. It's just a way of showing that they remember one another, but recognise that all their bridges and ties are now burnt.
"Rape is no laughing matter. Unless you're raping a clown."
Also, burning dead leaves and branches in your backyard used to be a widespread American custom, but not something commonly practiced in England. Locke (born in England but raised in the States, remember) is demonstrating for us once again how he hangs between two worlds, and is never really at home anywhere.
"Mollymauk doesn't park. He makes lazy circles in the sky."
i like that interpretation wilsonbond. I personally interpreted it as a sort of prelude to his assumption of mr. robertson's identity - a tentative foray into subversion, playing with a dream that's too hot to touch, too dangerous to control.
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