Whose baby is that anyway? In the scene where Mac asks "whose baby?" and no one says anything and everyone looks sheepish...I have not been able to figure this out since the movie came out...Why doesn't anyone answer? They must know who the mom is, at least...
shareI'm not sure why, but I've always thought the mother was the woman who works in the little convenience store and Victor (the Russian fishing boat captain) was the father.
shareYeah, I'm guessing that the mother just wasn't telling. And that all of them each probably had a reason to think that it could of been his.
shareYou're exactly right. It's basically a joke about small towns and secrets. Whose baby it actually was is irrelevant. The point is Mac's innocent blunder in asking the question. I still chuckle when I think of Mac's reaction when the truth dawns on him.
shareI agree with skohl632001, and I think it's funnier to leave the question open. By the way, jxjxb, Victor and the shopkeeper look too old to me to have a kid that young.
shareI've always assumed (without proof) that the baby was the 'punk' girl's.
The first time we see her is in the 'Maserati vs. Rolls Royce' scene. She's leaning back against the seawall, between the legs of the guy who helps Mac with the phonebox (don't know the character's name); the baby's in the stroller right in front of them. This scene is before the moment where Mac asks "Whose baby?"
Later at the ceilidh she's shown chasing Danny Oldsen, then explaining her actions to one of the band guys (boyfriend? the father?). Then we see her drunkenly leaving the ceilidh with phonebox guy; "I'll put a bit of color in your cheeks, darling."
Again, I've no proof, but they set up her character as a bit of a loose woman (does anybody still use that term?). And since the first time we see her is with the baby, and casually leaning between the legs of phonebox guy....
"Film is a mosaic of Time."
-A. Tarkovsky
I agree, I always assumed the punk was the mother. But surely the real embarrassment of the question is who is the father? The point being it could be any of them - no one knows!
paultbaker got it.
shareSee my first guess was that the baby was the child of the punk rocker chick and Ricky the musician/motorcyclist. That's why he raced out of town with his motorcycle every morning. He was off to his job in the city to support the baby. The reason why the entire village looked after the baby is because they knew they were young parents and were still in their own youth. This is it how it is in rural societies, lots of young parents.
shareIt follows on from the line about them "all having to chip in to do their bit" - in other words they have all "done" the mother and as such it could be any of them!
shareI suspect the mother is the punk girl and the father could be any of them.
See the end of the Ceilidh where the one man is walking out with the girl and makes the comment about putting a bit of color into her cheeks. :-)
a_spaceboy, yep - that's what I thought, too. Everyone may have had their hand in conceiving the child, but who? They don't know. Also given that everyone 'does their bit', they all help in looking after the kid.
...the guy in the $600 banana suit - COME ON!
It is irrelevant. It's just another of the hundreds of tiny morsels-for-thought with which this film is spiced. Another one is the webbed feet of Marina and the talk with Danny about mermaids. The effeminate gait and trots of Danny, etc...
I get more and more of these each time I see this unsung work of art again.
The other similar bit of intrigue occurs when Victor Pinochkin first arrives. The first people he kisses are the blonde lady & the small boy, obviously her son &, from his looks, almost certainly Victor's also. Then when walking along the quay with Gordon, what's going on behind them? The ladies are clearly wanting the boy to make an impact. No doubt that's why the Russian lady is so furious.
That's one of the many beauties of this film, so many little episodes which have no bearing on the main story but nevertheless make the whole thing so superb.
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