(spoiler) what happened to Valentin?
While it's obvious that Molina dies in the end, I didn't understand if Valentin also dies, or just gets sedated when he enters his dream world.
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exactly right alis.. romantics probly think he was just dreaming while in a deep sleep, cynics probly think he ODs
"I got some bad ideas in my head." - Travis Bickle
I saw it as his death, and the woman comes to him and takes him away to the island because he is now in heaven. the island and the woman he always loved is his heaven.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFtYpLV4EPo
spcsm8188, I disagree - I think the notion that he OD'd IS the romantic one - what a sweet way to die...! And to live after such a dream. just to go back to the rotting cell and experience more heavy torture.. this would be the more pesimistic, if not cynic, option. Really a descent from heaven back to hell! I don't know how one can see the opposite in this, as it seems so strongly to me.. :o) But seemingly it is the more realistic option too. The words Marta says to him there - "it's a short dream, but a happy one", seem to be a directive to us viewers, even though they don't have to mean anything real. Plus, the doctor will def. lose his job, as he fears, if he will give him an OD, as they will lose the chance to get information from Valentin about the group. So I figure he paid attention not to give him an over-dose, but just enought for rest, like he said.
Spolier to the Book (??):
Also from what is written in the book it seems to be a dream, maybe he can die (b/c of the mention of white light), but at least he doesn't in what is being told there. Also the fear of the Doc. for his job is obvious there.
Oh heartbreak and despair got nothing but boring
So I grabbed you baby like a wild pitch
I don't know about the doctor and his fear, but as for Marta's words, I thought she's telling us the dream will be a short one because soon Valentin will be gone, as in dead. If he were just resting, there'd be nothing to interfere with the dream.
I also think that the ODing option is the romantic one, especially if you consider it being far more mutual, with both men dead, not just one. Then the process of completing each other, learning and growing by knowing the other man, is truly complete.
"He shall be an adder on the path, to bite a horse's heel"share
The ending is certainly ambiguous but deliberately so. Just before he injects Valentin, the doctor asks him not to tell anyone about the injection presumably for fear that he'd lose his job, so it was obviously not a lethal dose that he was administering, but I suppose we can never be sure. Regardless of the ambiguity, I think the final sequence of the movie is a beautiful piece of cinema.
shareThis movie reminds me of the movie Brazil wiht Jonathon Pryce and Robert Deniro. The main character is imprisoned and tortured. There are two endings one happy and one more crueler.
I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else