This is how I did it Anton! I never saved anything for the swim back!

While I'm sure Vincent thought it was still possible he could suffer heart failure (genetically disposed to it) while on his mission. He does plan to return. In fact I think he mentions that when he comes back he wants to reveal who he is and what he did. Because he wanted everyone to know that he was the elite of the elite even though the culture labeled him a troglodyte. It was THAT aim that inspired Eugene, Irene, the company doctor, the cleaning manager, and his brother. Because it would tear down the fake, oppressive society they were imprisoned in.

Eugene however didn't want to see the eventual outcome. If Vincent became Eugene (perfection on paper) than Eugene became Vincent (the real deal, real genius), and he wanted to live in that glory. He was on top, number one with Vincent and he didn't want to give it up.

Swimming, in many movies, is a metaphor for being able to cope with life. Also water in movies usually symbolizes life (in one way or another).

In the end scene, Jerome's silver medal (which, due to the reflection of the flames, seems to turn into gold) shows two swimmers - are they swimming against eachother, or with eachother? I think one message of the movie is a different view on what constitutes Winning: not (as commonly assumed) beating the other at reaching the finish line, but instead reaching the finish line together with the other.

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Joe Satriani - "Always With Me, Always With You"
https://y2u.be/VI57QHL6ge0

[SPOILER WARNING]

Hello James,

I hadn't thought about Jerome being a swimmer - they made a point to say he wasn't a runner, he was a swimmer, suggesting that this was significant.

Also what yurenchu said is very good - thanks for your comments, yurenchu.

But the reason Anton is seen swimming in one of those "treadmill" type of training pools is twofold:

1.) It's a hint to those who are trying to figure the movie out. There are several hints that the detective is Anton all throughout the movie.

2.) I saw the movie several times before I realized the main importance of that scene and it blew me away when I did. When they are teen-agers and Vincent beats Anton, Vincent says something like, "In that moment Anton was not as strong as he believed, and I was not as weak. That was the moment that made everything else possible." Well, it was the moment that allowed Vincent to become who he could be to reach his potential. Anton and Vincent's parents had cared so little about Vincent, science and society had made them cold (ubermensche) so Vincent couldn't afford to think about them as he went forward, and this unfortunately made Vincent cold as well - as Anton said, "Our parents died thinking they'd outlived you, I had my doubts."

But that moment had made everything possible for Vincent while simultaneously making everything impossible for Anton. Vincent didn't want this but he also couldn't look back and be dragged back.

This whole scenario is huge. For those of us who have had brothers and were in dysfunctional families, you come to realize that everyone has their place, their function that the family keeps them imprisoned into. At the end Vincent says, "Is the only way you can succeed is to see me fail. God, are you going to tell me what I can and can't do now! If you haven't noticed. I don't need rescuing - but you did once."

There's a phenomenon known to Psychologists called The Karpman Triangle. Human beings are "semiotic" meaning that we create stories that create meaning for us. The story of Vincent's family was that Anton was perfect and Vincent was hopeless and weak. The entire family functioned on this dysfunctional and cruel dynamic. Vincent had to get out. There's no way to escape these unfair family dynamics except to leave. Vincent suddenly realized this.

But Anton was also trapped in this dynamic. His parents needed him to be their best self - to live vicariously and for Anton to be their savior of sorts. Anton could not become perfect if his brother, who was very imperfect, could best him.

Anton had to believe that it was a fluke that Vincent beat him, and he spent his entire life trying to beat Vincent. The movie was poetically subtle, but we must assume that Anton trained in that pool every day, had victories anywhere he could but he was always inferior to his older brother. This is an epic battle not unlike Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Amnon and Absolom, Christ and Lucifer.

Later the Mission Director (Gore Vidal) is answering Anton's questions and you realize that Anton is starting to suspect that Vincent is there - he says, "Tell me about your hiring practices" - the director says, "Our recruitment philosophy - well obviously entering Gattaca is beyond the ability of the average citizen" - Anton goes on to to try to say that surely sometimes they've had to lower their standards. The director then unknowingly (or maybe he did know) delivers the bullet to Anton's heart (while he's eating his heart out) and says, "Sometimes we've had to accept minor shortcomings but nothing that would prevent someone from entering, say law enforcement" but then goes on to say that that currently they have people far beyond that - and Anton knows that he could never get into Gattaca but somehow Vincent did.

This battle between brothers was epic - and oddly enough every brother has this strange mini-epic battle with their brother. I was the younger brother in my family who beat my much older and stronger brother. It crushed him - I was shocked, to me he was still stronger than me and I always admired him, but when he decided that he couldn't beat me and a few others (in some relatively small and unimportant ways) he sort of gave up on all of life and spiraled into despair for two decades. It's very weird, but it's a pattern I've seen many times since. At least Anton kept going but he had to use the hope of beating Vincent to keep him going, instead of doing what Vincent did which was to get past his past and find his own goals (not continue to compete with Anton), set his own sights where he would, regardless of what anyone told him he could or couldn't do.




What hump? 