at the end the main character is bringing in the basket of apples that he has picked. obviously a metaphor for firtility. as if to show he has impregnated the women and that he has helped bring a child into the couples lives. i take it this suggests the woman probaly will have the baby and just lie to her husband and make him think its his kid so they can move on with their relationship and their lives. any thoughts? Am i thinking too much into this.
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on point. i guess at the same time the new beginning for him may coincide with a new beginning for the couple too.
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That the film is thought provoking is cool, but. . .
Apples can symbolize fertility, in this story I beleive they symbolize forbidden fruit, hidden knowledge, and an ironic symbol of love and sexuality.
It is Alex who tastes the winter apple for he is soon to have knowledge of Susanne's pregnancy.
Oh, dear God! Spare me, spare me from these bloody interpretations. I call this movie a "Movie for Sophomores of All Ages" precisely because it encourages this sort of interpretation. Why shouldn't the apples symbolize evil and be connected to the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden? And what should we make of the fact that Susanne encourages the grandfather to begin playing the accordion again? Is this some sort of regeneration symbol? And are we to make something of the yellow Volkswagen the grandfather drives? And what of the name of the brothel--Cinderella? One could go on and on with this. Personally, I don't see the film as being about redemption but about three people who are unwittingly building their House in Hell, in which they will have to live as the truth of who they are and what they did will eventually be revealed. But, then, again what the theme of the film is remains as ambiguous as the symbols. Round and round we go.
I liked the film; it held me interest; I was involved with the characters, but I remain very suspicious of a film so loaded with symbols beause it can mean just about anything--or nothing.
The end is ambiguous, but as the entire film has played off of our expectations for a neo noir thriller, I don't see how the end couldn't be seen as something closer to hope than we'd usually get. Who knows how Susanne will act once the child is born? Perhaps, having put everything together, she'll see Alex as a threat to her new family. Perhaps Alex will be overtaken once again with grief and anger once he sees Robert start to get over his sorrow for killing Tamara. Maybe his resentment will build when he consideres the child might be his. Or maybe Robert will never get over the killing, the child will have no positive effect on him, and eventually Susanne will leave him and come to a fully reformed Alex with the news that this is his child.
There's room for all these possibilities and more. The film's conceit was to take a noir formula, populate it with characters who were far from stock cliches, and let the story unfold without moral judgment or nihilistic mayhem.
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One of the things that was so great about the picture was that these visual cues, which often have other meanings, were sort of "freed" from those, and became refreshingly literal. The apples could be seen in a biblical, forbidden fruit kind of way, just as the wood chopping set us on edge for impending violence. However, by the end, the apple and the chopping of wood meant something totally different to the audience. It meant Alex had learned to appreciate the farm and the value of honest work. His labors had been cathartic.
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Excellent analysis of the film's metaphors, and a well-stated rebuttal to riffraff's criticism. Thanks for the insights, easypz.
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