this scene was so haunting and disturbing. first the parents & dog drown then the poor little baby girl is just there on the beach (when it's still daytime). we eventually see (it's nighttime now) the baby still there crying and terrified all alone. we hear a bit later on the radio in Scarlett's character's car that the entire family (including baby) are missing. such a disturbing scene.
shareTruly an unsettling moment.
That scene was like torture and very hard to watch. I imagine a lot of people would have stopped the film at that point. A quite sadistic decision by the director to drag the viewer back to the beach at night and see the child still completely vulnerable. It was really pushing boundaries of taste at that point - a baby cannot act and the distress just seemed too real. I literally had to remind myself I was just watching a film. Incredibly effective cinema to control the viewers emotions like that. Amazingly sinister film. I only wish the level of intensity had remained so high. The third quarter was flat after such a brilliant build up.
The third quarter is crucial, and brilliantly handled. That transition from her inhumanity to starting to care for people, before being faced (for the first time?) with the inhumanity of the people she had only just started to understand... Utterly brilliant. It's a film that switched us about and it's hard to hold on sometimes but it's really rewarding for seeing it as a journey of sorts, and getting to that destination.
shareA very divisive film. (Always a good thing!) I found the majority of it absolutely stunning - Impossible to look away from. I suppose I must agree that the slowing of intensity was needed for character development.
Truly there was only a single moment in the film I didn't like. When she sheds her skin at the end. She is holding her 'face' and it appeared to blink back at her. The previous cinematography had been so impressive - this moment seemed quite cheap in comparison. I also didn't get the logic behind it. Is the skin still alive?
Actually, funny you should say that about the face blinking - I didn't notice that before, and watching it again last night, I was quite taken aback. It does jar, and it does raise questions that I hadn't considered before, and I'm not sure what to do with that.
Certainly is divisive - some of the comments on twitter last night were, well, kind of what you'd expect. My favourite was one who summarised the overall views like this. "49% loved it, 49% hated it, and 2% hated it but watched it for Scarlet Johansen's boobs". Probably quite accurate, although I suspect the 2% might really be a larger number.
I am quite certain that the 2% was a very serious underestimate of the true percentage.
Going back to the scene, I think its main purpose was to show that at that point in the film, Scarlett's alien was still focused on her job of collecting humans. She hit the unconscious man with a rock, and did not care that the baby was about to be drowned. Her empathy with humans was to come later in the film.
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I saw the movie yesterday and that scene made me want to stop watching the film. I didn't but it keeps popping back in my mind. I can understand that people are troubled by it, and channel the complexity of that disturbed feeling into the simplicity of anger, hell I'm troubled by it too.
It reminded me of the picture of the little (Syrian?) boy washed up on the Greek shore. It makes real and tangible how fragile we are and helpless.
Think of the violence we inflict upon the other and on species we view as inferior. Then: enter a species that views us as the other and as inferior. The scene might have been the turning point for the alien. Seeing the woman foolishly trying to save the dog; the man trying to save the woman, etc. A cynic might say that altruism is the impulsive response when our emotions overwhelm our ability to think rationally.
Forgive me my unstructured ramblings; I haven't thought this film through yet.
Someone remarked earlier on that the responses in this thread showed who had children or not. I have a one year old daughter and this film made me want to hold her and cuddle her. I hate that scene and I think it is great for making me feel that way.
Ghosts and lovers, they will haunt you for a whileshare
Funny how people are offended by this scene yet a few months back we had a real life situation of both the stupidity of humans as well as how humans act without thinking in distressing situations. The woman getting out of the car in China at the Tiger park. The tiger snatches her and her husband and mother jump out of the car to save her, leaving their toddler in the car and ultimately getting the mother killed. It happens folks.
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For many of you, it appears that this movie got under your skin.
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