Thoughts on the ending / the entire concept of the film?

I don't have any answers, but if the reason she screams is because the man in the bed next to her is dead, then the director blew that scene big time. How could she know, just waking up from almost being dead, that a man lying next to her was dead? The other woman touched him, but didn't say anything. Why couldn't he just be sleeping?

For me, I think the last shot explains exactly why it is so tramuatic for her. That image from the camera of her lying there, gently sleeping, with the gaunt lifeless figure of the man right next to here; there is something truly unnerving about it which does not really fit into rational explanation. Sure lying next to a corpse doesn't sound so bad, its a dead guy so what, we already know he was a nice bloke and it's nothing like the horrible man who abused and possibly raped her. In our heads this makes sense, but then there's that awful lingering final image that just impacts you on an entirely different level.

Youth is wasted on the young.

Interesting thread. It's nice everyone here isn't a troll and/or idiot.

The interesting thing about this movie is the way Campion tries to meld a feminist viewpoint to a VERY male-oriented novella ("House of Sleeping Beauties") from a very male-oriented culture (Japan). She isn't 100 percent successful perhaps, but it is certainly INTERESTING.

From a male perspective this movie is about fetishizing the physical female form to the point where it becomes almost METAPHORIC. The sleeping girl here is like the White Whale in "Moby Dick" (or better yet "Lolita" in the Nabokov novel). She represents something far different for her clients than what she really is.

Giving her a real identity (which the novella definitely doesn't)therefore is interesting. Campion makes her into a rather confused, UNFORMED young woman. That befits her role in the story, but is also quite realistic. This character reminded me of Adele Exarchopolous in "Blue is the Warmest Color", not just because the two actresses are both achingly beautiful (clothed and unclothed), but because they are both such non-verbal roles compared to the usual overwritten Hollywood crap. There aren't a lot of inarticulate, bewildered, unsure female characters like this in Hollywood movies. But that doesn't mean there aren't a lot in real life

"Let be be finale of seem/ The only emperor is the Emperor of Ice Cream"

I read a lot of posts on the points of the film/ending some mention passiveness of the character though no one takes the fetish aspect (which we see a lot of in the film) and see it as a submissive character.
(irrelevant of gender or sexuality here) she always agrees to have things decide for her rather than take an action (which is different to passive) so she burns the money, not a passive act, but an act that will have her housemates push her out rather than her leave. She never leaves the office job but pushes until she is fired.
She takes her jobs and does as she is told, and within this Submissive situation she gets into the sexuality of it all. Even when she meets with the 2 guys and tells them to toss the coin she is giving actively submitting to the coin toss.
(same goes for the buying of the camera, the giving of the card number, the cleaning of the toilet, the medical experiments, the sleeping, the falling down and apologising, the partying with the bar guy...)

The only time I saw her actually actively say no is when birdman asked to watch porn.

That (and with him in general) was the only situation where/when she is not completely submissive to her situation or the situations she places herself in. which ultimately is the extreme submission of being knocked out where she cannot even have consent in what's going on (and later on just interest rather than fear or protection).

I do agree with the sleeping beauty (sleeping through her life until woken up in the end) point of the film but not from any self hatred or body issues or her being female, but rather an extreme submissive personality going onto a slave persona.

These are my thoughts on it, if anyone cares to discuss this aspect to it, her happiness in submitting to everyone (her submissive fetish even).

have a good day 

Exactly - an odd one. Maybe a delayed reaction to her friend dying, and/or a reaction to the complete passiveness/ennui of her life. Maybe she feels the job won't last, if the clientele want that kind of service. Or just wanting some actual human contact. The 'sleeping' in the title both a literal and metaphoric term. And was she scared about being able to get the camera back/being caught?