Why didn't she shoot the thief? Wouldn't that be more justifiable since the thief was the one who infected her and ruined her life?
Look at it knowing only what
she knows, not what
we know. From her point of view, she has no idea the Thief even exists, and it makes perfect sense to her that there's only one person and he's responsible for ruining her previous life. We know it was a case of mistaken identity and it wasn't fair, but she doesn't get that at all.
Did the pig guy WANT to die?
I don't think so ...but I'm not too sure. My interpretation is he either had a heart attack after understanding she could see him, or she shot him after finding him, or both.
I am aware though that another interpretation exists: that he "finally realized" how his own activity was part of a larger cycle, and how some other parts of that cycle were causing extreme misery to a lot of people, and then "wanted out". I personally find that interpretation less satisfying because it doesn't seem to answer the obvious question: why didn't he just commit suicide.
The stones at the bottom of the swimming pool. What was that all about?
In 'Walden', Thoreau asks rhetorically how Walden Pond came to be surrounded by stones, and relates "... a story that the pond was the scene of an ancient Indian ritual that angered the gods, who sent the stones rolling down the mountain after them. The stones collected around the pond, and so the pond is named after Walden, a female Indian who was the only survivor."
It seems to me that although knowledge of the book Walden makes the film richer, it's not necessary ...
except here. There doesn't seem to be any way to get this without knowing the book.
Also note there's one picture of her swimming at a weird time
before being conned, so in a way it was a continuation of an old interest.
The mysterious sound which bothered the girl. What was that all about?
It was the sound made by the power pole we see. It had both a low component (the low hum at transformer frequency) and a high component (probably wind whistling through the attached wires). It led her to that location, where Jeff got a name off the mailbox and then found matching recordings. Although we don't see the details, a reasonable guess is that sound is part of how she located the Sampler.
The Sampler and Kris and Jeff are connected not only by touching their pig, but also by sounds (the sound-only connection is probably weak ...but it exists). We see this first where the Sampler is exploring sounds around his truck, Kris is first watching the giant flatbed printer and then sewing, and Jeff is hypnotically focused on the mail sorting machine. When Kris cuts the thread on the sewing machine, the Sampler acts like he heard a very distinct click -followed by the end of the psychic connection.
And when Kris and Jeff get near the Sampler's place, we see them in the same culvert sliding rocks down the sides the same way to enjoy the sound.
The little kids who harvested the grubs at the start of the film:
Kids are into experimenting, and often experiment with drugs. Those kids didn't have enough money to buy the drugs, so they talked the Thief into giving them his jar of reject worms, which they re-sorted and found a couple with the blue stuff that he missed. Note the kid's comment about how many worms he has to sort through to find a few that will make a usable tea.
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