my theory

hi,

let me say this first: i didn’t like the film very much. i find it paints a unnecessarily depressing picture and it uses a lot of symbolism (which i’m not a big fan of).
but i have my own theory what it is about - which i want to share with you.

i think this film is about the bad seed of egoism, carried by the girl, that might or might not destroy mankind in the far future. let me explain:

in the intro sequence (that i liked a lot) we see the world population rising, and then abruptly declining, until mankind is almost extinct. this is because of the egoistic exploitation of the environment (symbolized by the blue oil line).

one can imagine that during that process of decline people will live in very harsh times to survive. there will be wars over dwindling resources, and a lot of inhumanity, until we finally end up with our main guy, who lives a recluse life alone in the woods, and who kills every one that threatens his lonely world.

everyone we see in the move until the last scene is still carrying what led to the downfall of man in the first place: our lonesome hero, who sacrificed his own brother to get a head-start from his persecutors, and who rather kills than shares.
the old woman, who uses her daughter as a prostitute to gain peoples trust, and then plans to kill her host to overtake the farm.
the six men, who range the land to plunder, destroy and cannibalize whoever they meet.
and finally the girl - the only one to seem to have at least some humanity left.
but we’re proven wrong.

in the final scene, she approaches a community, that stands for another concept of living.
a humane one.

the community, (although it looks like a prison camp) symbolizes a society where people are treated equally (symbolized by a woman at the gate), where everyone works for the good of society rather than for his own selfish reasons (symbolized by the field worker) and where no one is left out, even if he’s not able to contribute fully (symbolized by the crippled woman). maybe the prison camp like appearance symbolizes that this humaner world can only be achieved by restricting individual rights and needs.

the girl obviously know about this place, because she went straight there after everything goes bad for her. because she is the survivor. just as ruthless as any other person we’ve met. she is now trying to get into this other society.

we don’t know if she will be let in. if she will plant the bad seed of the old society into the new one. we don’t know if the will name the baby alexander (i think that was the brothers name) or if she will give it a new name. if she is going to change, or if she is just continuing surviving at the cost of destroying everything around her.

let me know your thoughts about this theory.
and pardon my bad english, i’m not a native speaker.