Post by charlie on Mar 23, 2010 16:16:58 GMT -5
Received DVD as a present, viewed it once so far, and still digesting it, and I am curious to hear people's ideas about what the movie is about.
Beyond the deft telling of a thriller/mystery story, is there more to be identified as to what this movie as a work of art is addressing?
I'm sure there were things about the movie that whilst I may have noticed them and perhaps have an inkling that they are significant in some way, nevertheless I failed to understand what such significance points to.
For example, the subject of time kept cropping up: Dobbs' watch, the pendulum, scene-setting headings relaying precise time, and other places I seem to recall noticing it.
And what about Dobbs' misleading impression about the body that was found? A whole other tale woven into the story, a parallel tale; involving something of the notion of mistaken identity on Mellie's part; and involving, too, a falsehood we the audience are initially taken in by (unless I just missed some tell tale signs).
What I think I have figured out is that the film is centrally about relationships between men and women. The mother drinking to forget men are pigs, the daughter echoing this at one point. The evident power or influence different men exert over Mellie and the different ways these men variously affect her; the rapist; Dobbs, whose interrogation of her in very manipulative and unprofessional ways is tantamount to bullying and harassment; Mellie's husband (?) whose interactions with both Mellie and her mother at times seem to centre around suspicions he has about Mellie and around his trying to work out his own approach to his relationship with a woman as distinct from how his father might have handled things; and too, there’s the fact that Mellie’s husband (?) seems to love Mellie, but we discover he has been unfaithful. And why does Mellie never confront him about that or ever tell him of her ordeal with the rapist?
What are your thoughts? What do you think about plot details, themes, subtexts? What is this movie centrally about?
I’d be very interested in your thoughts, please.
[Just for clarification - this is from a comment I posted some while ago on IMDb; figured this would be a better place to discuss these points]
Beyond the deft telling of a thriller/mystery story, is there more to be identified as to what this movie as a work of art is addressing?
I'm sure there were things about the movie that whilst I may have noticed them and perhaps have an inkling that they are significant in some way, nevertheless I failed to understand what such significance points to.
For example, the subject of time kept cropping up: Dobbs' watch, the pendulum, scene-setting headings relaying precise time, and other places I seem to recall noticing it.
And what about Dobbs' misleading impression about the body that was found? A whole other tale woven into the story, a parallel tale; involving something of the notion of mistaken identity on Mellie's part; and involving, too, a falsehood we the audience are initially taken in by (unless I just missed some tell tale signs).
What I think I have figured out is that the film is centrally about relationships between men and women. The mother drinking to forget men are pigs, the daughter echoing this at one point. The evident power or influence different men exert over Mellie and the different ways these men variously affect her; the rapist; Dobbs, whose interrogation of her in very manipulative and unprofessional ways is tantamount to bullying and harassment; Mellie's husband (?) whose interactions with both Mellie and her mother at times seem to centre around suspicions he has about Mellie and around his trying to work out his own approach to his relationship with a woman as distinct from how his father might have handled things; and too, there’s the fact that Mellie’s husband (?) seems to love Mellie, but we discover he has been unfaithful. And why does Mellie never confront him about that or ever tell him of her ordeal with the rapist?
What are your thoughts? What do you think about plot details, themes, subtexts? What is this movie centrally about?
I’d be very interested in your thoughts, please.
[Just for clarification - this is from a comment I posted some while ago on IMDb; figured this would be a better place to discuss these points]