SPOILER ALERT (in case anyone reading hasn't seen or read GM)
According to Wikipedia's plot summary:
"In the cave, Rima is eager to enter Riolama valley. Abel reveals sad news: her mother left because nothing remained. She belonged to a gentle, vegetarian people without weapons, who were wiped out by Indians, plague and other causes. Rima is indeed unique and alone. Rima is saddened but suspected it: her mother was always depressed. Now she decides to return to the forest and prepare a life for herself and Abel. She flits away, leaving Abel to fret as he and Nuflo walk home, delayed by rain and hunger. They return to find the forest silent, Nuflo's hut burned down, and Indians hunting game. Abel, exhausted, is again taken prisoner, but isn't killed, as he quickly makes a vow to go to war against the enemy tribe. On the war trail, he drops hints about Rima and her whereabouts. Kua-Ko explains how, thanks to Abel's "bravery", the Indians dared enter the forbidden forest. They caught Rima in the open, chased her up the giant tree. They heaped brush underneath it and burned Rima.
Abel kills Kua-Ko and runs to the enemy tribe, sounding the alarm. Days later he returns. All his Indian friends are dead. He finds the giant tree burned, and collects Rima's ashes in a pot. Trekking homeward, despondent and hallucinating, Abel is helped by Indians and Christians until he reaches the sea, sane and healthy again. Now an old man, his only ambition is to be buried with Rima's ashes. Reflecting back, he believes neither God nor man can forgive his sins, but that gentle Rima would, provided he has forgiven himself."
So my guess for the film is that Rima is dead and is a vision he is having of absolution and forgiveness.
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larryd552002
13 years ago
I read the book, and Rima died sure enough. The indians chased her up a tree then burned it down. The indians later bragged to Abel how they had killed the evil "daughter of the didi bird." The whole tribe had gathered around the base of the tree and cheered as she finally passed out and fell into the fire at the base of the tree. Later, after going nearly mad with grief, Abel decided to visit the site of the burned tree and look for her bones figuring if he couldn't find them she might have escaped. Unfortunately, he found her hip bone which was all that had survived the fire. He took this with him and travelled to the coast and dropped it in the sea, because in life she had never seen the ocean, and it was her dream to cross it in order to find her people so she could finally have someone she could talk to in her bird language.
Btw, Hudson was an early environmentalist. The gigantic tree, as well as Rima, represented the forest of Venezuela which he loved and feared would soon disappear. The imagery of the destroyed tree as a symbol of a threatened planetary ecosystem is suspiciously similar to the tree in "Avatar."
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indioblack117
10 years ago
I have just read the book, and those of you here who relay its contents must have read a different version to mine. Abel does not relate his adventures to anyone else other than the reader. He does not just find a hip bone, but some bones and carries them with him to the coast. He does not throw them in the sea.
He mourns her loss and longs to meet her in his own death. Hollywood had an ambiguously happy ending.
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ilahilda
9 years ago
The movie was confusing to me as well. I'm guessing that was her ghost or somehow she survived be burned alive.
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