MovieChat Forums > Night Tide (1963) Discussion > Various interpretations

Various interpretations


According to the literal interpretation, the mysterious old woman was likely hired by the captain to pester Mora to convince her she is a 'sea-person' so she will stay with him; the reason Mora tries to Kill Hopper's character at the end is that she THINKS she's a killer. She didn't kill her other two suitors, but became convinced she did via the captain's brainwashing. It was the jealous captain who killed them.

In the figurative interpretation Hopper is a lonely sailor who meets an older sailor, also lonely. The young sailor is looking at his future self. Mora is the savage beauty of nature, symbolic of the sea itself. Like the oceans, she is unforgiving, but both sailors love her. When she kills she is above judgment, like the ocean itself, and you can't judge her.

Then there's the question of how Mora died. The captain only confesses to the murders of Mora's suitors because he was in love with Mora and his jealousy drove him to kill the young rivals for her affection. So how did Mora die? Since the young sailor (Hopper) took the only boat and left her in the open sea she must've drowned. However, it's left open how the captain retrieved Mora's body. Either her body washed ashore and he found her or he was tailing the couple when they went diving and he went to find Mora after Hopper's character left the scene and found her dead body. The other possibility is that the captain killed her when he found her alive, but why would he do that if he loved her? Unless it was because he felt she was cheating on him.

The other literal interpretation, of course, is that Mora really was a mermaid and the old woman was a sea person as well but, if this is true, how did Mora die in the water when the young sailor left her in the ocean since a sea person wouldn't drown? Unless the captain thought he was going to lose Mora forever to the sea people and so he killed her after the sailor left.

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Good stuff Wuchak. I just saw this film tonight and enjoyed it. The ending was a little disappointing to me, but then again are there really mermaids?

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Yes.

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Appreciate the feedback, Atomic

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Interesting.

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