Is Carla really THE prostitute? At the ending, Emma the Madam calls Frederico and says the girl had an accident but she still wants to meet with him. So how can she do that if she really is Carla? She's dead already.
shareAfter I read your query, I wondered if I had been mistaken over what I figured was the ending: Federico was wrong, as what he thought (that Carla was the prostitute) could not have been the case, since he knew Carla was gone, and he even asked the madam if the girl (whom he was told had had an accident and now wanted to see him) was the same one (to which the madam replied, yes). It appeared that Federico was stricken, and he could not even complete the phone conversation courteously (that is, hanging up without saying good-bye/thanks), which solidified in my mind what I thought to be the obvious. (Again, that his suspicions were tragically misplaced.)
Yet I wanted to see if one of the commentators had a different perspective, and "halfcolombian from Sweden" (2002) explored more possibilities that I didn't consider:
"1) Carla was never a prostitute and federico had been wrong all along on suspecting her. The 100,000-lire prostitute was really someone else. 2) Carla was a prostitute but the woman on the phone only told half the truth by saying that she had had an accident but was coming back. She could easily have found another woman afterwards to take carlas place."
The second possibility is interesting, although I don't believe it was the case.
"Halfcolombian" further went on to analyze "Federicos reaction about this phonecall":
"1) he was convinced he had been wrong all the time. 2) he was convinced carla was the girl and he got annoyed when he heard the woman on the phone saying 'she still wanted to see him', knowing it was a lie. 3) he didn't care anymore about wether she was the one."
I didn't feel Federico's reaction was one of annoyance; he looked heartbroken. And as for the 3rd possibility, he appeared anything but apathetic.
It was, of course, established earlier (when her engagement was broken off) that Carla was involved in the 100,000 lire arrangement (when her fiance recognized the special pin, as viewers may recall). I wasn't paying as great attention to the middle portion of the film, and what I'm wondering about is what drove Carla into partaking in such activity. Perhaps some clues were given, but I missed them.
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Unfortunately, no one really knows the answer except the writer. On one hand, Carla says she hates rich men at the scene with the big Rolls Royce parked outside of the fashion house/tailor. She looks contend with the simple life when she and Frederico are vacationing on the island (living in the crappy motel, cooking fish in the kitchen, etc.) So she can't be the 100k lire hooker. On the other hand, a man tries to procure her by asking if she has the "right time" on the street with some expensive shops. So she must be some kind of materialistic call girl. This is one of those films you have to draw your own conclusion one way or the other. I guess all these conflicting information is how Frederico gets himself into "trouble" in the first place. :)
shareHey thanks a lot for quoting me, I'm honored :)
I haven't seen this movie for a while, even though they constantly show it on TCM. I aggree that it's probably meant to be the #1 explanation OR maybe it's meant to leave the audience just as confused as he is. He will never know. (of course with a little investigation he could've found out I guess)
It's a really difficult movie this and relies so much on the actors.
[blu]The next wings you see will be the fly's buzzing over your rotting corpse.[/blu]
Thanks so much for this wonderful discussion, which really helped me understand this ambiguous story.
I don't think she's a prostitute because of the love scene in the bedroom with Fendi, after they're married. Fendi makes Carla parade around the room nude, even though she is clearly uncomfortable doing so. He instructs her to "turn around slowly", "walk back to the bed slowly", etc. She covers herself with her hands, protests she's cold & looks like she's about to cry.
If Carla was a prostitute, most likely, she would have been much less coy about parading around naked. I bet that Fendi asked her for the nudie show as a way to test her reaction: would she show herself boldly (perhaps something a prostitute would do) or shyly (perhaps the way a non-prostitute would do).
I think the last scenes of the film show that Fendi realized his assumption that Carla was a prostitute was wrong. His face freezes in sorrowful astonishment and he wanders out of the office in a trance of grief & regret.
She had worked as a model before she married Fendi. This - and not the hooker conspiracy that I was fuzzy about, having missed the beginning of the movie - made me scratch my head during the bedroom scene. Clearly even in the 60's being a model required a degree of comfort with one's body that wasn't consistent with Carla's shyness; weeks earlier she's been changing in presence of male haidresser. Because of this I think even if she was a hooker she would neither be overly shy, nor feel a need to ham it up to pass Fendi's "test", had she sensed it. If anything, this might have been related to the issues she mentioned earlier but I didn't clearly catch ("I was 19 and then I came to Rome"..) and that possibly played part in her suicide later on.
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Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul.
I realize it has been a long time since your post, but I just saw the movie for the first time and felt I had to reply. The ending was very clear... That was the horror of it... When the madam called to say the prostitute still wanted to see him, he realized that he had been wrong all along and that he drove her to suicide with his obsession....
sharefloridagirl,
I like the way you state that "The ending was very clear." I suppose some viewers have doubt because, in the film, truth is so obscure. By the end of the film, we're so fuzzy with assumptions & innuendo that some are not sure as to what is true or false. I like your clarity.
Thanks for replying bon22... I would like to see the movie again as it has been a little while and I have seen a lot of movies since then! I think some movies have a tendency to make us think there is a trick ending when there isn't. They enjoy confusing... I think this movie was the epitome of that. I was surprised to see that so many people were confused about the ending, as I thought the ending was very clear. Maybe everyone was just expecting more... anyway, it is interesting to discuss and get others' perceptions... Thanks!
shareits not very clear, there is even a chance that she had her friend call to pretend to be her, just before going into the comma she calls her friend and says "only you can"
there is a chance her last action was to set up her husband to know it wasnt her
its somewhat ambiguous