MovieChat Forums > Crowhaven Farm (1970) Discussion > Jennifer + Ben

Jennifer + Ben

posted 11 years ago by Cultfilmfeverforever
3 replies | jump to latest

POSSIBLE SPOILER

I remember wondering what type of relationship they would have if Ben had lived. Then I realized Jennifer meant he would be hers in the remainder of this life and (more importantly) also in the lives to come. Ben suddenly dying in this life made sense. Ben had to die to have his soul given by Maggie to Jennifer. He would reincarnate and so would Jennifer, only closer in age the next time around. Of course Meg/Maggie would likely reincarnate, too. When Jennifer said she would know of love that Meg/Maggie had previously denied her, she meant she would know of love with Ben in the life to come and not the life that they were currently living.

The reincarnation theme made a lot of sense in how everything played out. Very well done and brilliantly written.

[–] chubbypoodle 10 years ago

As they were crushing Maggie, Jennifer said something to her like, "You got to live 72 years. I was killed at age 10. Give Ben to me so that I can have a life with him, the life you took from me."

From a 10-year-old girl, this is way too icky. No WAY they would dare include such a scenario in a modern film. To think that this 10-year-old girl is thinking of Ben in adult, sexual terms simply demonstrates the earlier belief that young children would seduce unsuspecting grown men into perverted sexual relationships. It still is classic for a pedophile to lament, "But s/he came onto ME first!!"

Given the brouhaha with Dylan Farrow and Woody Allen and Ronin and Soon-Yi Previn, it's impossible to imagine a modern film containing that sort of imagery. No freakin' way.

[–] Cultfilmfeverforever 10 years ago

I thought that Jennifer was only in the body of a 10-year-old. The spirit of Jennifer would have been much older.

[–] nihilistwonder 8 years ago

2 1/2 years later, here's an answer.

You have to remember that Jennifer, though she died as a child, had another almost 300 years of existence as a ghost, and once she became a revenant, she had all the knowledge and longings that developed over that period of time. Mentally, she really was NOT a 10-year-old. The process by which she and Ben, who, physically, was over 20 years her senior, would become equal in their relationship, is, perhaps mercifully, left to the imagination. His physical death, obviously a sacrifice, did not bode well for any future either may have imagined.

In a way, Jennifer was an early version of the girl vampire Claudia from "Interview With The Vampire" in that that character, too, developed adult understanding over centuries while trapped and hampered by a preadolescent body that could not mature. Interestingly, in the end Claudia embraced her long-ago-pent-up childish needs by "adopting" a mother who then died trying to protect her.

"Shake me up, Judy!"