I wonder, was the family visit real, or did he just visit his old, abandoned house?
I wonder because he sees dead people through the entire movie, and at the end he imagines his ex wife to be in the train with him. Therefore I wonder if he didn't really meet her.
the story is a catholic metaphor for purgatory.
in the book, albany is said to be 'burning.'
The novel's events take place over a period of only three days, as was the divine descent.
All saints day is mentioned.
in the book he may yet return to the family, it's not clear he wont. you are given hope by the fact he chose to stay, though he was chased out of town.
in the film, the director leaves you confused over whether he has died or hallucinated, though in purgatory, which would be a spirit's illusion, hanging on to the past, it would be irrelevant anyway. francis needs to move on and purge himself of his attachment to his guilt.
the book is not clear whether he has died.
the characters lose human dignity and remain attached to long forgotten events which haunt them. they cannot find redemption or growth because they cant move on, stuck in their own guilt. hope and the infinite await their never ending dance with the decay of life.
i think they were real because his wife looks at him strange as he was talking to the ghosts. Why would he imagine her doing that?
but, i do give you point... maybe they weren't real... its just my preference to believe they were.
Probably real. However, there's one sort of perplexing moment in the middle of his visit when the film goes suddenly into slow-mo, Nicholson steps up to the window and witnesses this bunch of dead people singing and holding the candles... and then the previously furious Diane Venora emerges from the other room with an entirely changed attitude, offering the long-gone dad his favourite pudding and stuff. Strange.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
She needed to vent. Then she was calmed by her mother and came back to make peace.
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