MovieChat Forums > A Handful of Dust (1988) Discussion > Is the opening his suicide?

Is the opening his suicide?

posted 13 years ago by kftweedy
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I'm confused (after seeing this on Netflix's streaming version). I've not read the Waugh source, but on reflection of the second to final scene (where Todd tells him that word of his demise has been sent back to England) and the desperation in Last's eyes, the first scene where he dives into that wondrous river and then comes up to have a brief conversation with the apparition of his wife seems to end in his diving and not being seen again? Is this the ending which then foreshadows the rest of the film?

[–] slokes 11 years ago

No, that appears to be a flash-forward to the second half of the film but not its end, specifically a scene of the camp Tony and the doctor were keeping. The items we see arrayed in the jungle in the film's opening moments, like the toy mouse and the various shipping boxes, are seen again later shortly before Tony's "rescue" by Todd, when he was left in that otherwise abandoned camp by the doctor in a feverish state while the doctor went off to presumably look for help. I believe Tony dreams there in the book of being visited by Brenda, who talks to him about her happy condition.

When we see Tony diving into the water, it's not really him, but a figment of his imagination, who then talks to another figment of his imagination who is Brenda. Tony's final state is left unclear, but he seems resigned to the role Todd has assigned him.