MovieChat Forums > Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997) Discussion > What was the deal with the tape recordin...

What was the deal with the tape recording???

posted 15 years ago by ggerod
1 reply | jump to latest

Ok, this was not explained well at all in the movie, and is a MAJOR plot event.

The tape was made at the hospital at the air force base nearest the meteor crash site as the boys father was dying of the parasitic infection.

1. How did the kid get the tape????

2. Who made the tape?

3. The kid must have had the tape the entire time he was being medically monitored by GM in Copenhagen. Why did evil Richard Harris character suddenly want the tape on that one day that the kid died??

4. Why did Richard Harris character try to "kidnap" the boy on that day? Why was that necessary when the boy was being given monthly examinations by GM doctors anyway?

5. The tape actually wasn't really incriminating or proved anything at all. It was just the father saying how he fell into the melt water and then got sick. So what??? Why were the bad guys sweating about that info getting out? The guy was a diver employee and died on the job. His family was given his pension. All perfectly normal and legal. Ok, I can see that GM didn't want anyone to know about the meteor until the time was right, but I don't think that info was on the tape.

[–] Goodbye_from_Fox_In_A_Box 12 years ago

I'll do my best here, and this is from the movie only.

1) His father gave it to him

2) Isiah's father

3) Not necessarily. It might have been with the father's belongings, and Tork (Richard Harris) at the time may have thought it was a music tape. Or same with Isiah. Or Tork knew what was on the tale the entire time and the father hid it. Or Isiah did. My suspicion is that Tork didn't know what was on the tape until close to the day Isiah died. Maybe someone overheard the father and didn't come forward until then. Or it was The Mechanic who squealed. Also, the father was using an old Greenland dialect. That may have played a part in it, too. But you're right in that we don't know why, after a few years, Tork all of a sudden wanted that tape.

4) Isiah never brought the tape with him to bis monthly appointments, and Tork was after the tape. Either he thought Juliana had access to it and he'd trade Isiah for it, or it was all about scaring Isiah; kidnap him on his way home from school, take him to his building and force him to reveal where he hid the tape. I believe it was probably the latter.

5) We didn't hear most of what the tape had on it. It most likely told of what Greenland Mining was doing and where. I'd bet that GM gave false information on where exactly their job location was in every public document. They wanted to hide the meteor, and while their grunts may not have known exactly what they were doing, Isiah's father giving a different account of what happenned and where, causing his death and others', was a problem. Just like Smilla said, Tork saw an opportunity with Isiah on the roof; get rid of the only person who was there, who can give the real story.

Whew. I hope that maybe answered some questions.

"I hardly know, which way is up, or which way down" - "I Feel Possessed", Neil Finn