MovieChat Forums > Cure (2001) Discussion > How I see it... for those who might care...

How I see it... for those who might care.

posted 14 years ago by AlfNet
7 replies | jump to latest

SPOILERS

Sorry, I won't manage to get constructive here, so I'll post as a train-of-thought if you don't mind. Read it as my own thoughts, which are a mix of film lines and what I take of them:

Who are you?
Amnesia
Cure

Who are you? A detective? A policeman? A nurse? A beast with his killing instincts suppressed by moral and social codes.

What drives a murderer to kill? Sometimes it's hard to tell. Or so simple one might overlook it.

Hanged wife. Feeling of despair. But is it really? Or just his mind actually wishing for it?

The policemen shot his colleague because he hated him. What was the reason? Didn't he just told it? He hated him. Why go so far as killing? His mind is empty. No codes. Cure.

Empty. Empty Mind. Amnesia. Who are you?

Who am I? I want to know about you.

I hate men for looking down on me.
I hate my wife for (something related with a pink negligee. Betrayal?)
I hate my wife for being a burden.

Did you tell him about me/my wife? ... Well he keeps asking questions (The guard probably told mamiya nothing about the detective's wife. He just knows all this stuff about everyone. Everything people hold within, which consumes them from the inside)

Deep down in our minds we often wish for the worst, even in those close to us. There's a barrier protecting us from going further, but what if that barrier was removed?

What's with the monkey? It has a cross on his neck. It also seems like he was burned up. What's with the live monkey? He always shows up followed by a furnace. Mamiya got burned burning the monkey before making the cross on his neck? Possible. Maybe he just hates monkeys? Or animals in general? There were a lot in cages. And he lived surrounded by them until 6 months ago.

The girl in the last scene. She grabs a knife after a girl calls for her. She's going to kill her boss? Possible. Hypnotized? Why hypnotized? Maybe just usual human stuff. Reasons? Unimportant. She hates her job, she hates her boss? No need to be hypnotized to kill. People kill for any reason. Some just hold their grudges within while others can't cope with it. The waitress his going to kill and she's not hypnotized. She's just being "pure", as in human without constraints.

Our hate has no boundaries. That's who we are. We would consume everything around us if we could. Why can't we? What holds us back?

"Lunatics have it easy in this world while the rest have to struggle through it."

Mamiya gave those people what they really wished for, deep down in their true selves. He gave them a cure.

A guy surrounded by animals that hates animals.
A women surrounded by men that hates men.
A teacher and a lawyer who hate their wife.
A Psychiatrist living alone that hates himself.
An old women who hates her son.

Our love has no comparation to our hate and the first is only a farce, a mask we show off, who hides our true selves and our most defining characteristic. Hate.

Blank Face in poster. Nurse removing skin from the man's face. What we show outside is a farce. It's blank non existent. Who are you? A detective? That's the farce. Its blank non existent. What you are you hold within. Not what you show and let others perceive of you.

PS. Well, at least I managed to write a big mess.

[–] jkt244 14 years ago

Hahaha, it's great. I also got the same impression as you with each of the characters having a deep inner true self that hated something of some sort. Mamiya released everyone's "suffering" by letting their mind go blank by releasing their biggest burdens in life.
To be honest, when Mamiya and the detective were in front of the group of detective/police group I actually felt a lot more towards Mamiya then for example the detective's boss who was interrogating him. Mamiya thought he and the rest of them were ridiculous and don't understand. It was funny to see all of them going in to chaos while as though they didn't understand anything and they were just living a life of lies. Even when Mamiya was questioning the boss, you could see a point where the boss got sort of calm and asked what do you mean? And Mamiya just told him it's for you to think yourself.
As for the last few scenes I'm not too sure on what to make out of it. I might have to re-watch the film or think more on it. To me it just seemed as though the detective was way to calm yet he was not like the rest of the victims/"lucky ones" of Mamiya. He seemed to know what was going on and his mind was completely empty and bizarre. How did he kill his wife? And the whole idea of the woman at the end with the knife. I feel that there's something more to the detective than we see. I can't say he hypnotized the woman or for example, he was actually in control of the entire situation from the start, but there was something about him that seemed completely absurd from the entire movie. He was not his usual self nor was he like Mamiya.

[–] AlfNet 14 years ago

"Mamiya released everyone's "suffering" by letting their mind go blank by releasing their biggest burdens in life. "

Yes. That pretty much sums my entire post :).

[–] Fi_Sci 14 years ago

Perfect explanation!! Great job...

The reason he can suggest us to do these deeds is because they're already things we've thought about (thus not in any way going against our nature). That is our true selves, as humans.

This movie makes a big social commentary that society takes us away from our natural selves, allowing us to forget who we truly are and lose our real selves, our animalistic rage and nature to kill. He was simply allowing us to get back to our real self (i.e.- that which exists on our most base level).

Fantastic movie and original concept, well worth the watch and one I'll be pondering over for a while.

[–] KenMishima 12 years ago

Great post, your commentary matches up with my theories.

One small thing I disagree about is the idea that the waitress at the end killed without being hypnotized. I think Takabe became the next Mamiya, the next propagator of this dark ritual. Notice him smoking, when he didn't smoke at all at any point in the film beforehand. Cigarettes and lighters was a common method Mamiya used to commence the hypnotization (new word?), as well as water. Takabe was powerful, he was the only one to not give in to Mamiya's attempts. It's reasonable to think that he could hypnotize someone without even directly trying, as shown at the end.

But yes, the primal rage and fury that exists within us at the base level is indeed something that this dark ritual could bring out in people. Once she leaves the table, and the other woman whispers something in her ear, this seems to be the "trigger", where the waitress "wakes up" and commences the possible murder. Maybe the whispering was an order from her boss, and this rage awakened. She hated her boss indeed.

It's also worth noting that in the extended version, her going in and murdering her boss is actually shown.

[–] jhee-222-706822 10 years ago

And don't you think strange how in that final dinner scene, the way he looks so relaxed, finishing the whole plate (in the previous dinner table scene he almost ate nothing, in fact the waitress retires the plate looking plenty of food), enjoying his coffee, his cigarrete... so calm, as if he didn't know what is going to happen in the background, what happened earlier to the nurse when she turned and caught a glimpse of his wife; like he doesn't know he is the carrier now, and even without wanting that, fully unaware, he is mesmerizing those around him!!.
That's my interpretation of the ending : D.

[–] KenMishima 10 years ago

Yep, good observations there, especially with the pre-Mamiya-annihilation Takabe. Before he couldn't even muster enough desire to finish his plate, yet in the final scene he ate everything, enjoying his drink and even having a cig, which he was never seen smoking before.

I think it's also possible that he was aware that he killed his wife. Earlier in the film, it's shown that he legitimately loves her, but he admits to Mamiya that in spite of this, he hates having to take care of her and constantly watch over her due to her mental illness, and that he sees her as a burden. He is shown later sitting on the bed in the dark as she sleeps, and then grabbing a steak knife, but he's never shown actually committing the murder.

Once she was dead, as well as Mamiya, Takabe no longer had any burdens in life, he was free, thus he was totally content and happy. I'm not sure whether or not he was aware that he was the next propagator of the ceremony, but if he was, he clearly didn't care much, lol.

[–] jhee-222-706822 10 years ago

Yes, that would be a nice funky kind of Sixth Sense twist, though maybe doesn't fit too well with the scene when feeling closer the upcoming "showdown" with Mamiya and in fear of her resulting harmed, he confines his wife to the mental/psychiatric institution for her to be taken care, and and most important, to be protected from both Mamiya and even from himself (probably under the influence of Mamiya, or maybe under his own doubts); later, the glimpse of the nurse about his "evil looking" wife, for me, points to that directión too i think, her comitting to the hospital--> her being alive, to that point at least.

So, i think she is really alive, only that Takabe both loves and hates her becaouse of the sorrow of her illnes/condition, of their broken life as a couple, of him spending his life as a caretaker of the more and more diminished woman that he loves... and so on, all that combined sorrow mixed withe the pull/bad influence/doubts of Mamiya over him (the knife/bed scene you mention for an instance), i think it could be. Again, just another interpretacion :).