MovieChat Forums > The Hanging Garden (1997) Discussion > hanging and sisters husband

hanging and sisters husband

posted 19 years ago by gorjac
5 replies | jump to latest

Like other viewers I was confused about the young William hanging from the tree when the adult William had returned home. It muddled the whole plot. If the hanging body was meant to be symbolic, then it should have been made clearer for the benefit of the viewers. In a way it spoiled the movie because, as is so often the case with Canadian movies, it left this viewer shaking his head and wondering what it was all about. I choose to believe that the body symbolised what was left behind when William left for the city and a better life.

In the beginning I was also confused about why the bride was so angry with everyone but I think that it became clearer that she was angry that her brother had not yet shown up for her wedding. Why she married Fletcher is another story. Would any woman who does not appear to dote on her man marry someone that she knew was bisexual and had tried to get it off with her brother years earlier, let alone go in for a big white wedding! It was also a bit hard to believe that Fletcher would try again to get it off with the adult William so shortly after his wedding and in the knowledge that his new wife knew he was going to try. It was also hard to believe that the young Fletcher would ever be attracted to the obese, basket case that was the young William, let alone carry a torch for him. The guy must be blind!!

Living in Canada I enjoy the Canadian locale but I do not think that this movie will be a hit outside this country.

[–] arizona-philm-phan 19 years ago

gorjac......stop and think. Fletcher wasn't seeing the Sweet William you and I were seeing; he was seeing the sweet guy on the inside. And, hey, as concerns the "big white wedding" you mention, how many of today's brides-in-white do you suppose are still virgin? Prolly a lot.....but prolly not all (don't want to get the gals mad at me).

[–] tdeitz-1 18 years ago

I suspect the big wedding (and possibly the wedding itself) was mostly to make the family shut up about it. The elder members strike me as the sort who can't abide the notion of an unmarried daughter, esp. when the son is out of the picture. As to why she married Fletcher . . . maybe because she had a decent comfort level with him and wouldn't mind being married to him, but knew he wouldn't be too demanding.

[–] sylvain-surcin 18 years ago

I think that Rosemary married Fletched because, as she was in love with her brother but couldn't ever get him actually, this was a way to get him indirectly, by procuration: she married the man her brother was in love with.

And concerning the hanged youth self, I got the feeling that the adult William sort of got rid of his asthma when he finally cut the rope that he had been hanging from for ten years.

Or perhaps I'm totally hallucinating on both topics. But it's just because I wouldn't like to have spent 1 hour and a half watching this movie with the aftermath feeling of not having understood anything. The director went wildly poetic? Then let's get wildly hypothetic :-)

[–] ashleyandreala 17 years ago

I totally agree with that, since Fletcher was in love with Willy as was his sister, they figured they may as well have one another

[–] moosefeathers 15 years ago

perhaps he did not die, but lived because maybe his neck was so fat that he was still able to breathe, and that the fathter actually found him. he left because of incidents that happened.

the hanging teen in the story was not real, but the emotional scars everyone carried from the incident with Flether and grandmother, etc.

i think william actually buried the dog, who died. remember the mother said that she would have put the dog down, but the father couldn't let it be done because he loved the dog. when he and rosemary were lookign at the hanging teen she said to him (or william to her- don't recall), "you see it too, right?" after the father tried to dig up the grave i figured it was the dead dog they were seeing. this man had loved his dog so much that he couldn't bare to put him down, yet he did physically abuse his son, and always after the abuse he tried to wipe the slat clean by being extra nice to william, (i.e. the money for the dance and the boutteniere).

just my take on it.