MovieChat Forums > The War Zone (1999) Discussion > Ambiguous is genius

Ambiguous is genius

posted 12 years ago by moviesleuth2
2 replies | jump to latest

"The War Zone" is one of the most beautiful and disturbing films that I have ever seen. Not only is the story gripping, the acting exceptional and the direction brilliant (by a first time filmmaker to boot).

And the reason is that it is so deliberately ambiguous. There are so many ways to interpret what is going on and what the characters are thinking. The movie is about incest and you can watch it as that. But every time you watch it you can always see a new way of interpreting what is going on.

Take the bunker scene. By filming it, is Tom a protector of voyeur? Then why does he throw the camera away? I go into a bit more detail in my review: http://mightymikesragingreviews.blogspot.com/2012/01/war-zone-contains-spoilers.html Please read and comment!

There are so many scenes argued and debated about on this forum, and everyone has a different and valid opinion.

Thumbs up for being challenging and ambiguous!

http://mightymikesragingreviews.blogspot.com/

[–] Ithilfaen 12 years ago

What's ambiguous about the movie? If anything, it's way too straightforward and leaves very little to the imagination or interpretation.

For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco

[–] polysicsarebest 11 years ago

Eh, there are lots of little moments of ambiguity, in lines/scenes/character motivation. The plot is pretty straightforward but individual scenes aren't overexplained by needless exposition or whatever. Hence the ambiguity.

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Shuji Terayama forever.