At the very very end when Francis lifts up the rug and looks in the vent thing... what did that mean? I missed the beginning so maybe it had to do with something I missed? I don't know, somebody please help me out.
sharehe had been thinking that she was a cannibal who brought men to her flat and murdered them and kept their bodies in the cellar.
I can't remember when he first started thinking it, it had something to do with her being a vegan and taking a biker man back to her flat.
I actually hid when he lifted the rug...what did you see inside the cellar?
My teenage ansgt has a body count
only subtitle....
What the schnitzel?!
My take on the ending is that he discovered she was indeed keeping bodies down there and that he wasn't imagining that after all.
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I think it just shows that his delusions continued in spite of everything. The poor guy is clearly schizophrenic and cannot discern reality from his hallucinations. His repeated inability to find the things he had "seen" in her apartment shows that he's clearly delusional. Her revelation of love for him won't cure that, but hopefully it's a start.
shareyes I agree, see my comment under the prior post "was she a cannibal?"
shareThe vent was actually the killing room floor. in the slaughter house when they carve up the carcasses they do it on a vented floor allowing the loose meat to slide down through the floor out of the way. And its cleaner that way you don't have pools of blood and gristle on a regular floor.
When he looked in the vent, he didn't have his gun anymore, I kept waiting for her to shoot him in the back.
I think she was a killer, but I also think that she wasn't going to kill Francis. After all, she had plenty of chances.
I also think he was kinda crazy. Maybe she saw that and liked that about him...lol.
Much as I'd like to think the film were that straightforward, I'd have to agree with abchulett. He looked down into the vent because he was still delusional, despite clearly not wanting to be. He accepted the girl and her love and his love for her, and still couldn't bring himself to harness his curiosity.
Plus, in a short interview with the director on the disc he refers to his protagonist as delusional - hence, she's no killer.
That is definitely it. Come on people... at one point the saw his own head on a platter!
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Yeah I thought that was a good ending too. Really makes the viewer question weather or not he really is delusional. Just when your completely sure hes off his nut...he finds that vent! LOL I totally expected Gloria to shoot Francis in the back of the head. Jeeze! Sure hope the sex was worth it for him. hehe I really dug this creepy movie!
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I think that even though he could grasp the concept that he was seeing
very bad things supposedly by God, he still could not keep them from
happening. In short he was doomed to be insane. And Don't forget he
had two dead bodies rotting back at his home. How long before he would
be arrested and put away. The terrible ironies and tragedies are that he
actually had a beautiful woman who loved him, and he was actually on to
a missing child in the neighborhood that he could have saved. When he would
be arrested the child would go unfound and his unlikely love would never be.
The only good news may be that he wouldn't actually kill someone with a gun or
meat cleaver.
I think this is a really good movie, that shows his peculiar life living with his much older sister in the guise that it is his step-mother, where the family's strict catholic beliefs and feelings of guilt and confession screwed up his mind even more. The miracle of the movie is this guy could find love.
The Tragedy is his mental illness could never allow it.
that was his older brother in drag. He had a crutch in the pic as a teen, and no foot living with Francis.
shareHe's definitely still delusional. He had been through most of the movie and there was no reason for that to change at the end. Plus, and I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this yet, she lives on the 7th floor of her building. There is no reason for there to be a large vent in her floor and I'm pretty sure the 6th floor isn't a basement.
shareBeing that there was a religious tone to the entire film, and that by the end of the movie Francis hated God and blamed him for his delusions, I believe the end was much more spiritually significant.
In my opinion,Francis' monologue at the end of the film was not between he and his ex-girlfriend, but was actually between himself and the devil. He was an obvious believer in both God and the devil, and in several scenes he is seen cursing God, or burning God's portrait.
I think the vent at the end, was a way of showing that Francis was looking below, to hell or the devil, and when he said, "Even if he (God) doesn't love me, I know you do" he was actually talking to the devil.
That's my two cents, being an ex-christian personally, this is the message I took from Buddy Boy.
My theory is that the director was going for ambiguity on a literal level as well as for some religious symbolism at the same time. But if I were forced to choose one theory about the literal story, I would have to choose the theory that he is NOT delusional and that she is a psychopathic cannibal.
As to the literal level, and the points that have been made in this thread:
(1) The point about it being in an apartment building on one of the top floors can be dealt with by pointing out that (a) she might own the apartment, and (b) she might also own the apartment below. She doesn't need to be living immediately above the basement for things to work out for her. And presumably, cannibalism is an excellent method of preventing odor issues.
(2) The point about him seeing his own head on a platter is not as helpful in resolving the debate as it might seem because immediately after the shot of him seeing his own head on a platter is a shot of him lying in a bed and opening his eyes, which could imply that he was actually just dreaming that he saw his head on a platter. On the other hand, right before the shot of him seeing his own head on a platter was a shot of him riding on the bus, immediately after which we see him with his binoculars looking into her apartment. In my view, it's clearly a case of intentional ambiguity by the director as to whether that was a dream or not. It's definitely not solid evidence that he was necessarily delusional.
(3) I think the best reason for thinking he is delusional is simply that any good cannibal would surely close the blinds before getting down to business, regardless of how high her apartment was. Then again, there was a closed blind in that middle room there where only shadows could be seen, and that seemed that that was where she killed her victims. Still, why even allow shadows to be seen? And how could she be so sure that her intended victims wouldn't escape at least as far as another room? And how likely is it in the first place that any given woman in an apartment is a cannibal? Except in movies, that is. Really, I view all of these window-related issues as issues that really aren't that helpful at resolving the matter, because the windows, shadows, and lack of blinds are the way we find out about the whole cannibalism-or-delusion issue in the first place--I view these window issues as the kind of thing you as a viewer would be supposed to suspend disbelief about if we were assuming the cannibalism theory was the correct one.
(4) As to the literal level, if I had to pick one theory over another, I'd choose the theory that he is actually not delusional at all, and that she is actually a psychopathic homicidal cannibal for two reasons: (a) He didn't seem delusional in places other than downstairs in his building while using binoculars, and (b) given that fact I just stated, it would stand to reason that the grating he saw in her apartment and whatever seemingly horrified him there at the end when he looked through the grating was not a delusion.
Ultimately I do not think there's any definitive way of proving one theory or another as to what the literal story was, and I believe the film is intentionally ambiguous on a literal level. If you make me pick one though, I'm definitely going with the theory that he is not delusional at all.
Even if you do buy the theory that says she really is a cannibal, it's far from clear that she's actually going to turn him into her next victim. She did seem to love him, after all. Maybe he will not freak out after he sees what's going on there below the grate, and maybe she will not feel threatened by his reaction and so won't resort to killing him, and maybe she will then help him resolve his own dead-body issues, and maybe he will convert to cannibalism and they will live happily ever after.
Then again, there was a closed blind in that middle room there where only shadows could be seen, and that seemed that that was where she killed her victims.
I'm pretty much with you on this, squishy... I totally "read" the ending as confirming his suspicions.
Freaky movie... Fun stuff at 2 a.m. this morning... Insomnia sucks, but IFC rocks. *LOL*
And now for something completely different...
Yes, and I agree it was a very fun movie. Near the top of my list of movies I've seen in the last year.
share"any good cannibal would surely close the blinds before getting down to business"
All the talk of windows and blinds is irrelevant. She firmly believes nobody can see in: "The windows across the street aren't high enough. That's the beauty of it, really."
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There is joy in the setting out; there is joy in the journey; there is joy in the goal.
That's a good point, y'know, in terms of movie logic. Obviously she is in fact wrong about how private her place is, but, sure, maybe she's completely oblivious to that fact, so that's believable enough for purposes of a film.
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