MovieChat Forums > A Map of the World (2000) Discussion > blackouts (spoilers maybe?_

blackouts (spoilers maybe?_


I thought it odd that they never really deal with her blackouts where she apparently can't recall things she has done. Ie. slapping the boy, knocking herself out in prison. It seems to me that this would be a big issue.

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These aren't blackouts as such. In the book she doesn't have "blackouts". These are director's techniques to keep us guessing as to what really happen. In the book, she definitely remembers hitting her own head on the table in prison, she doesn't remember the "why".

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I agree, it wasn't a blackout. As a mother and someone working in the school, you don't just come right out and tell everyone that you lost control and slapped a student. It is hard to live with the fact yourself, that you lost control to that extent.

She was pushed and pushed by her own daughter, and then by this student. It seemed that she took out some of her anger toward her daughter on the student. She probably thought of herself as someone who would never hit or spank her own child.

Even without saying that she slapped the boy, all hell broke loose. Finally, she was so sick of pretending to be something she wasn't (perfect and or infallible), she told the truth, much to her lawyer and her husband's dismay.

It is so hard to be a parent or even to work with children. Even when you love them more than life itself. Even when it is something you really want to do -- it is so hard.

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She didn't have blackouts. In the book she remembers clearly hitting the boy and in the movie, she also knows she hit the boy, but was keeping it to herself. She was "haunted" but the memory of it and the movie director was being dramatic in showing it to us that way. As far as the book goes, at first she didn't remember hitting her head on her own until she was told over and over again and pieced it all together. In the movie, she seemed to remember quicker that she hit her own head. I do believe that MAY have been a type of blackout, or even a spasm, throwing herself forward then back, caused by stress.

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