My Fiancee's Charisma review

Hey gopherkhan....hope you're still checking in here periodically....I recently watched Charisma for about the third time and I think the review really hits on some small but important details.
It hadn't occurred to me just how much Yubieke's situation fit into the movie's themes. I really appreciated the observation that he becomes an ad hoc sherrif in the woods; they somehow become the one place where he is able to sieze some control over the world around him. It's easy to see why he dreads his job; less so why he avoids his family, but all that matters is that he is a man seeking to escape. Ultimately though, I think his 'empowerment' has more to do with realizing that no one has any control. It's interesting that, in the end, he takes on the role of the tree's caretaker but then aides in the destruction of one of its incarnations. He decides to 'come home' only once everything has fallen apart and seems at peace.
I recently finished a book on Japanese cinema in which it was suggested that the apocalypses depicted here and in Pulse actually have an optimistic element. Seems to me that, in Pulse, there's a degree of choice involved when characters vanish; recgnizing the emptiness of death, they simply give up and fade away. The survivors carry on, seeking new shores.
In Charisma, the hostage taker is a messenger of sorts, a harbinger that 'the rules of the world' are out of whack. I like to think that the destruction in both films is of a cleansing nature. Destroy the old, make way for the new. It's contradictory, no question. Nonetheless (and this is a very personal reading reflecting my very specific world view) I see Charisma and Pulse as having the point of view that the inherent meaninglessness of human life (and I mean this in a universal sense; I'm not a sociopath, I just see our planet as merely a single grain of sand in the cosmic beach and don't believe in god) need not be a horrific thing. My death, and those of everyone I care about, will not be pleasant by any means, but I have made peace with it. I'll simply slip away one day and the universe will go on in some new permutation.
I find this strangely comforting; I don't matter all that much. Seems to me this whole idea of being the chosen children of a supernatural creator makes the madness of our world infinitely harder to bear.
Pheeeew. Anyway, my compliments to your fiancee for a well thought out analysis.