I enjoyed "Human Nature" but I'm slightly conflicted about the ending--the last scene (spoiler, if you haven't yet seen it) when "Gabrielle" and Puff drive off together. Is this an allusion to the title--that it's all part of human nature and now that Puff has been exposed to it, he puts on the entire act?
I'm quite surprised that no one has posted anything regarding the last scene.
Michael
yes, i know, i was hoping more people would give something, something i wouldn't think of. i can't
shareI was also somewhat disappointed by the ending. How can we accept Puff as a good person when he lets Lila take a jail sentence for a crime he committed, then lies to everyone including his mother that he's going to live in the jungle, only to go off with that slut Gabrielle? He should have stayed in the jungle with Lila. Or would that ending have been too 'happy'? I guess the only sense the ending made was that Puff and Gabrielle had one thing in common - they both lived for sex and nothing else.
Money is society's way of telling you 'You could do better!'
It's not suppose to be saying that Puff is good! He is a victim of not only human nature but the nature of our greedy and superficial society. There's nothing black and white about any of Kaufman's scripts and the characters within them, something that makes them realistic, even if they're surreal at times.
shareEverything it tries to show (human nature, recklessness, etc.) makes sense, but I just hate how Lila ended up!!!
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I think the ending was the funniest part! It completely sums up what the entire film is all about, which is that people's only real motivation to do anything is to get laid.
"I want a mustache damn it! I want to look like Burt Reynolds!"
I agree. Puff's actions were part of his natural human instinct to thrive once he was introduced to the temptations of civilized man. Masterpeice of a film.
shareI was entirely baffled by the ending. I was watching on DVD and nearly turned off at the shot after he goes into the forest. The relationship with Gabrielle hadn't been foreshadowed in any way! The only decent thing about the ending was the look of confusion/sadness/loss that passes over his face before the camera draws away...
shareAfter one of the demonstrations of Puff's "civilisation" (is that the right word?) Gabrielle grabs his crotch or his ass, can't remember which one. I think that passes as foreshadowing. Plus he was totally rampant and she was a complete tart anyway. I was so disappointed that he went off with her, but it had to happen.
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hahaha!
share
yeah, when that scene came on i said, "how could he do that to lila?!" and my sister said, "that's human nature".. so i definitely think it was an allusion to the title. it's kind of sad and f-d up the way the ending to being john malkovich is. obviously there are good and loyal human beings, as lila is an example..although she had said she wasn't sorry about nathan's death. i just think it goes to show the complexities of being human. the look on puff's face as they're driving away is clearly one of conflict. he glances back and he looks conflicted and guilty. it would be too simple and tied up with a perfect bow if he had stayed in the forest, though i would have preferred it if he had. it just shows that once you're corrupted and exposed to the ugly parts of being human, it's nearly impossible to reclaim your lost innocence.
Very well said. Couldn't have put it better myself.
http://www.ymdb.com/user_top20_view.asp?usersid=24130
Human Nature mostly deals with the isolation that people feel when they are trying to jump through the hoops of what they think that other people expect of them. Yes, sadly, sex is used as the great carrot dangling in front of our faces in this instance, but I feel that the isolation as a result of the mechanism is really the point. All of the main characters drastically altered themselves in an attempt to find what they probably told themselves was love but what they secretly understood was fleeting physical closeness.
Puff was taught that, if he behaved, he would get what he wanted, and he started to believe it. The true damage was not that he never actually “got” what he wanted but that sex and relationships were turned into things that were to be acquired and abandoned whenever something more immediately pleasing came along. At the end, Puff allows everyone to think that he is going back into the forest; maybe for Lila, more likely because of his own narcissism, but more importantly because it makes the betrayal of these declarations so much sweeter. He hops in the car with his beloved carrot, a French girl who isn’t French but is wearing her own Darwinian mask. They both stare blankly knowing that they are completely alone. They know it, but they will do nothing about it because they believe in the machine. They believe that if they make the right dance steps they can have anything that they want. This is why the mice at the end of the movie are holding up the sign for New York. They want to be back in the laboratory. Nevermind the torturous shocks and loss of freedom, we want to be given the tasty pellet whenever we use the correct salad fork. Listen to the words of the song at the end of the movie. They are in no way subtle, but they illustrate the point.
Um...yeah, sorry, I don't quite follow you. Perhaps you could clarify that a bit?
share
Awesome post, Jellybean
Totally agree!!
You're forgetting the golden rule: Whoever has the gold, makes the rules.
It's not often we see an unhappy hollywood ending. It's kinda cool that they left us with a sour taste in our mouths and disappointed. Nobody really got what they wanted in the end.
A brave ending I say.
Puff: Apes don't assasinate their presidents, gentlemen!
I feel like Puff's only real motive was sex. He said it at the beginning, he was just going to play their games to "get some"
With whatever his name was Tim Robbins guy was making him do things, he behaved because he wanted to be able to have sex and because he didn't want to get shocked. With Lila, he was getting sex from her, so he did what she wanted. He told his story before congress because then she would confess to killing Tim Robbins. In the end, he didn't really care about being civilized or not. He just wanted sex. Gabrielle could give him that.
I was first disappointed in the end, because i wanted puff to go back in the wilderness of course, but then he went of with Gabrielle, but then i realized, that this is the most realistic thing to happend, he sad in the car "i wanted you all along" or something and its obivous, he probally saw Dr Nathan and Gabrielle as mom and dad. He was their children. And as all children to (according to freud) they fall in love with their mother. And he did. But it would be fun to see how it worked out beetween them hehe
brilliant!
shareHe always wanted "some of that," and in the end he got some of that!
shareWell it isnt just human nature. Notice how the mice wanted to be civilized again.
shareI don't know if anybody else noticed, but that look of conflict on Puff's face when they drove away was because he saw the little hut he and Lila made in the forest on the side of the road and was all, "Awwww, good times". So, I think he really loved Lila, but in the end, chose to go with his sexual urges (i.e. human nature).
shareI think this shot of Puff and Gabrielle driving away, with that look of slight bewilderment on their faces, as if they are trying to understand what they just did and where they might go next, is a direct reference to "The Graduate".
In the end of "The Graduate" (spoiler), Ben has finally chased down Elaine and convinced her to run away with him. They flee Elaine's wedding to another man, run from the entire wedding party, and jump aboard a bus. They make their way to the last seat at the end of the bus and drive off together, presumably to be happy ever after. But there's that same look on their faces -- what did they just do? What will they do next? For Ben, the chase for Elaine is over. Does he have what it takes to be a good husband? Elaine is probably questioning leaving the other man for Ben, a confirmed wimp and deceiver. So where we would expect smiles and happiness we see instead confusion and a touch of anxiety. I saw the same thing on Nathan's face as he left his beloved forest with Gabrielle.
That's exactly what I thought too, whether it's true or not.
You people aren't Santa. You're not even robots! How dare you lie in front of Jesus.
It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't Gabrielle in the car... I truly do think she is the MOST heinous female character EVER. If she was only another "hot" stereotypical dumbass this would be one thing, but she was really cruel. I don't know, I think she is a too deep character to play the superficial role of the tart on the hunt for sex. That's the main reason why that ending killed me.
sharei thought it was great. a few reasons:
- probably the funniest joke in the entire movie. all this seemingly extreme behavior is going on for the entire movie, but this scene seemed so ridiculous to me...and they were acting "normal"
- sometimes people do stupid *beep* i think that puff really loved lila. that was illustrated in the whole going back into the wilderness orgy segment. but in the end, it's all about number one...which is a great conclusion to a film (true but not trite).
awesome movie. really funny and complex
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