I found the ending of this film very abrupt. Rita is sitting on a couch and the film just stops and credits roll.... Did I miss something? A nuance, a look, struck me as a somewhat cryptic conclusion.
shareWell albeit 5 years later but I didn't get it either. I admit I was waiting for the Indian to speak but I'm mystified
Another 5 years (almost), I watched Hotel at the weekend and thought this might be underrated too, I was wrong. The ending was about the most interesting part of the film, though I'm at a loss as to what Indian you're referring too, this film was really an amateur effort, the acting was awful as was the lighting and camera work.
But, back to the point, I think the abrupt end is just to show how disassociated she is to what she has done, she is obviously supposed to come across as a heartless monster, but nothing foreshadowed it, everything that should have been hinting at a darker person was played too lightly, even the kidnapping, it's all made out to be the attention seeking behaviour of someone struggling with growing.
I saw the abrupt end to be similar to Afterschool (2008). It was breaking the fourth wall and "implicating" the audience - of what, I'm not sure. That we wanted an answer to the last 10 or so minutes but didn't get it? In that, our expectations weren't met and we didn't get an emotional release. But Hausner took notes from Haneke on this film and that ending for sure.
:: filmschoolthrucommentaries ::
Re: "implicating" the audience, maybe the director is trying to say that we, the society, are partially to blame for the disconnect that many teenagers feel today. The mother and father were wrapped up in their only little worlds and about the only interaction they had with Rita was at mealtimes or when she'd done something wrong. Hence she keeps doing even worse things just to get noticed by somebody. She even had to 'perform' as a kind of waitress when the parents held a dinner party.
And what father has a shooting range in his basement! Words fail me. As soon as she entered the room I had an inkling of what she was about to do.