okay - the final scene where he is pushing the pram. He sees the dog and the people at the table. one is the son who died as a deserter, right? ANd the others are David's family? Yes, I am sure that is right.
ANd they are ghosts to whom he is showing his little baby and that life must go on...
That is the message I got. Am I correct? Anyone have anything else to add?
The environment is also important. Ruins are all around, but everybody is doing his best to remove them so a new life can be built. And there is no place for old hate, counting the dead and looking for a revenge if you want to build. As long as people look for memories that stimulate hate there is no chance to build, it is only digging basement for a new war.
sharevery good!!!
"that's whatcha get for Riverdancing in a thong." - Brad Sherwood
Yeah the ending is very optimistic, anyway I'd have liked to know what happened to Horst and David... did they have a "normal" life after all? Horst was identified later by somebody as a Nazi colaborationist? David returned to his house?
However I liked the ending as it is.
They who believe that the money does everything, end by doing everything for money
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I can confirm that having spent some years in a small room, David had in effect become institutionalised. He now lives under a bridge with the few possessions he owns. He is still there today and on rare occasions can be spotted....
He is happy
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Your understanding matches mine. Though the scene was necessary to bring closure to the story, I thought it the weakest part of the movie. Don't know if it should have been cut altogether, or just done differently.
With the entire movie so literal, sometimes brutally literal, a fantasy sequence didn't work for me.
I don't think the ending was weak, at all. The point I got watching it was that the baby connects them all. He is half Christian and half Jewish, delivered by the SS guy, witnessed by his biological father and the underground guy who, at the beginning of the film, yells Jew to the Nazis when he sees David on the street. The final moment is a visual way of showing who that baby is and what he means. I thought it was quite beautiful. Actually, the entire film disarmed me. The horror of it all was made quite clear, but the film, without pushing anything out of reality, was comic, at times even farcical.
shareI don't think the ending was weak, at all.And neither do it. Far from it in fact
I was fascinated that the baby had no diaper and he was shown as uncircumcised. I wondered if this was intentional or not
I agree with you usarmycwo, I didn't care for the ending and just killed the movie for me. I was confused when I saw the little boy and David's family at a table playing cards. On Netflix, I gave it three stars - but it would have gotten five if the ending was a bit clearer. I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but also not the dullest and usually get things that others don't.
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IMO the ending was fine. Don't over-literalize it. The characters amongst the rubble will not have been 'material' ghosts revisiting as a party. They might have been his own thoughts and conclusions represented as a memory of people departed, and that those people -were they still alive- would agree with those conclusions, namely, 'Divided We Fall, United We.....'.
"Don't Trust the Heart - It Wants Your Blood."
I liked the ending because it adds some uncertainty to the previous nightmarish-like end-of-war-scenes. Maybe Josef never got rid of his near-death experience before (when the Russian officer (?) was about to shoot him) and is now in delusions about his dead 'soulmates'. The cards may symbolize the fact that life basically depends on chance and luck.
PS I couldn't fail to notice the steady camera shots here, opposed to some 'shaky' scenes before - scenes with hardly any uncertainty about what was happening. Nice contrast here, hope it was intended and not just coincidence.
A man builds. A parasite asks "Where is my share?" - Andrew Ryan