My Vision of the Ending


I know a lot of people had problems with the ending, and I thought I'd share my experience while watching it because it just seemed so odd: I had this vibrant vision in my mind's eye of Julie laying her newborn on her sick son's chest and him being completely healed.

Before the scene where we see her pregnant, I panicked and thought, 'well, it's obviously been transferred, the healing magic, to her belly, and the new life within. I just hope the child lives the nine months until the next one is born'... and that's when we see her very much pregnant, and Nick still very much alive.

I also noticed when Julie was singing to her boy in the hospital in those last scenes, that the camera stayed on her hands for a long, long time, as they fluttered over and over the boys chest. As if she had imbibed some of his healing talent, by virtue of the fact that she carried the next healor inside her.

She had told her husband that she inexplicably felt like Alexi "needed her". Alexi himself told Julie she was "really special", much to the consternation of the other beautiful blond woman who jelously guarded him in Poland. She obviously loved him as well, but it was not reciprocated. Perhaps I am painting him too much the saint when I say this, but I would like to believe it is because he was so "tired" that he came to Canada to release himself from the burden of healing by passing it on through this "very special" vehicle that was Julie...

When Alexi speaks to his mother at the wedding about her worry for the future... I felt like he worried too, but for less so for monetary reasons. I felt his worries were those of no mere mortal, but instead, that with the end of his own life, the end of his gift of healing would also be inevitable. He'd looked so forlornly at his friends as they wed, watching how family could become one's future; pointing out that which he lacked. When he asks her if she just loves him because he healed her son, is that perhaps why he knows in his heart he cannot stay with her after he passes his gift along?

But where the healor has now gone, I'm not sure. I picture him back with his mother, earning a meagre living doing something simple and sweet to help her into her old age, secure that his offspring is now safe. He was so selfless in so many ways, is it really that much of a stretch to believe he created a situation whereby Julie's husband himself, even if the new child was not his, is swayed to make a selfless decision to continue to love them all enough to re-inspire Julies' faith in him? As if Alexi had healed Julie's ability to love as well?

It's a bizarre analogy I know, but perhaps because I'm an optimist, I will also add here that the crows seen at the end are not always symbols of death, but have historically also been linked to 'sheer magic and transformation.' And healing the sick through touch alone certainly falls under that category. The film was more about this magic than about death, thematically, so perhaps I just prefer to see it this way?

Ahh... Imagination is a wonderful thing, isn't it?

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What you say makes sense, and I like to believe you're right ;)

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Thanks Flautert, I think you've summed up exactly how I feel about it too! Hope is all we have:}

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I also liked your ending- it made me feel happier after watching the end of the movie.

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My vision is that all of Alexi's supposedly healed patients have already relapsed and died. Not because he had sex with a woman, but because his healing was bogus to begin with. Then Julie apologies to her husband for being a complete jerk and taking up with bigotted ignorant people. He leaves her and marries someone sensible. She goes off with a band and is an unsuccessful singer for the rest of her life.

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I personally liked the ending, and it is not by far a Hollywood one (thanks God!). It seems to me that it leaves doors open, for the watcher to decide on it. So, if you are an atheist, a non-believer, you will think that Alexei never had powers to begin with, if you are Christian you will see the sex scene as a sin, so, the logical explanation would be the lose of Alexei power - given by God. If you are Budhist - Karma will intervene - so you will gain something (Love) and lose something (healing power), both equally valuable to you. If you are just like me, you will see the irony of faith, the cheater becomes the cheated, the saint becomes a sinner, the unfaithful becomes the faithful. Also, if you are a pessimist, you will look for bad omens (crow) foretelling the death of the child and the end of a relationship. And the reverse, of course, in case you are an optimist: the crystals in the window - hope for the child recovery, the relationship between the two parents now being stronger than ever, and Alexei, somewhere in Russia, regaining his powers.
But the most important question that you should ask yourself is: why did you chose that ending? Because the answer to this will lead to who you are. And watching a movie, or reading a book, also - it is not about the story, but about how you relate to it, what do you learn from it. So, if you have chosen an ending, it is because it represents yourself.

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This movie had a story that I don't think has been explored enough and that is the healer made one and lost one. He may have just lost his healing powers on her for what they did, we forget that she was married and did the same thing to the husband that he did to her. He may have left[the healer] because how could she explain to god, the healer, or to the husband, divorce court what took place was right, it was sin in context with the film. The healer knew If he pressed her she would not go with him because she was already taken as with the boy and the girl. The ding boy belonged with his dad not the lover You have to remember that her love played a small part in what really happened and that was even if it was love. Just how would it had worked. The dad would not have given in so easily besides he forgave her when I don't think most men would not take care of the lovers child. Just what do most posters think she was to do, it would have been so complicated with the fathers one her husband and legal father to the child the other from a far off land with no means of support. And he was aware of this. He went home because other than the child she was carrying there was nothing else for him, no job, no money, and no true love interest. The crows could mean a number of things...... The story is..... she and her family either gained or lost a new family member or gained or lost there existing son back. No more or no less. All this loss of healing powers, he wanted to regain his healing powers, the unborn being the new healer,they believed in this or that, is all but distractions on what was shown. One last point I don' think she would have taken the daughter away from the dad with what she did. She wondering what was happening, mom a married woman having another man's baby. The movie ended more along these lines than any other solution I have read.

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