That much is obvious. But I don't understand why exactly he is there or even what the hell the point of much of the stuff in this movie was about. Is he in hell for just being an atheist? And whhat exactly happened with the hospital? Did he even go there? Or did he kill himself directly after his daughters death? If so, what was the point of the hospital?
sharethe name of the hospital was sedah state,hades backwards,since his proffesion was in the psychiatric field I guess that was an appropriate setting,if you watch it a few times you'll see the clues,its almost as if he wasn't officially in hell yet,because he was given several chances to admit he could be wrong sometimes,which he refused to do.when satan came he told him he was there because he wanted his soul.the whole video team thing was to document just how much of a "good man" he was.although he seemed to be concerned about the cheryl character,it was his daughter he really felt he was helping in his subconcious,plus his motivation was overall self serving.in the end it was final that he was in hell and he says to himself "oh my god",then remembers he doesn't believe in god.and the arguement of being "a good man" could/and would be refuted by the accumulated footage,which truly captures him at his worst,...telling the satan character he could help him ,but didn't care enough to.plus over sedating and straight-jacketing him unessesarily out of spite,plus being particularly smug to dr. delazo[satan disguised]. sinbad kept trying to talk to him to "get him hip to the ins and outs of this place",but he kept brushing him off.so,I guess the whole event was a kind of limbo or purgatory after his own suicide,where he still had a chance if only he could accept his own wrongs and imperfections,which he couldn't.in one of the scenes where his wife visits him,she tells him that "everything will be allright",...as long as he accepts responsibility for his shortcomings as a man.this movie is great imo,...very thought provoking,and the performances from beach,cox,and la salle were awesome[plus directorial debut of la salle]!!!creepy,yet humorous at times,and great dialogue.
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I was clicking through channels when I saw this movie. You did an excellent summary, on a great movie. Especially when he says "Oh God" at the end and he realizes, that he said he didn't believe in God.
shareGreat summary. I just watched the movie and couldn't quite put all the pieces together. Thanks!
shareGreat summary. I didn't catch the beginning. Now I need to watch it again. Thanks!
Yes. He's in hell. I loved the summary you gave at the beginning. I just watched it yesterday, and I loved the idea that we could get chances like that to find redemption. My only question with regards to Ty, is why in hell did he keep running after that crazy creep? He could have been whoever he wanted to be as long as he stayed out of my way. I also lost sympathy for him when he played with Cheryl's medicine. I wonder how they even let him get so far in psychiatry with such ideas. As son as Delazzo had told me to clear out, that would've been it.
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Thank you for that review. I didn't understand it all as well and I knew I could count on this site to help me out. Why did he kill himself? My guess was the tie in to the "brutal slayings" newspaper clipping? He kill his wife and then himself, that is why the title was there but the picture was missing.....because then he would know he was dead.
shareThe movie is a classic one of the few movies I'd actually buy on dvd.
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He killed himself out of guilt for not being able to save his daughter.
"I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus."
"Didn't he discover America?"
"Penfold, shush."
Excellent summary--it helped me so much to understand the movie..
BUT!! I still do not understand why all the patients were dead at the end? Had they been real at some point? I don't get it.
Also, did he kill his wife? Or did she commit suicide because of the daughter's death?
OOOh i now i get the part when he was talking to the English orderly woman and she had said to him "Sure I do. I work for him" when he asked if she belived in the devil. He thought she was just being sarcastic/joking, but she wasn't...Ooooh...ok. But I'm still confused about my previous questions. (Read up)
shareI am SOOOOO glad you explained this. I was totally clueless by the end, but it makes more sense now. Did you read the book? Is that how you figured it out?
shareIf you buy the DVD with commentary, the director (who also plays Satan) explains everything, including the clues.
I love this flick ~
~~ If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story ~ Orson Welles
great summary
<a href="http://www.trudaily.com/">TruDaily.com</a>;
I loved the depth of this movie, but the ending left me uneasy. I strongly identified with the protagonist's life philosophy of existentialism, and it felt a bit like the movie was saying that anyone who doesn't prescribe to a traditional Judao/Christian belief is damned. I wasn't sure if the main character really WAS in hell at the end or if it was all in his head somehow. If he really was in hell, was it because of his suicide, the mistake he made treating his daughter or his atheism? And was that newspaper article about the brutal slayings really in fact about him? I had assumed they referred to "Satan"'s character, but after reading another review, I'm not so sure.
The theory that the doctor was actually in purgatory or limbo and was being given a chance to redeem himself for his past sins actually makes more sense to me. Other opinions are appreciated here. Had he ended up in purgatory or hell at the end of the movie, or was it somehow all in his head??
Wow. I completely understand everything now.
Was there any thing important about the dead people at the end? Was it just to prove that they were in hell?
McGinley rocks! Even if he's not a big character in this movie, he had an important role.
Great summary! It helped me understand some things and confirm things I wondered about.
Thanks for posting.
"I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus."
"Didn't he discover America?"
"Penfold, shush."
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damn, some of you guys are RUDE (see above post)
femdomsrule, I'm sort of confused. If you don't believe in God or the Judeo/Christian POV, why would you worry about being damned? If there's no God, then there's no Satan, and no Hell. You would just die, be buried, and become worm food. Or you could go the reincarnation route and come back for another shot. What (and I'm being completely serious and respectful of your beliefs) do you think happens? It does have an impact on how the movie ends, in your view.
Nice summary...Definitely helped me to understand the movie. Saw 2 movies in one night that left me scratching my head. ("Danika" was the other one) Leave it to IMDb users to help clear up the fog.
You are so BAD!!! Come sit next to me.
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Thank You, your post really cleared up a few questions.
shareIt would have been nice if you put something like "the ending" in the subject line, and gave a spoiler warning.
shareGreat film - very bold.
Come join my Paul Giamatti group - http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/talkpaul/?yguid=5754742
The patients weren't human patients at all, they were actually servants (demons etc.) of Satan. They posed as patients in Satan's "scenario" in Hell and/or purgatory.
"I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus."
"Didn't he discover America?"
"Penfold, shush."
Remember the patient saying
"I found my answers. The son came before the mother"
That was chilling leading up to the ending.
The patients were probaly human at one point and are now servants to him. Thats why the woman says why does he punish sinners for whom he's supposed to adore that his rival (God) would dislike.
I must admit though. For a brief second when the camera is rolling on him at the end. I thought it was just all going on in his mind and he had finally cracked and just became like one of the patients there. Everyone had a problem and now he's one who thinks he's in hell. But I its good that movies like this leaves so many different views of it.
another thing I noticed was the pictures on his office wall - when he hung them they were all lined up and neat - gradually they became more and more haphazard as he started falling apart.
Until I saw the name on the bus I though perhaps he was a mental patient too and was having a delusion.
Question: his daughter killed herself but how did her mother die ?
meanwhile my first love was standing first in line...Goapele
Is he in hell for just being an atheist?
In a word, yes. Salvation/redemption is through belief, not works. That's why he kept saying: "I'm a good man". Being a good man will not get one into God's kingdom if they don't believe in Him (or his kingdom). It also illustrated that even though he believed that he was "a good man", he really wasn't. A condition we all share. There's only been one 100% good man.
You're basically saying what I said. I made what I would say is a pretty good assumption in that since the concept of "hell" is most often associated with Christianity, the reason he ended up there is that despite his being a "good man" in his mind, he did not have salvation. Pride, one of God's most hated sins (and "his downfall") btw, will keep more people from accepting His mercy and grace than anything else.
I don't love her.. She kicked me in the face!!
You are trying too hard to push the religion agenda. This movie was not about that at all. In fact it never addressed religion. It also had nothing to do with accepting some god's mercy either. This was about one man and what kind of man he truly was. Your belief system, which you keep pushing as if it is accepted as being the be all truth, is irrelevant in the story. The way the story was told implies there is good and evil. However, it does not indicate any particular religion as being right. If you want to simply argue about your belief system is the only true way to believe we can do that until the cows come home. But that is not what this film was about. I honestly do not understand why you keep throwing your personal religious belief concerning getting into heaven by a belief in a Christian god into the discussion as if you need to school people about it.
What you fail to see is that ty would not have gone to "hell" if he had simply admitted he was wrong and accepted responsibility. Never was he going to have to admit belief in a Christian god or son of god to keep him out of hell. Note how many chances ty had to let go of his pride and care about others. And note how right after the phone call that the dr. makes smoothing over everything so ty does not have to take responsibility for basically killing Cheryl, the dr. gets a checkmate on the chess board. Recall that Cheryl died because of ty's selfishness. Ty never wanted to save Cheryl for Cheryl's sake. He wanted to save Cheryl for what he got out of it. It is right after this checkmate that the mother comes in and ty is now stuck. Remember that "satan" did not have his soul at the beginning. He said he wanted ty's soul. The film was about how satan patiently waited and played with ty until ty had finally used up all his chances. I am not arguing anything about religion nor am I pushing my belief system upon anybody. I am simply making observations about the film. For all of ty's belief in himself as being a good man, he really was not a good man. He was selfish and full of himself. He was willing to sacrifice his daughter to show how great and right he was. Even when given a second chance to do the right thing with Cheryl, he still make it about him. He needed to be right. He needed Cheryl to be saved for him. Heck, Mr. Satan was giving ty every chance in the world to do the right thing and all ty could do was keep spouting the same old thing over and over. It ended up costing his daughter her life and then it cost cheryl her life in the test on the roof. He was not, in any way, willing to sacrifice for the sake of others. He was not evil, but he was not a good man either.
Now if you are here to "evangelize" then you can do so. But it was not his being an unbeliever that took him to hell, according to the film.
Ok then. The movie is about the atheist hell and devil.
Cheers.
I don't love her.. She kicked me in the face!!
Oh, and if you spell the doctors last name backwards (delazo) you get ozaled. An the term Ozalid (note I changed the e to an i) basically means a reproduction used in printing. Kind of funny as Dr. Delazo was the same being or you could say a copy of the same being.
Ozalid: 1. (Printing, Lithography & Bookbinding) a method of duplicating typematter, illustrations, etc, when printed on translucent paper. It is used for proofing
2. (Printing, Lithography & Bookbinding) a reproduction produced by this method