I figured out the twist to this movie!!!!!!!!! - Saint Ange (2004) Discussion

[–] thegame12716 18 years ago

Yes please help me because I have no idea what it is. Then again, I pretty much have no idea what happened in the whole movie. Please help!!!!

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[–] rburg_55 18 years ago

A pregnat woman goes to a sanatorium hospital. Sanatorium means people (in the movie's case Kids) who go to "a hospital for the treatment of chronic diseases, as tuberculosis or various nervous or mental disorders." And sense the movie takes place in the 1950s-1960s era when nobody really knew what these diseases were and how to cure them. So the hospitial couldn't get ride of the children (in the beggining of the movie we see kids getting on to busses, meaning that the kids would got to town and try to be takken in by a family) and so this pregnat woman goes to this hospitial and works and teh few workers left findout that she is pregnat. The pregnat woman is symbolic of teh Virgin Mary cause in the Bible/ Religious teachings it states that she was inpregnated by an unseen force(Religious: God) and the movie starts with a woman preganted by her exemployer which we never see so in a way thats symbolic of christ. And so she soon starts noticing stuff about the "Scary Kids" like a file in a bedroom, nightmares, and a victim who survived the killings. And after the pregnat woman discovers that the school killed the "Scary Kids" she goes down into the basement and gives birth to her child aving teh "Scary childern" watch. Also symbolic of al the people who watched Virgin Mary give birth. And at teh end we she her ghost breastfeeding her kid and all the other kids are watching showign that she is the mother of the kids. Symbollically ad=nd maybe literally. Does that help? If ur still confused let me know and I'll explain better.

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[–] 18 years ago

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[–] ZeebztheHippieGirl 18 years ago

I still haven't quite figured out the movie. It was ok, a little on the "WTF?!?!" side though. What are the pictures of? What was with the abandoned car? Was the run-down part of the orphanage bombed out during the war? Is THAT what that was? My take on the ending-ish part was that she was already dead when she was giving birth surrounded by the "Scary Children". Otherwise the sterile white hospital at the bottom of the long elevator shaft makes NO SENSE.

Antiquus Anser.
That means Ancient Goose. Remember that.

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[–] rburg_55 18 years ago

The car and old photographs are from when teh Scary Kids lived in the hosipital and the kids had incureable diseases(well uncureable back then) and so the orphange killed them in the basement thats why when she gives birth they were all down there with her. And the phototgprahs were of the scray children and the people running the hosipital didn't want anyone to know about that so they hide it. The car was just a car.

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[–] brattinela 18 years ago

i should've read these comments first before I rented this movie. it's so unrealistic!!!!! and you will hate the character anna for being so nosy and putting her child in danger. she wanted to be a heroine but she ended up DEAD.

hey! you shut your big mouth when you're talking to me!

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[–] MissyFree 18 years ago

before she gave birth to the baby she's walking down the hall, and I was So sure that we would see her name at one of those doors.... I thought I was so smart! I thought that she was a patient there at the same time as Judith... Because Judith wouldn't tell Anna how old she was... and so on..

With the 'her already being dead-part'- When did she die? When she fell down after seeing the "Scary Kids" in the mirror?

Anyway, she's HOT!

*Emma*

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[–] foxfire2087 18 years ago

she did help them by being "nosy" she uncovered the truth about wat really happened, the scary kids were haunting the place and leading her to the truth because they wanted someone to know. not only did she help them but she helped judy, she got her off those pills and now judy can function like a real person and take care of herself. u can still be considered a heroine even if u die, living through something is not the part that makes u a hero, and by the looks of it she didnt exactly seem thrilled to be having a baby.

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[–] brennan79 17 years ago

I don't think kids really were haunting the place...I think she created it all in her mind because she was delusional and guilt-ridden over not wanting her baby. At the end, when she goes into the shaft (which isn't an elevator), I think she has one long hallucination then gets back out (maybe at the same place she got in?), gives birth to her stillborn child, and that's where they find her. Since Judy is off her medication, I think that is why she "sees" all the children with Anna at the end of the movie.

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[–] foxfire2087 17 years ago

judy was still able to see and hear the children even when she was on her meds....

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[–] dsketch 17 years ago

The place was haunted. At the beginning a little boy died in the bathroom from hitting his head from a fall after he saw a ghost behind the mirror

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[–] perronaider 16 years ago

Well, there are no ghost for sure.

I'm agree with brennan79.
The little child at the very beginning says something about the "scary children" just because she's a child and her friend died (on a stormy night) so she blame the "ghosts" that appeared only in its imagination.

The elevator wasn't an elevator (too long the descent to be real and also Anna's face is in clear pain). After finding Anna dead on the floor, as it was said here before, nobody was frightened nor nervous as it should be expected if there was something terrible to hide (like killing children).

Children died because they came in lots from concentration camps, that's for sure and that is the reason why the head of Saint Ange hide the children's files. Of course Anna could be seen with her son and the other child because Judy stop taking her pills.

I like the movie, like the time it took me to truly understand the plot, moreover, is quite spooky and photography is great.

"I'm a human being, god damn it! My life has value" Wake up, the revolution is now.

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] ajnemajrje 11 years ago

From what I read the scary kids when they were alive were not sick but Jewish orphans who had been experimented on when they were in the concentration camps.

They were put into an unused - and dilapidated section of the orphanage because that was the only place they could find to place all these new children. They were understaffed and unable to take proper care of these children and many of them died - except for Judith apparently - who was one of the survivors.

After the children passed away - most likely from the treatment they received while in the camps - the orphanage sealed off that section of the orphanage in an effort to forget those memories.

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[–] luvinsully 16 years ago

I just finished watching this movie and I personally don't think there is a 'twist' per se to this movie. I think a person can look at it from two different angles though. You can look at it from the angle of the 'director' of the orphanage or the cook, in a sane mind. Or you can look at it with the possibilities that the 'scary children' were in fact real ghosts.

In the beginning, Marie mentions to Alex something about the scary children, thus leading you to believe there is a haunting or atleast tales of a haunting.

If this movie does have a religious base or people believe that it does, that's just plain stupid, I mean really, where the hell in the bible does it claim that Mary was beaten, scarred and raped by a former employee. Nothing in this movie screams religion except all the crosses on the walls.

As far as Judith, mental instability is a very touchy subject, people believe that minds of the innocent and minds of the disturbed can see and hear things 'normal' people can't. So maybe the scary kids were haunting the place, maybe not. Which leads one to wonder if Anna was just as mentally unstable as Judith and the cause for Helenka always trying to talk to Anna.

We know the kids did exist and I agree with the former post that the 'scary children' were children who were brought in after the war. I guess from concentration camps makes sense. It is said in the movie they were really messed up kids. As far as them killing the kids, I'm not too sure, alot of them were ill and messed up in the head, so it would be a cruel twist of fate to 'rescue' them from a concentration camp just to have them slaughtered in an orphanage so if that's the case, whoever wrote this movie is a twisted S.O.B.

I think I covered all my opinions here, but we all know, opinions are like a$$holes...

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[–] SeisCinemaSeis 15 years ago

Agree with luvinsully. You can look the story either through the eyes of Helenka or through the eyes of Judith/Anna. If you choose to look at it through Helenka's eyes, then the movie is not really about ghosts but about mentally inestable people (Judith and Anna) who hallucinates with those "scary children".
But then you can also look this film through the eyes of Judith and Anna, in this case the ghosts ARE there, the kids are there and everything you saw happened for real, not only in the mind of Anna or/and Judith.
Or you can choose to mix both views and to decide what are simply hallucinations and what are true paranormal events.
Either way this movie is not effective as a Ghost Story. It deviates too much from some of the basic premises of the genre to the point that it ain't neither spooky nor eerie.

Similar movies have been shot before and after Saint Ange with a lot more of success:
Guillermo del Toro shot in 2001 El espinazo del diablo (The Devil's Backbone) a little jewel of the genre about a haunted orphanage during the spanish civil war.
Recently, in 2007 Guillermo del Toro produced a film directed by Juan Antonio Bayona called El orfanato (The Orphanage). It's also a great film, not as good as The Devil's Backbone but close. The title says it all. It's a ghost story settled in a former orphanage.
Now those movies are really creepy and eerie. If you haven't watched them, try. You won't be disappointed.

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