Of course, one person will say that he dies and another that he became unconscious and another will say that he closed his eyes and just listened to the music being piped in through the loudspeaker on the ceiling. Yes, the last image he sees or thinks of are the fields of grain – this time without bullies – only his mother picking him up to comfort and love him.
I like to think that he lived, but I don't think that's what the screenwriter had in mind. First of all, M in Sweden makes some very good points about Lena seeing the angel in him, and we all know the literary themes about angels coming to earth, sent on a singular mission, and then returning to Heaven. Daniel, dark and "strange", is very different - an outsider – and was so from the very beginning when he was young. Swedes of his generation were rarely named Daniel. He does not have a name like Svensson or Karlsson or Olsson or Sjöholm or Sjöberg. His name is Daréus, an uncommon name, if at all a Swedish name. (Is he perhaps Jewish?)
In literature, in the genre of the heroic quest, a hero often leaves or is chased out when young, but returns to "conquer" and to save people. It's no coincidence that the writers gave the main character the name Daniel, just as the Biblical prophet who performs a miraculous deed and eventually redeems his people. Daniel "saves" many of the people of the town by who he is and how he changes the old ways they have looked at life. And who is the one person in the town who, broken and in pain, asks him, "Why did you come here?" but Stig the pastor, as if to wonder if it was the Devil who sent Daniel back to turn people's lives upside down. Along these lines, but in an opposite manner, why might it never cross the pastor's mind that perhaps it was actually God who had sent Daniel to make them happy and to liberate them from the enslavement of a bitter, vindictive man, who even kept his own wife miserable and unfulfilled? Remember when they are together in bed and the pastor's wife asks him twice, at least, "Do you take this woman?" but she uses the older, Biblical Swedish form of the word take, the one used when people are married in church.
On the other hand, we can also turn this idea on its head. Remember the painting on the wall of Lena as an angel? In a sense, she can be the angel who delivers Daniel, who awakens him to love, who by her openness, honesty, and purity of soul teaches him to trust, who helps him finally feel that he can love another human being. Therefore, I don't necessarily agree with M here when she says, "Döden var som en frigörelse", because it seems to me that it was actually life and the belief in life that was the agent of liberation. Gabriella's song is all about life and a passion for life. It was Daniel who awakened this love of life in them all and this feeling of being reborn and now able to appreciate life after all the repression, victimization, bullying, violence, and lies to which many of the townspeople had been subjected for so many years. And now, having found love, why would Daniel see death as liberation? He was no longer in pain. Remember how he rode his bike through Innsbruck, head high towards the heavens, happy and in love, just recently liberated enough to tell Lena he loved her?
In a sense, that's why the ending – when people in the audience get up and join the Swedish choir – is really much more symbolic. The music, begun by Tore, the brain damaged boy, was so beautiful, one could imagine fellow singers being caught up in the beauty of its sound and wishing to sing along. Music has that contagious and magical quality, doesn't it? The choir beginning to sing spontaneously without Daniel, is, of course, metaphoric: Daniel gave them their wings and now they are free to fly. They don't need him; he has shown them that getting in touch with their inner beings, their own ability to make music, to find their own sound, their own voice, is what gives them not only their freedom, but the courage to remain free. Here they were on stage, waiting for Daniel to show up, worried and becoming nervous. Look at Lena, who had just been told how much he loved her. But once the music begins and the choir begins to sing, they are fine. No one is panicking, no one is worried. They can do it on their own. Even Lena.
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carl_ifvarsson
18 years ago
Daniel, dark and "strange", is very different - an outsider – and was so from the very beginning when he was young. Swedes of his generation were rarely named Daniel. He does not have a name like Svensson or Karlsson or Olsson or Sjöholm or Sjöberg. His name is Daréus, an uncommon name, if at all a Swedish name. (Is he perhaps Jewish?)
Wether Daniel is a name uncommon for the characters generation I cannot answer. But for the surname; sure names like Olsson and Sjöblom is typical highly common Swedish family surnames. However more latin sounding names like Dareus have been popular since centuries and are not that uncommon, and is not jewish in origin. It was especially adopted by people successful in academia. They also mention that his agent changed his name when he was 15 years old which could suggest he had in fact a more typical swedish surname.
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Katja_Sedai
17 years ago
He says in the beginning that noone in the village will know he was from there because his manager or his lawyer had his last name changed when he was 14. Presumably after his mother died.
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