MovieChat Forums > Mouth to Mouth (2008) Discussion > so close to the real thing but then the ...

so close to the real thing but then the last act arrives

posted 16 years ago by sifort2012
13 replies | jump to latest

i was really impressed with this for about 45 minutes, it was spot on in terms of why these people are doing what they are doing and , although a bit cliched, the characters reminded me of people i have met while living this sort of life.

but... then the last 45 minutes started and its realism fell away to standard 'got to have a baddie' screenwriting. im sorry but in a decade of living on communes and traveller sites i have never seen anyone thrown in a pit for wanting to go to the local town, thats just silly.

also i have never seen one person in charge, that would defeat the whole object of what they were trying to do, yes there are always mother and father figures but not leaders, no one would have one single person in charge it just wouldnt hold.

is there anyone else who has lived in these situations that can see what i mean? or was i just damn lucky in my choices of where i lived and who i lived with?

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] allthatsevil 16 years ago

I have no experience with this kind of lifestyle, but I see what you're saying. Although, I must say, I think this movie is not about your typical commune. I think the commune lifestyle is quite admirable and was probably better portrayed in Into the Wild. But this movie is about a cult, and cults definitely have leaders and rules and ideals that everyone is expected to adhere to.

These people were duped into thinking that they were working toward a common ideal, when really they were just being used by it's "leaders" as the victims of their power trips.

"Never anger a Dragon, for you are crunchy and go well with Brie."

[–] wilbo-3 16 years ago

I agree the start of the movie was way stronger than the end.

For me it started going downhill when Bat's mom showed up. And the descent sped considerably when Bat's mom wanted to join them.

All that said, it was still alright. I think they could have 86'd the whole mom part and it would be way stronger.

[–] calgore 15 years ago

It was supposed to be a cult, the travelling part was just to get new people for it and they would live at the plantation. Harry used different emotional and psychological ways to bend people to his will, making them mindless followers. Basically they were being used. I think I read in an interview that the director had a experience similar to this when she was a teenager.

[–] cloudshoveller 14 years ago

sifort It sounds like you have had good commune type experiences, which does make you fortunate as I think that can really produce good results in a person. Communes are more about equality and "family" style organization.

One of the very definitions of a "cult" is that is has a leader. If you look in a dictionary or encylopedia you see that a cult is a group of people who worship or live to please a charismatic leader.

The reason why people have such difficulty leaving cults is because they truly believe that there are serious (perhaps divine) consequences for displeasing the leader of the cult. That is why cult leaders have been able to even have their followers kill for them or even kill themselves.

Hope that helps!

[–] Princess_Ashmi 11 years ago

the only thing that ruined the ending for me was the... doctor woman deciding to run off with them? i dunno why, just seemed kinda pointless her joining them as well.

Ashmi any question

[–] spunionring 11 years ago

and then when the car runs out of gas she just walks off? why did she leave with them just to go solo.. you would think theyd stay together to take care of each other...

[–] Princess_Ashmi 11 years ago

lol right!

Ashmi any question

[–] Whatsifsowhatsit 10 years ago

Well, she may have had her own life to (try and) get back to, or places or people to revisit or whatever.

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[–] Whatsifsowhatsit 10 years ago

Why did that seem pointless? She'd seen her share of strife with the leader as well, after all. I for one was glad to see someone else see through the guy. As for storyline relevance or whatever, well, personally I never care for that so much (and would rather look at whether it makes sense for the character than for the story), but if you have to find any in it, you could see it as allowing for more of a victory for the main character at the end.

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[–] DeusExKatrina 11 years ago

It's not unrealistic, just uncommon. Charles Manson (presumably the impetus for naming the young boy character "Manson" in the movie), led a commune which did a lot of the things the SPARK group does in the film: dumpster diving, teaching discipline, the politics of freedom, taking in wayward youths. But Manson was a charismatic cult-leader and he turned these people's desire for love and peace around, until they were going around killing people for him.

The way I see it, the movie wasn't about communes, it was about a cult. I think the point was that a cult leader can and will take any type of situation, and manipulate it. We have plenty of religious cult movies, and satanic cult movies, but Mouth to Mouth was a little bit original in taking a different situation and showing how a cult leader will take over. Although with the Manson Family precedent I'm sure it's not the first film in this vein to be made.

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"Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the antidote to shame."

[–] spunionring 11 years ago

I agree, it was so heavy handed with the "cultiness" of how things were run, that it totally undermined every value they had been sold on when they were travelling in the beginning.

You believe in freedom? Come live on my farm under my tyrannical dictatorship, where I will impose more rules than society does! You won't make any choices for yourself, you will not be allowed to leave, and you won't even be allowed to speak your mind! Yay, freedom! You don't want a 9-5 job do you?!? So just come work on my farm! Be afraid to speak to your fellows, because they will go and tell on you if you have a subversive thought and you will be punished! By the way, if any of you dies, we move on with barely a thought and don't even notice it! Because we care about the group!

So much contrariness between the vision and the reality... Not only was it over-the-top with the "bad guy ness" but I was sorely disappointed that nobody just stood up and SAID how life in this commune was even more restrictive than living on society. And the whole original pitch for joining was about arming you with the knowledge to recognize and fight tyranny, but there was never even a token amount of any such knowledge being provided. Lucky for the badguy of course! If anyone had any ability to recognise that all their freedoms were being stripped from them, then his little cult would have been in big trouble!

[–] Whatsifsowhatsit 10 years ago

All of what you said is true, but it didn't make it unbelievable to me. It's often like that with cults, a lot of bad stuff and just enough (sometimes fake) good stuff (e.g. voting on whether to tattle tale, whether to punish, what to punish with, and certain other things as well) that people stick around and may not even see the bad stuff.

And at the end, of course, people did kind of stand up and say how life in the commune was restrictive, except they phrased it as "he's a soulsucker!" Both Mad Ax and the doctor lady, whatever her name was, joined in and agreed with her.

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