Who was that kissing Paul Prior and unbuttoning his shirt? Was it Penny? And if so, why? was she attempting to perform fellatio on him?
Also, I don't understand Penny's angry reaction when she sees Celia, and also Celia's smug look and "you people.." remark. Please help I'm a little slow. :(
It was Celia’s mum, Paul’s then girlfriend, I don’t know what she was doing but Paul and Paul’s mum did not like her doing it.
Paul’s brothers wife (sorry I forget names) thought that Celia and her Husband (Paul’s brother) were having an affair this is why she was upset enough to push Celia.
Celia thought that she had only found out that Celia was Paul’s half sister, she said “you people” because she thought there religious views prevented them from accepting this.
At first I also thought it was Paul and was a little confused.
It was actually Andrew, Paul's brother, who was lying on the bed, and the woman in question was Penny, Andrew's wife.
There were obviously a few underlying issues involved in Andrew's reaction to Penny's attempt at intimacy...I wasn't sure if it was something to do with his mother, Celia or just how dysfunctional Andrew and Penny had become with each other over the years. No matter though, it succinctly illustrated that something was deeply wrong with them in some way.
About pushing Celia. I agree with the previous reply. The combination of finding the photos of Celia, Andrew's coldness towards her...she thought there was something going on between Andrew and Celia. She misinterpreted the smug smirk Celia gave her and lost it.
I agree with AGM 6. However, i do have one further query regarding Andrew and whether or not he was abused by his father before or after Paul left, and that this is why he harboured such strong grievances against him and his memory (and is possibly sexually uninterested in Penny). Also in one of Paul's final flashbacks he remembers his father having sex with his then girlfriend. Paul's mother also appears to be there watching.. is she tied up in anyway or is she emotionally paralysed and unable to act?
I didn't think that there was any implied abuse or that the mother was ever tied up but this is what a few of my friends thought.
I really liked the movie, i thought the script was brilliant and both lead roles well performed. I do have one criticism however in that we are lead to believe throughout the movie that Paul was perhaps a strange, interesting and introverted child that left NZ to follow his dreams, discover the world and find his place... when infact he actually left because his dad was doing his girlfriend who in turn then bore his bastard child. Not so adverterous afterall...
I haven't seen the movie for a while but I remember Paul saying something like "you married your mother" to his brother. I guess that's because she was emotionally isolated like Paul's mum and unable to do anything about it. She had probably bottled up her feelings just like Paul's mum and just like Paul's mum she let it all out at once, unfortunately on Cecilia.
shareGood questions in here that no one else seems to have responeded to - and I'm not sure I can conclusively. However, my take on it was that Paul's mother wasn't involved - in fact her reaction to discovering the father's infidelity with Paul's then girlfriend was to take a shotgun to her head out in the river. The timeline suggests that Celia was conceived, Paul's mother died and Paul left town all pretty much on the same day.
As for Andrew's extreme feelings towards the father? Anyone got any thoughts? Considering he didn't know about the father with Jax and the resultant Celia then it can't be that. Perhaps he held him responsible for his Mother's death without understanding exactly why?
Another small criticism I had - the police mount an investigation and take people in for questioning without looking in Celia's room to see if her clothes/passport are missing? I know it's sort of explained away in Celia's story about the town paying little attention when the sea goes away but perhaps I've missed something?
I'm being even thicker - was the closing sequence, Paul giving her ticket to Spain etc, a flashback before she'd been pushed?
shareYes, In New Zealand art that counts as a happy ending
shareI took the ending as this, which was quite different...
The entire movie was her short story that won 2nd place in the competition, she did not infact die, as she was talking about it afterwards to Paul, I dont think that part was a flashback...
At one stage of the movie, I thought the same thing as you while watching the movie and especially because I like writing and because also that in one of my unfinished stories, I am using the same trick. Briefly, it's the story of a lonely writer who was supposed to write a story after two girls gave him a challenge to do so, but during the whole story that you are reading, you are supposed to believe that he is a loser, that he never attempts to write that story ( the writer depicts himsels as a bloody looser), that he merely fails in his duty, and in fact, the story which never has been written by the writer is the one that you reading now. As I don't write so perfectly in english ( I am french), it's difficult for me to express all the things I want to say about this stunning movie. I saw the movie about a week ago and while I knew that some details has escaped me because of my not so good english, I ordered the dvd for a second viewing.
The idea you are talking about has been used I think for David Koeps " secret window". I never believed that Johnny Deep, the writer has killed his wife. I think that the writer has used what we call in french " UNE MISE EN ABYME" ( sorry I don't the idiom in english) which is figurative way of telling a story inside an another story, like you are dreaming and in your dream, you have a second level of dream. This idea has been used also in an old movie of the seventies with Michael Caine and Chistophe Reeves, I think that Joseph Losey was the director, I am not sure about that.
thanks everyone for your replies. I still can't help but think it was clearly Paul that was lying on the bed..I'll have to see this film again
shareBonjour Bennadjisaid21!
J'ai vu "In My Father's Den" le derniere semaine quand je suis retournee de France (un vol avec BA entre Singapore et Melbourne). Je suis de Nouvelle Zelande mais j'habite en Australie. Bien sur, mon premiere langue n'est pas Francais!
Je suis content lire que un personne francais a vu cette film et que vous avez l'aime! Pour moi, le film me fait tres fier etre une neo zealandaise!
What? THere were flashback's throughout the whole movie, you actually only get the development of Paul & Celia's friendship AFTER we find out she's missing? How did you not get that the movie was always jumping back and forth?
Interesring theory. I don't agree though. I think I should watch it again.
sharei don't think that's true but i like your perspective. very nice indeed!
shareUm, I'm going to go ahead and ignore the other comments because...either I don't understand what they're saying, or I think they're wrong.
That scene that you are referring to didn't show Paul and Penny...it was Andrew and Penny. Husband and wife. Paul and Penny were never together.
Penny's angry reaction was because she recognized Celia from the photos she found in Andrew's papers - the ones he confiscated from their son - and she assumed that her husband was having some sordid affair with her. I wouldn't interpret Celia's look as smug. And...the "you people" comment, I think, was just meaning that...though SHE was the one with the troubled past, she wasn't half as *beep* up as this normal-looking family, and perhaps society in general, that wanted to shun her.
animals are my friends and i don't eat my friends.share
spot on - allimarie
sharei believe the ending was more of a dream of paul's. him saying a proper goodbye. and it wouls be easy to get the actors of paul and andrew confused in that bed scene as they were cast because they look so similar, which was mentioned in the extras
shareThe final scene is a flashback. When Celia walks off down the road she is carrying the books that the police found on the side of the road. Also, when Paul is taken in for questioning at the police station he says Celia might have gone to Spain. He thinks this because he gave her the tickets.
I think it makes more sense if you read more Maurice Gee books. The writing is always structured in the 'flashback' style. The plots always involve some kind of dysfunctional family situation and a disturbing family secret is always revealed at the end.
It seems there are two alliances: Paul-the father || Andrew-the mother. They don't mix, so to speak. Andrew doesn't know about the den, Paul has never been close to his mother. [This is the subject of their dispute in an Andrew's office when Paul is back - Paul is doped and drunk "Never seen two brothers having a conversation?".]
Back to the story. Paul is 17 and has a gilfriend, Jax. He shows her the den, they start making love, his father comes in...
I don't excactly understand WHY but she cheats on Paul and screwes his father - in the den. Paul sees it, and so does his mother. The mother - rather disturbed woman - can't take it and committs suicide in the river. Paul sees it and that's the final straw - he can't take it all in any more. So he leaves the town and his old life leaving his father and his brother behind, with the sense of guilt, sorrow, and most of all - no bondage between them.
Next 17 years - Ceila is born, Andrew can't get along with his father (calls him a monster - why?) and then gets married to the woman very similar to his late mother, the father finally dies, and Paul comes to town and meets Ceila. He finds the picture, asks some questions and I do belive he is aware of the fact that she must be either his or his father's child...
After Paul found the photo of the baby (Celia) he knew there and then that he was not the father, and it was indeed his father's child.
The reason for this is that the photo was in HIS father's Atlas, hidden away as if a secret. Secondly, when his father caught Paul and Jax having sex,Paul alluded to the fact that they were having safe sex. We can assume then that Paul's father did not have safe sex and is therefore Celia's father.
Or at least this is what i think!!
hibs 1875 -- great comment, I also think you hit the nail on the head.
While I really liked this film, it may beg multiple viewings and I've only seen it once (last night). It almost has a Memento-type feel with all the constant scenes switching back & forth (although obviously it's different from that movie in other ways).
Very good movie - intelligent, entertaining, suspenseful & with a lot of heart.
One aspect not mentioned here was that each of the boys had an exclusive relationship with one of the parents. Paul and his mother had both witnessed the father and Jax having sex. Andrew had not known why his mother committed suicide until after the father was dead, and Paul had not known his mother had also witnessed that event. He seemed shocked to learn this as he pointed a shotgun at his brother...or did I misunderstand that dialog? "She was there!", he said. I think Andrew had pushed Penny away because he had only just recently learned the truth about Celia, and his mother's real reasons(beyond the fact that she was bipolar)for having killed herself. Also, due to the non-linear chronology, the scene with Penny going down on Andrew MAY have taken place AFTER Paul's comment to Andrew about "you married your mother". At the beginning of the film Paul tells Penny she looks just like her mother in law. One could only speculate as to why Jax slept with their father, though the father's motives seem somewhat clearer. His wife was crazy and the den was his getaway, his fantasy world. Just my thoughts.
share[deleted]
Something else worth noting: when Andrew shuns his wife in bed, this only serves to fuel her speculation that Andrew is indeed having an affair with Celia. This kind of helped the anger build inside her until she erupted by pushing Celia. Imagine thinking that your significant other is in some sort of heated affair with a young girl (candle wax, photographs, the works), but when you make advances toward him he's entirely unreceptive. That'd be enough to make anybody lash out. Just some food for thought regarding the distinct purpose that scene served.
-JP
Nope, the Atlas was not his fathers. It was a gift to Paul from his father. Therefore, I don't think Paul knew at that point whether Celia was his or his fathers child.
shareI think the photo in the Atlas was a deliberate misdirect by the Director.
Assumptions I made on first watch; the Atlas was Paul's and his father kept it under his mattress showing that he still loved Paul and couldn't let go of his memories, clippings of Paul's achievements support this, his father keeping the photo of baby Celia in the Atlas with the clippings also strongly suggested that Celia was also one of Paul's achievements, ergo Paul is Celia's father.
It was a clever ruse as we don't really know that much about his father and so we couldn't really say for sure whether or not he had kept the photo of Celia under his mattress for his own sake, and not because of Paul's connection to it.
My thought is that the Director wanted the audience to jump to the conclusion that Celia was Paul's daughter so that when the truth was revealed it comes as a shock, just as it was a shock for Paul to discover this at the same time we did (in the course of the film, not in reality).
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e3tGxnFKfE
http://tinyurl.com/LTROI-story
Jesus Christ are you all (apart from few exceptions) mental? The movie is simple, the point is so clear, the only thing that makes it interesting is nonlinear storytelling, a narrative technique where events are portrayed out of chronological order. This structure doesn't follow rules of space and time, and often uses flashbacks or flash forwards in which past or future events are revealed through memory or other methods during exposition of a current event. Sometimes the narrative flow doubles back on itself while appearing to move forward like in TV show 'Lost' or in the movie 'Memento', a few films and lots lots of screenplays by Quentin Tarantino, etc.
Just like those examples, this movie like a twisted river with a beautiful flow meanders back and forth in time.
Was that so difficult to comprehend?
Anyhow, for all of you who easily understood and liked this movie, I suggest to see TV mini-series 'Top of the Lake' (2013) by Jane Campion ('The Piano', 'Holy Smoke', etc.). Trust me, if you liked this one, you'll LOVE this series.