MovieChat Forums > La boîte noire (2005) Discussion > Did anyone ehrrr... understand the endin...

Did anyone ehrrr... understand the ending?


All was pretty good, nice twists, nice revelations, but the end is simply "HUH?!" 8-[ ]

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I felt the same, but I suppose the ending was again one more story...that his mind is messed up

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[SPOILER]
By "HUH?" do you mean:
(a) it was an unsatisfactory ending for you? (in which case, this relates to your personal judgement); or
(b) do you mean that you lost the thread of the plot, and were confused by the meaning of events? If you do mean (b)then, as the story progresses the pieces start to come together, and the last part of the puzzle is that the consulting physician is the person who was the driver of the Range Rover, all thirty years ago. Seligman has tortured himself because he forgot the crucial detail of the events of the car accident and the cruel events on the cliff. Because of the doctor's promptings he returns to the cliff-top site, and the doctor turns up too to give his own confession.

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Also, it is all a matter of guilt and redemption. (Maybe too simple for the end of such a messed, complicated, meandering story, and that's why former posters might feel unsatisfied.)

There were in fact several things that have tortured Seligman's subconsciousness, but as many of them have been somehow connected with the accident he made it the central issue of his subconscious emotional life. Once he manages to solve other problems (fall on the stairs, father's affair etc), he is not so pressed by his guilt any more, he is free and is able to forgive. He offers Granger forgiveness, but the doctor's guilt is much deeper - he is the one who had done several very wrong things, from steeling a car and causing an accident to not saving Yvan (though he could have easily saved a boy's life). It is most likely that his guilt led him to change his life, become a doctor, and his devoted work in hospital was supposed to be a kind of redemption - but the feeling of guilt was still too much for him. He even tries to struggle, however it is Seligman's forgiveness that conquers him and finally he commits his own confession and penance.

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