Just got back from the theater! I loved this movie! Roberto Benigni is a genius indeed! The way he made us experience all kind of emotions throughout the film is wonderful!
I've got a question to those who have seen the film. Why do you think Fuad killed himself? Was he somehow involved in the war? Was he some kind of intellectual rebel or terrorist? Why didn't he answer to Atilio when he was going into the mosque?
Thanx in advance :)
hello.
i've just finished watching the film. i simply believe he had planned everything from the start, and wanted to die in his home country.
maybe he didn't reply to Attilio when he was entering the mosque because he wanted to stay alone with his thoughts, for fear that something could distract him from his purpose.
this is only my opinion..
ciao.
it's understandable that Fuad wanted to die in his homeland but not when he was getting famous in Europe and had a great carreer in prospect.
the Fuad's death is probably the worst about this movie, it's just made up so Vittoria wouldnt know who saved her.
i fail to come up with a better explanation but i'd like to read yours
I don't believe he killed himself. How would he have ended so high up in the tree without anything under him? He was killed for his connection with the foreigner and that's why he didn't answer to Atilio on going into the mosque.
shareI don't think he was killed. If I remember well there WAS a chair under him.
share[deleted]
Fuad's suicide seemed to explain why he was seemingly so disinterested in saving Vittoria Attilio had to keep pushing and pushing but Fuad seemed so distant and uninterested like the Doctor, now I could understand the Dr he obviously was suffering from burnout, and it seemed Fuad was too. Then again the Dr might have not been a professional actor and it was just bad acting....I could say the same for Reno, not his best part.
shareWe just saw the DVD last night. There was NO chair or other object under Fuad. In fact, I remember thinking that he had been hanged, not that he killed himself. [Although, theoretically, he could have climbed the tree with the rope and hanged himself.]
Fuad's not answering Attilio upon going into the mosque could have been due to Fuad not wanting harm to come to Attilio as the same people may come looking for Attilio.
The strange thing, really, was Fuad's going into the mosque at all. Remember that he did not believe in God or heaven! My thought was that since we know that the civil war is Moslem upon Moslem (Shia vs. Sunni or dispossessed majority under Saddam vs. privileged under Saddam), Fuad was now under attack for whatever reason he had gone under exile and/or his lack of belief as a Moslem and that he was therefore going to the mosque.
Of course, one could argue that, since suicide is a sin in the Moslem tradition (just as it is in the Judeo-Christian tradition, despite what Westerners think or some "Moslems" teach), he was going to the mosque to ask forgiveness in advance for the taking of his own life - just in case there was a God and a heaven.
I did think it a shame that the ending so resolved everything else, but seemed to leave the death of Fuad so unresolved.
He killed himself. You can clearly see the pulled chair below him.
shareI think Fouad killed himself because of all the horrors accuring in his country. When he is with Atillio looking at the stars he tells him that he doesn't believe in life after death and he adds that it doesn't get better than the life you are living on earth. And since this world is filled with absurd horrors he decides to kill himself.
About not answering Atillio: I guess it is because he new what he was about to do and didn't want to be disturbed before his last prayer.
It really is just to make the girl not know who saved her, and is just another small piece in this crappy movie
shareFuad's death had nothing to do with Benigni's wife.
She anyway understands that it was him in the end of the movie, when she felt again on her face the neckless. She had felt it also when she was in the hospital.
Some things don't have to be so complicated. Fuad died for his own reasons and not "forced" by the script. If it was for that, he would have died much earlier.........she would have woken up before the half of the movie........and we would have to wait "impatiently" for her to discover it. Expect that from Hollywood movies, not Benigni.
I totally agree; Fuad wanted out of this world for his own reasons: his country was destroyed, his people were pauperised and him, being as sensitive and a dreamer as poets are, could not dream any more.
shareapparently it's a reference to an Iranian film "A Taste of Cherry" in which a man seeks to commit suicide at nightfall.
For me it was one of the pieces of the movie that didn't work, and while there were quite a few predictable pieces of the movie (the whole necklace thing for one) on the whole I liked it.
You guys should watch the movie again, and pay attention at the details. He once said something like " There's nothing for my eyes to enjoy anymore." He's just sick of all the injustice that's being done in his country. I don't remember him saying something about his family, wich was probably killed, tough being the reason he going to Europe, and not coming back for 18 years. He's suicide was predictable after the night with Atillio at the statue of Saddam.
sharedon´t you think his death and suicide is symbolic? he is an artist in iraq, right? and now whats the point of writing? he feels like is work is done or tha there´s no point for artists now, maybe that.
he didnt commited suicide because he wasnt famous in europe, etc etc
I agree with flying kiwi about Fuad's suicide not working in the movie. It was a bit contrived and Jean Reno, usually very commanding and interesting to watch, felt bland, almost asleep. It was a lazy interpretation to me, even his Arabic accent sounded French.
The fact that we are discussing Fuad's intentions on this board indicate that Reno was not clear in his portrayal of Fuad. I know I would have cared more if it had been done with more tenderness. It should be moving to see a well known poet who goes back to his country to die along his motherland.
I don´t agree with you at all. First of all Fuad isnt´t playing a main role in this movie. He is there as a "tool" to connect the poetry and the Iraq-thing for the whole plot. Jean Reno is a superb actor, but if you look away from him and care about the story, he is not meant to take focus away in this movie. The story is totally about Attilio and Vittoria and that is it. Hard to chose Reno for a role like this and then just let him die. maybe we are just too feed up with Hollywood-crab. They would never have done it this way, that is what splits the european from the american movie-traditions...
This is of course just my opinion.
During the interview with Benigni, it is mentioned that the reason there are no Arabic subtitles is so that the audience is just as confused as is Attilio. Taking this one small step further, we understand why Fuad died as much as Attilio. If you have ever had a friend kill themself it might be easier to understand how impossible it is to truly understand their motivations.
sharehe killed himself because of all the **** happening in his country and all over the world...in the last conversation he told atilio there was nothing later the death...even the nothing was something...
he couldn't ressist the war and the suffering, he was a poet, a free soul and he couldn't stand up it..
i do agree with you but i have another question. i have accepted your idea about predictability of his Suicide. but there is another Vague thing from my point of view. in the city which is during the war if i want to kill myself, i have a lot of alternatives and if you wanna do something like this, i think hanging yourself with a tree is one of the latest one. you can just run into a minefield yard and close your eyes. or take a gun and shoot in your head like a lot of soldieries which kill themselves during wars. as far as i know hanging is almost the most difficult way to Suicide.
I just saw this movie yesterday and I believe Fuad killed himself because of what was going on around him in his country
Trying To Solve The "Lyle Stevik" case since 2006
I think that by hanging himself in the courtyard of his home it was like dying with his home. It was symbolic to him, and poets are all about symbolism. While I agree that it was a device, it was a well thought out device and I think Reno did an excellent job of portraying someone who would have to deal with the horror and reality of what is happening to their home.
As for the Mosque scene, he clearly acknowledges Benigni but says nothing. I'm not sure how to put into words how I interpreted it in my mind, but it was like he had nothing else to say to him; its over. I suspect that even though he was no longer religious, he felt as though attending the Mosque was the right thing to do before he ended it, and maybe it has something to do simply with Muslim culture that he felt he needed to go, much like how Judeism isn't so much simply a religion as it is a culture in and of itself.
His character grows more and more depressed and disassociated as the movie progresses. In the first scenes he is excited to be returning to his home, but when faced with the reality of it being mercilessly destroyed he finds there is nothing really worth living for.
His ignoring Atilio outside the mosque was symbolic of his disconnection to the world.
You are all right and you are all wrong. Fuad's returning to Iraq, his growing depression and, finally, his suicide are all one plot device so he can bring our story to Bagdhad, tell us how unhappy he is, die and, most importantly, not divulge to Vittoria who the mysterious "Italian doctor" was that cured her.
shareI agree with the general opinion. First that it was a tool, a device. It would have been difficult to have the simply wonderful ending if Fuad had lived. But there was also enough background to justify it. He has been in exile for 18 years. He has finally come back to his country, the place he loves beyond any other, with the hope given him by the Americans getting rid of Saddam. Now he sees that they offer no hope, only more slaughter and another type of domination.
The story as a whole is a somewhat skewered encapsulation of Iraq. It's said to be just as the war was beginning but it was really a number of different times mixed in. Fuad could have felt such despair in 2006 and even more now. He probably wouldn't have at the time the film is portrayed, just as the Americans were coming into Baghdad. But that's OK, considering that much about the movie seems both artificial and dreamlike. It is a flawed movie but the ending redeems everything. Especially since Vittoria is Benigni's real life wife. The look in her eyes at the end when she realizes, and we realize.
I've watched La Tigre e la neve on DVD twice, once alone and once with my wife. The second time, afterward we felt such tenderness toward each other.
Al
I don't think it was a suicide. At one point in the film, Fuad tells Attillio that there is nothing after death, leaving the impression that he is not a religious man. If that was the case, why would he be going to prayers at the mosque? At the old pharmacist's house, he also tells Attillio, when recounting the death of the pharmacist's son, that "Saddam Hussein did not like free spirits." I'm thinking that Fuad was trying to appear religious, avoided talking to a Westerner, etc. because he knew he was on an extremist "hit list" and was, ultimately, he was murdered.
share