Interpretations?

I don't know if it's against board policies to repeat a post in another thread, but here's what I posted wayyyyy down at the bottom of page 3 in the big spoilers thread. It's my personal interpretation:
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I am certainly not saying this is the RIGHT interpretation, but it is an alternative to "the whole thing is a dream" theory. By the way, I'm not a mental health professional, so please don't read too much into my musings as far as proper diagnosis is concerned. Then again, I'm betting the author wasn't a psychologist either. I haven't read the book, so I have no idea whether there is any additional explanatory information that would support or refute this concept.

Disclaimers out of the way, try on this view for size:

Marc is a desperately lonely and sad individual, an expatriate living abroad in Hong Kong in a seedy little room by the water. (Possibly after the death of his father... debatable but intriguingly possible.) Every day he commutes from the island to Kowloon and back again, a nameless and ignored figure in a sea of humanity that swarms around him but does not involve him.

His mind has constructed an elaborate fantasy to relieve himself from the intolerable aspects of his existence. He imagines himself living happily in Paris with a beautiful and loving wife, friends who have him over for parties, and an inclusive work environment with people who respect and rely on him.

As we begin the film, his mind has started to have problems maintaining the fantasy for whatever reason. Maybe he finds the stress and conflict of living the fantasy too difficult. Maybe he is self-destructive. Maybe an external influence has intruded upon the illusion. So his fantasy world gradually starts breaking apart in ways that are at first small and subtle, then rapidly accelerate, ripping apart the carefully constructed protective facade he has built up.

Of course the film is shot from his internal mental perspective, so things we see as contradictory and physically impossible are allowable as his brain wars between reality and his illusion. His "wife" suddenly doesn't notice something that is important to him. He overreacts. All the other evidential plot points occur. He senses that he is powerless to avert the oncoming destruction of his world, but still tries to salvage his view as the correct one in fits and starts. That is why you get contradictions such as not using the Bali photos as a direct challenge, or the fortuitous appearance of the uniformed blonde in the photo booth that is never followed up on.

His impassioned statements to his wife that "I don't want to lose you" and "no matter what, I'll always be here" are a part of his recognition that her fantasy love and involvement are so important to him, as he knows that in reality his sad living state is always there, waiting to swallow him.

But his fugue state (if that's the right term) is ripped apart in a slow return to reality. He makes the transition with a fevered imagined flight from Paris to Hong Kong (to self-explain how he is back there... note that we never see the flight or the details of the travel). He finds himself thrust back into his humdrum reality of faceless commuting on the ferry. He gets rid of the cellphone that had been so important as a way to communicate with his fantasy cast of characters, but which had become a haunting reminder of the "real world" absence of his parents. One of the last attempts to reach out to the fantasy construction is the postcard he writes to his imaginary wife, saying how much he wished she was there and how he only truly sees things through her eyes.

He carries around the coat and the postcard as a reminder of the beautiful existence he has lost. The coat can certainly be real enough, one he bought but cloaked in the fantasy of having been given to him by Agnes, his alter ego and saviour who would encourage him to be more outgoing and noticed. (We even get a glimpse of his frustration that he can't make his fantasy work anymore in her line in the restaurant about "But we did everything right today!")

We see him in the center part of the film back in the day to day grind of his solitary existence. Then one day his brain finds a way to reconstruct the fantasy world with the changes necessary to make it work. It has to cover up the things that fell apart in the last buildup. So Agnes is back, but now they have been together on vacation in his Hong Kong. This time she doesn't approve of the coat that the last fantasy-Agnes liked. And this time she approves of the idea of shaving the moustache and notices it immediately. He is back in the gentle folds of his schizoid mind, with the errors of the last construct wiped clean.

Again, there is the half-realization by Marc of what is going on. He sees his postcard that he wrote to the last incarnation of Agnes and knows that it conflicts with this version. So he hides it and then disposes of it. He goes along with the new fantasy in an almost visible decision to embrace this new creation.

In this light, the entire movie has an internal consistency driven by the desperate machinations of a diseased mind. Because we see it from his own fractured viewpoint, it sometimes feels disconcerting and sometimes seems to jump in discontinuities with character behavior that wouldn't be logical to "normal" people.

I found it engaging, haunting, and bittersweet.

I think it's unfair to view this film in anything other than purely existential terms. It seems to be all about attachment, and the unreality of the reference points we afford ourselves.

Marc's ego desires recognition for something he has grown to identify himself by---la stache. When the perceived order to his reality is compromised as a result of his shedding of this symbol (or crutch), he falls into a chasm devoid of reference points, wherein his identity, or the phantom ground on which he thought he stood, is no longer at his feet.

His only comfort is the monotonous order of the ferry's back-and-forth, rhythmic nature. But when comfort is recognized from that, and soon after his ability to feel compassion returns (e.g., folding down the seat for another ferry passenger, smiling at school girls), he once again develops another attachment that sends him back to the inevitable plight of the ego.

Then, his so-called "world" returns, but in the final shot we see that, even with the sweet sustenance of ego gratification (his wife recognizing his sans stache-ness), there is no comfort or security in life, for there is no solid ground to stand on, only arbitrary ego reference points.

Marc's moustache was the anchor for his identity, in both a literal and figurative sense. When he shaved it, he became unstuck in the universe and drifted through a series of parallel universes, each with a slightly different history and increasingly fewer elements in common. The longer Marc kept the moustache off, the more divergent the timelines he visited became. The psychological stress of enduring this drove Marc to madness, which caused him to flee to Hong Kong and then Macau.

Once there, Marc grew the moustache back. His metaphysical anchor returned. And the divergent timeline he'd been trapped in course-corrected, to re-establish his old life more or less as he knew it. Marc was torn between accepting this new reality, or defying the forces of the universe and shaving his moustache off again.

I suspect that the next morning, his wife will suddenly disappear and his life will unravel again. The universe does not want Marc to be clean-shaven. It violates the fabric of reality.

the thing is no mater how you interpret this film you will be right, the director specifically left this film open ended, to allow the viewer to create there own interpretation, he mentions this in the extras on the dvd, aswell the film was suppose to begin with them in hongkong on vacation, and then play out and return to the beginning of the film, but they took that out and im glad they did because that doesn't leave much to be interpreted.

for me the film is about a man suffering from dementia, or some similar disease, but since the whole film is shot from his POV this is not atall obvious, because there are alot of small things that make him look crazy, but then his wife will do something weird and then we think she is crazy. the one scene that i felt really solidified in my mind that he was crazy is when he writes on the post card that this is the view from his window, but then in the morning his view is different. that was when i realized that he has a problem. this is one of the only films i have seen where we are really in the shoes of someone who has a problem, but we don't know he has a problem because of the way it was shot. if i was to have dementia, or Alzheimer it would probably feel alot like this movie felt.
thats my take, but thats not the only take.

DO NOT READ IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS!

I only understand this movie thanks to my girlfriend. So if you disagree, take it up with her.

The idea behind this movie is that what the camera shows you is not necessarily reality, but the perception of reality by someone. It seems that Marc is experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia. Schizophrenia (in low levels) can often exist undiagnosed for many years. There can be triggers, even simple things, that like catalysts can escalate the condition. For Marc, it was his mustache. Marc probably never had a mustache, but thought he had it in his mind. Being such a subtle constant in his life, it was never directly addressed. The moment he decides to "shave it", it caused him to merge his schizophrenic world with reality, which obviously led to escalating clashes. This condition often leads to paranoia and mistrust, which was apparent in his deteriorating relationships.

Regarding the photos and other "evidence" that supposedly showed that he was not crazy, those were viewed through his eyes. He may have had a mustache many years ago in Bali, and found those photos as "evidence". A person in his condition finds only elements that support his reality, and his mind pushes away elements of the truth as it obviously contradicts his perception. If you believe something to be as fact, and suddenly people tell you otherwise, you would feel paranoid, scared and distrustful as well. It led him to believe a conspiracy against him, but which is more likely? An elaborate conspiracy or a man losing his grip on reality?

His escape to Hong Kong (whether it really happened or not) is symbolic of his attempt to reconcile his senses. Just before that, he fails to remember his parents home and phone number. He is no longer sure of his reality. The extended ferry scene is symbolic of his passage between reality and insanity.

Now regarding all the scenes after he awakes from the sleeping pill, runs out of the house, and returns all wet from the rain... There is a lot of evidence that this was all a hallucination, that he was either dreaming or had completely lost his mind. When he takes his socks off and puts on his shoes, the shoelace breaks. Remember in the very beginning, when he is hiding his newly shaved mustache, he uses his shoelace breaking as an excuse for taking too long in getting ready. Then on the ferry scene, he rides back and forth, yet the same passengers appear in different places around him on each trip. It is hardly likely that they are also riding back and forth. These and other clues are hints that this may not be reality, but instead Marc's mind using elements in his subconscious to paint a dream.

The very last scene, when apparently several days have passed (noted by the slight beard and mustache he had grown, change of shirt), he arrives back at the hostel surprised to find his wife there. Notice the room appears as if they were living there for a while. At this point, it seems like he is transported back to that Bali trip, reliving it. His wife subtly notes "he can't have the beard in Paris, she would like to see him without it". It shows him shaving, debating whether to remove the stache as well. He ends up shaving it off, and the movie ends with him laying in bed eyes open, anxious. I see 2 ways of interpreting this. One is that he remembered that he in actuality did shave off the mustache, never had it since, realizes that he is crazy and stuck in this hallucinated world. The second is perhaps he is reliving that moment, as if it is a nexus point, allowing him a second chance to change his fate by shaving the stache off, but still he realizes he has lost his mind.

Obviously, there are a lot of elements in the movie that are left up to interpretation. But I believe the main plot is his descent into schizophrenia triggered by something simple as a mustache.

It is not only that nobody recognizes the he had a mustasch that is the problem, but also that his father is dead and that the Schaeffer couple and child no longer seem to exist (though we don't really know if any of that is true).

The easy interpration seems to be that when Marc shaves the mustasch he creates/enters/leaves another reality, running paralell to the one his wife and others live in, when he then returns to bali he travels back in time and can then hope to (we don't get to see if it worked) merge those realities by shaving of the mustasche "to begin with". Remember bruno said "you haven't had a mustasche in 15 years".

The other posibility sorted of hinted at by the anecdote Serge tells, of the wife never admitting that it was her who had turned down all the radiators in the cold cabin, it that it is all a very sick and well orchestrated joke by his wife, Which would be very difficult to pull of course, but still perhaps possible. The only thing that really speaks against that is that Marc couldnt find his parents apartment, but it was raining, he was upset, so who knows.

My take on it is that he is in the beginning stages of dementia. The first part of the movie is in the present and it shows how he's gravitating to memories from 15 years ago, back when he had the moustache and liked the jacket. The 2nd part is actually in the past and it shows us the root of the memories from the first part. I've come across people with dementia and this reminded me how they gravitate to single memories. The story is told in a way to blur the lines between reality/memory, present/past, but it uses the symbolism of the moustache, jacket, etc to tie it all together.

I think the very end of the movie is his real life.

He has been on vacation with his wife and some friends, staying in a dive hotel. He has let his beard grow, then shaved but left a mustache, then shaved it off, then went to bed and had a dream.

The first part of the movie is all a dream of his insecure mind.