Ending????

badmasho : you may be going somewhere with this. this is brilliant analysis.

Hey I like your interpretation.... and after reading all others I am leaning most to yours, although the Shabana being the 'real' delusional angle was just awesome, if only there were not so many discrepancies against that theory in many parts of the movie. That was great thinking though, because it's like the answer is really in front of us the whole time....right from the beginning when Shabana is driving Konkana around looking for the address...she was in actuality alone in the car! haha crazy..

Anyhow coming back to your analysis of 15 Park Ave signifying happiness...so true....I mean who are we to judge whether someone should be happy in their own little world or not. Atleast they have found what they are looking for...whereas we are still searching. In fact they(people like Konkana's character) are the ones who have found reality and everyone else is lost, looking for the address.

I thought it was a very interesting film, resting on really strong performances. I think the ending was confusing a little bit not because I disagree with it philosophically but because there had to be a better visual way of showing Mithi escaping into that world of 15 Park Avenue. I found the climatic scene itself with Rahul Bose's character on the phone and not paying attention to Mithi (when he is wandering around with a schizophrenic woman who is getting into all sort of trouble) to be pretty implausible- unlike anything else in the film. It seems like he can just turn around and look at her while he is on the phone, which is what anyone would do in that situation-at least keep an eye on the person we are trusted to watch.

As small as it sounds, I wish we could have seen Mithi go around the corner or something so we know that we are in a different physical space when she approaches 15 Park Ave. He could see her go around the corner and chase after her and not find her, or she could sneak off when he is turned around for a second.

I think if she discovers 15 Park Avenue by turning a corner, or going down an alley or something where Rahul Bose's character can't just turn around and see her, then it makes the ambiguity of the ending more clear (if that makes any sense). I'm sure there are other ways to do this too. But having two 15 Park Avenues, one in Mithi world and one in Rahul Bose's characters world, seems like a curious choice. At the end I was looking at the white house in the final shot and wondering if it is the same house Mithi goes into at the end, yet the camera is so far away from i think there is no way to tell. This must have been intentional but there is so much confusing in this scene that identifying the physical spaces could have made things a lot clearer.

All that being said I really appreciated the ending - I think we're trying to overcomplicate things with theories about who was hallucinating- I think the film just points to the inherent subjectivity of all experiences, which is what Shabana Azmi's character asks the doctor about in the cafe. If it were really Shabana Azmi's character hallucinating it would be like the Sixth Sense or Fight Club, but it's clear to me that this film isn't set out to impress in such an obvious way (Bengali art film versus a Blockbuster). It's basically meant to have us ask a question which has no answer. Some people can't take endings like this but they are some of my favorites-provided they are done correctly- this one was a little off (I think because of the way the final scene was staged) but generally pretty good in making the audience question.

There are a few plausible scenarios for the ending all of which are interesting and none of which I think we have definitive evidence for-

1. that two realities exist and the Mithi escapes into the second reality, leaving our reality and vanishing in sight. This does seem most likely the way the scene is shot.

2. that as one person mentioned Mithi herself does not exist and is a metaphor herself linking these delusional characters who are all looking for something in their life. (I like this a lot- whoever mentioned this must be quite abstract in their thinking.) Still I think the evidence points away from this- especially because the doctor mentions in the cafe the concept that reality is formed by consensus- if ten people say it's a vase- it's a vase on the table, not something else that one person thinks. All the characters having one giant joint delusion would be hard to justify especially when the film teaches us the opposite concept. (Unless of course she's a ghost or something- which makes no sense in context- though I suppose she could have died in the rape- highly unlikely and no evidence for it but interesting to think about)


3. And finally- I like this scenario the best I think- That there is one reality at the end of the film and Mithi, caught up in delusion, disappears in that reality, getting lost on the street. They can't find her so they assume she's lost but since she was delusional the question always remains in their heads as to whether she actually entered the reality of her delusions or whether she got lost or killed (after all, something terrible happened to her the last time she was alone) . I think the emotional ramifications of this are the most interesting and if this were the case- I would love 15 more minutes of the movie or at least shabana Azmi and the doc pondering the meaning of Mithi's disappearance for a one scene.


I also want to say- I thought it was very interesting how we learned of the rape- do we even know it happened? We only have Mithi's word under hypnosis and that is something Shabana Azmi's character tells us. With rape, so often women are no believed and other times accusations have been made it. Dangerous political territory but I thought it was interesting to find this in a mostly philosophical movie.

if you've read this far, I'm sorry.