*spoilers*
In the end, why does the orphanage director decide to give up and let Vanya find his mother? It doesn't seem very realistic in context with his past behaviour.
Also, this is probably a stupid question, by why did Vanya cut up his hand with the broken bottle earlier in the scene? The director mentioned it as being some kind of "theives' trick".
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I'm pretty sure the thieves trick is cutting the side of your forearm but it looks like you are cutting your arteries, either the person then tries to help you or they leave you to go find help, the man obviously wasnt fooled, he'd probably lived a similiar life and the thief trick reminded him thus probably one of the reasons he let him go.
shareDid you notice that Vanya's pursuer's wounds had been bandaged in the clinic by a nurse named Vera, who was actually Vanya's mother? He later took part of that same bandage to cover Vanya's wound. The film is full of wonderful details like this.
shareWow, nice attention to detail! I miss my mommy! :(
shareI'm not sure that was the same Vera. It's a pretty common name in Russia--but if it weren't the same Vera, why would they give the same name to two different characters and confuse people?
I thought the orphanage director would take Vanya to the hospital, and Vanya would be reunited with his mother there. Or would that have been too predictable?
He wouldn't want to cross Madam - though that would have made a wonderful scene if they could have pulled it off.
shareMore evidence to suggest the mom was the nurse was the vicinity. We see Vanya at his mom's place and asking the larger lady where Vera works. The director is then shown recovering from the hospital and the next scene shows him walking and bumping into Vanya. They also briefly showed the nurse but never her face, just her blonde locks. Granted many Russians have blonde hair, but they deliberately didn't show her face.
shareJust to clarify a few moments as I just saw this wonderful movie on PPV and as an original Russian speaker may have understood a few things better than the subtitles have allowed for for the english-speaking audiences...The guy helping "madam" wasn't the director of the orphanage, he was a hired hand, so to speak, a man to do the dirty jobs, as the madam was selling kids (she only introduced him as such to the police to fool them into thinking that she actually had some right to be looking after Vanya)....(The actual director was the old man back at the orphanage). As a beck-and-call boy, the guy probably just got fed up with the way the greedy ol' wench was treating him, realized it wasn't worth it, and most importantly sympathized with Vanya after seeing him cut his hand like that....And Vera at the hospital was most certainly Vanya's Vera as the neighbour/roommate told Vanya that she's just gone into "dezhurstvo" (her shift, the word in Russian usually refers to doctors/nurses as opposed to shift "smena" which refers to factory workers, etc). HTH! Great movie, what a great job by all the kids actors!
Thanks for the clarification, it confirms my suspicions. Wonderful movie.
shareBy the way Vera also means "belief" in Russian. Nice touch, especially if finding the mother was just the boy's dream.
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