Don't understand at all!



Please explane, why they locked that girl,and why they kept her there?

And what's with their sister (girls mother) they don't want to talk about?

I just don't get it!

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My take on it is that they were inbreds. This explains the deformed hands and why they didn't speak about the mother/sister.
Why they kept her locked up, i don't know

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THE ONLY ADVICE I CAN GIVE YOU ABOUT THIS FILM IS TO TAKE A DEEP BREATH THINK ABOUT THIS MOVIE AGAIN AND YOU WILL REALISE IT WAS A PIECE OF @!@#$.
QUICKLY GO OUT AND SEE SOME GOOD SPANISH CINEMA LIKE PANS LABYRINTH OR TALK TO HER
AND FORGET YOU EVER SAW THIS FILM,BELEIVE ME DON'T STRESS YOURSELF OVER SUCH A FILM

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Can you explain why you hated it so much instead of just adding random posts all over the place slating it?

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I apologise if I was a little over the top,but I had just finished watching it,and I hate seeing money spent on such silly films.And I'm sure some government funding goes into these productions(grants etc).
The director obviously lost control on this production. And he let down everyone involved.What a shame.
I like to say what I think,but I don't mean to offend

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OK thanks for that. I just don't understand how you come to the conclusion that the Director "lost control" and let everyone down, what do you mean?

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He's not alone, I didn't like the film either. I was not emotionally connected to any of the characters thus I did not care what became of any of them. By your defensiveness, it seems that you have a personal attachment--sorry that I can't share your sentiments. If you are one of the film makers, better luck next time.

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I fully agree with the first part about no emotional connection at all with any of the characters. Unless the story is completely and essentially based upon that premise as a core element of the story, that is a TOTAL death-nell for any film. If you don't care about the characters or cannot relate to them in ANY way, then whatever happens to them (which in this film isn't very coherent or meaningful to me anyway) will have little or no impact on you.

Add to that the complete pointlessness of the plot and especially the ending and you have people left with no substantial feeling about the film at all.

ONLY those who are totally into DRAMA and interpersonal conflict (between the husband and wife and the city people and the locals in this case) and don't need a strong background story, meaningful happenings or an impactful ending, apparently seem to like this movie...



I have over 4000 films, many of them very rare and OOP. I LOVE to trade. PLEASE ASK!

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you think this is bad?

go watch Terror Toons. wait, scratch that dont even waste your time just take my word for it.

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This movie was awesome, what's the matter with you boy?!

Loved the acting, story and photography.

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agreed that was what I thought I only watched because gary oldman its funny that as soon as he died the movie kinda made no sense...Gary would've found out lol

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Just watched the movie yesterday. They don't show any explanation why they locked the girl up, we only can assume that they are ashamed of the disability and that there might be some incest involved.
Another question: did Gary Oldman's character get shot at the end? I somehow missed this..
Cheers,
bowmore

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yes, he gets shot.

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do we actually see him getting shot or do we just hear the shot?
thanks,
bowmore

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I thought she was a werewolf. Remember she sees the fullmoon and starts to sing plus she behaves like a dog/wolf. or it could be child from incestous relationship.

======
hiqbal

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I thought she was a werewolf too.

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they locked her up because she was the result of an incestious relationship...this comes across in the last bit of conversation the old man has with oldman before the other relative knocks him out. He pretty much says shes a good girl but "sometimes the innocent pay for the sinners".

i thought the movie was decent. A bit too much like strawdogs(and many others)...amazing cast. So so.

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It´s been a while since I saw it but from what I remember the old man was the father of the little girl, the mother of the girl was the sister of the old man. (not sure if it was exactly like this but I´m sure there was a brother/sister sexual relationship which resulted in the sister getting pregnant).

So with the fact that this takes place in a small spanish community during the 60´s-70´s taken into consideration the whole cover up and keeping the girl locked up is about shame for something that is considered extremely taboo.

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It´s been a while since I saw it but from what I remember the old man was the father of the little girl, the mother of the girl was the sister of the old man. (not sure if it was exactly like this but I´m sure there was a brother/sister sexual relationship which resulted in the sister getting pregnant).


That was the impression I got.

Having said that the script and direction were poor and I thought the performances suffered as a result.

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The point wasn't why they were keeping the girl locked up. The point, as was mentioned in the movie, is that is was a different culture. No one really bothered to try to understand anyone else's point of view and that is why everything ended in tragedy.

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"The point wasn't why they were keeping the girl locked up. The point, as was mentioned in the movie, is that is was a different culture. No one really bothered to try to understand anyone else's point of view and that is why everything ended in tragedy."

EXACTLY. Things were different in "the backwoods". She was a product of incest and was locked up because of her disability, this seems awfully bad to someone of my upbringing. But the girl never showed any sense of wanting to leave, and ran back to her father at the end. The group of "bad guys" weren't doing anything but trying to get the girl back who was taken from them. One of them was a prick and wanted to rape the woman. The husband of said woman has a lot of pent-up rage and goes off and kills him, like he says "for him, not her" and continues his escapade. Basically the guys have 3 friends or family members or whatever they were getting killed because they were looking for a girl that was taken from them, and because one of them was a jerk who tried to rape someone.

By all means I am NOT being accepting of the rape or locking the girl up, but if you think of it that way... the girl really didnt want to be taken and everyone was accepting of the situation, was it right for 3 of them to get killed, at least one of which really shows no signs of having done anything wrong? Lots of ambiguity here, and I think the above poster said it perfectly.

That being said, I don't really know how much I like the movie lol

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[deleted]

Oh... and I thought the movie was just about some complicated tax reducing scheme that was created by some Euro-trash that wanted to make a film and also be sure that it was a bomb in order to get the right tax benefits.

I've seen it before... and this film was just another one.

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The above sounds like an awful lot of work.

We live by the Sun, we feel by the Moon

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First, the Oldman character is not actually shown getting shot. We see the setup for it and then they do a long shot and then cut away before we hear the shot. Apparently this was to increase suspense, and let us be afraid for him and in the dark like the other good guy characters.

Secondly, in addition to one of the men starting to rape the woman, another of the men clubs Oldman's character and then shoots at him when he tries to run away, injuring him in the ear and/or side of the head. This in spite of the fact that the older man yells at him for the clubbing and for shooting at him. So that guy was obviously another "bad seed." The younger "pretty" one doesn't actually do anything bad except being part of the force of men with guns and turning up the radio to help cover the rape (and doing nothing to stop the rape), so at the least he was pretty worthless.

My take on it was that the older guy was the father of two of the men and the uncle of the other one. He says something about the sins of the unrighteous, apparently himself, being punished on the righteous, apparently the deformed girl. Therefore, he may have committed incest on his own daughter, probably the sister of the younger men, producing the deformities in the young girl. The ages would be about right. That's why he twice says "leave the mother out of it," as if it wasn't her fault.

The good guys do nothing but try to defend themselves and rescue the girl, who is being kept in conditions unfit for an animal -- a small, dark, stinking room on a pile of straw with dog dishes for water and food. She is filthy and has not been taught to talk.

At the end, the older man says "she is mine," which suggests he is the father. She is also not afraid of him, and when she runs to him, he gives her a musical movement to crank, which is the source of the tune she is trying to hum. At this point he acts like he cares about her, but he can't have spent too much time with her, or she would have been cleaner and maybe able to talk. Also, he is now down two sons and a nephew, so he is running out of relatives.

Lastly, I don't believe Norman shot the girl. He fires the gun, but they both seem alive and able to get into the car, and his girlfriend doesn't seem as horrified as she would have been if he had killed the girl. The only reason for killing the girl would have been to save her from going back to the filthy shed they were keeping her in, and with people of another village involved, that wasn't too likely. The man from the other village even ordered them to put their guns down and said he was taking them to the "guarda civil," so it seemed that sanity was back in play.

Semper Contendere Propter Amoram et Formam

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Yup my take on it exactly
I Hate Squeak

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OOOOOOH OKAY. i get it now.

the ending was so confusing to me, and i can usually figure these things out...

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Incest does not cause deformities. It is a moral issue. That incest causes deformities is an old wifes tale and was used for the purpose of propriety by the church years ago. There was a criminal case less than a year ago about a man who had locked up his daughter and she had two "normal" children by him (other than the immoral circumstances that make it far from normal).

Plus I was curious and googed it and, heh heh, I actually thought it too, but, no, for example a brother and sister (gross!) have the same chances of having a deformed kid as anyone else. But yes, it is healthier for two very different people to have kids though, because the kid inherits (could) both parents sets of antibodies and latent talents.

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yes. that's correct.
...but then again people can't walk on moving trains or aircrafts and yet they do that all the time in the movies.
anyway i have seen worse movies than this one all in all.

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Incest among cousins is supposedly biologically fine, but about siblings it isn't.

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Not exactly. I don't remember the exact figures, but while the risk of deformities is not very high and is a lot lower than for siblings, it's still substantially higher than for unrelated parents.

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You have two siblings, they share the same collection of genes.

Your parents give you two genes for your eye colour, the dominant one wins out and you end up with brown eyes, but you still have the gene (technically the allele I think)for blue eyes or w/e, but its recessive so it doesn't present in the offspring.

If both your parents have the same recessive genes then there is a very high chance that their offspring will only have that gene.

In short, incestuous offspring are more likely to be born with defects due to the shallow gene pool. Variation is essential for healthy offspring.

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I'm not even 100% sure that Norman had a round in the gun when he appeared to fire last. I thought it could have been thunder. Either way, unlike some have said, the girl was not fired on, she was cranking away at her music box and being soothed. It is unclear whether she had mental disabilities as well, or if she was just socially retarded from being locked away.

This isn't the best film, I go a 6/10. I am really puzzled as to why people are having trouble realizing what I took to be very obvious and explained points. (The reason for the child being jailed, the child being a result of incest)

As well as Norman having some unresolved rage, i also think that in the end he was angry that the man had a child and chose to treat it ill as he and Lucy had lost theirs. Or perhaps that he thought about killing the girl as he wanted the man to feel as he did. Probably not articulating that very well.

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Norman didn't kill her. She was still moving (playing the music box) at the end.

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All I know is this film was terrible and i really dont understand why gary oldman would even consider this. Paddy Considine is one of my favourite actors but at he did his part but the script was diabolic and full of cliches . The whole story surrounding this little girl doesnt work as there is no setup . BAD BAD BAD 1/5 and thats just for Oldmand and Paddy being in it.

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Yeah the girl was probably the result of inbreeding, so she was locked up out of shame. Her deformed hands were the mark of that. Sort of like the red letter "A" in the Scarlet Letter. She was just a reminder to everyone of the sin and shame of it all, but she was is still loved by her father, how could she not be.

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It's a funny kind of love that has a father keep his daughter locked in a shed in filthy conditions that would ill suit a farm animal.

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It's obvious to me that Pig (the rapist) screwed his sister, and the deformed kid was the result. The sister probably died in child birth. The family didn't want to talk about it, so they kept the kid away from people, and never took her out. As for the locking up, they lived in the middle of nowhere, in a crappy house, if they ever left the house probably the only safe place to make sure she didn't leave the house was to lock her up in the stables, which is where the English people found her.

I don't think everyone in the movie was an inbreed, just the deformed girl. Pig was just slow, which you can be without being inbred.

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Repeated incest over generations will in fact produce physical deformities as well as mental inadequacies. The Hapsburg dynasty of Spain is an example of what can happen over generations of inbreeding, particularly Charles II,and the "blue" Fugates of Kentucky. When two carriers of a normally dormant gene procreate, the gene may become active in the offspring, resulting in the expression of a previously suppressed characteristic...it stands to reason that two family members would have the same genetic sequences. So the 'sins of the fathers' punish the resulting generations.

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