ending

She adapted like she always does. At every point in the movie when she was faced with change, she assessed the situation and adapted. She didn't take up her parents way of thinking, but they'd given her the basis to make decisions on her own, at least that's what I took from it.

i don't understand the meaning "accepting her parents' decisions." wasn't it her decision to change schools, after the nun rebuked her for having her own interpretation of the goat story?

Her ma even reminded her of hte cost of changing schools, but she still wanted to.

by the ending, i thought you meant when she joins the other raucous children on the playground. she is a catholic school girl, not used to being allowed to play. but she joins the circle.

question: what is the name of hte school? something about "defense of the something 28 july 1881"? is it a free school?

I don't think it is a question of Anna simply accepting her parents' decisions. Rather, I think it is her recognition that her life and changed, and there is nothing she can do to restore it. So she adapts and begins to build a new life at a public school.

Anna is a very strong and intelligent child, and she has come to recognize that her best friend at the Catholic school has her limitations, and that she cannot go back to the ideal life she once had. Making the best of what is available becomes Anna' road to maturity.

I think this is what makes this movie such an excellent coming-of-age story. Anna learns from her experiences as she goes along and learns to make the best of circumstances that she has no control over.

The ending is very hopeful because Anna has learned to take control of her life. When the other girls pull her into their dancing circle, Anna accepts their new world and begins to learn to live in it.

Blaine in Seattle

I agree with pistorman.

I would add only that I think she has learned that the world is a very uncertain place, and she just needs to accept that and get along. Neither her conservative Catholic background nor her parents' new found Leftist ideology offers truth and certainty.

Of the movie's characters it is Anna who travels the furthest. She will make the best of what life offers her.

Blaine in Seattle

I like what the other posters here have suggested; it's similar to what I took from it. I thought, as she joined the circle of other children, two things: first, that the chaotic playground in which she suddenly found herself did have a place for her--the circle of kids stopped and opened up for her without her even asking. Second, that the chaos did actually have some structure--although it looked a mess, people were directing themselves, choosing for themselves what to do, joining with whom they please to do what they please.

I saw it something as a refutation of the dogma that all the adults in her life presented, whether it be the rigidity of the Catholic faith, or the equally rigid "for-us-or-against-us" views of her leftist parents. Both presented a centralized, top-down approach to figuring out life, but clearly she couldn't be sure either were correct. The playground showed that life is really a self-directed, decentralized, bottom-up experience of individual choices and free associations.

I saw the very last playground scene as her way of finally going with the flow. Throughout the movie she had basically rejected all the change happening around her and tried to stop it which didn't help because life will continue to go on whether you want it to or not. So, when Allende dies and she goes to school, I think at first she's somewhat surprised that the world outside hasn't stopped because of the event and that everything just keeps happening, and then she understands and joins in. She has grown and has finally stopped putting up a fight and has just accepted one of the basic rules of life. It is constantly moving, no matter what is going on around you.

I thought for Anna, it was a reinvention of the world. The first thing I thought when I saw all the public school kids running all over was "Chaos", which is what Anna's Greek nanny told her existed before Gaia in Greek mythology.