MovieChat Forums > Yella (2008) Discussion > What does the ending mean? (SPOILERS!)

What does the ending mean? (SPOILERS!)

posted 17 years ago by steve.schonberger
27 replies | jump to latest

After yesterday's screening at Seattle International Film Festival, people leaving the theater all seemed to have a different explanation for the ending.

My interpretation was a twist on the idea that people's lives "flash before their eyes" when they think they're about to die. But instead of seeing her life up to the point of the car crash, she sees the life ahead of her if she survives.

Another one I heard was that it was a simple case of the film showing what might have been. (That's in contrast to my idea, that the character was seeing what might have been for herself.)

Less analytical thoughts suggested that maybe it was just a bunch of crap.

[–] Pierreism 14 years ago

I only just saw this but also saw the ending coming pretty soon into it. I mean, at the point where you see Phillip peel the orange, you've GOT to know it's coming. Here's an interesting extract from the Variety review back in 2007 that outlines the East/West German theme:

"Geography is important in the movie and not made particularly clear for non-German viewers. Yella's journey is essentially from the former East to the former West, from a pretty but still depressed region to a city schooled in capitalist economics, with the River Elbe as a kind of border between the two. Thus, pic is also a portrait of an easterner finding her vocation but losing her soul."

[–] psdhart 12 years ago

I agree, she lived in Wittenberg on the Elbe which is in the east and went to Hannover