MovieChat Forums > After.Life (2009) Discussion > Two interpretations, both right and both...

Two interpretations, both right and both wrong... sorry

posted 14 years ago by ZioScrooge
22 replies | jump to latest

Whatever you choose to trust, if she is really dead or still alive, there are plot holes that make sense just if you choose to trust the other one.

You can never complete the puzzle in any case, because there are some two-ways scense that make sense in both cases, but other scenes are only one-way.

For example, if you choose to believe that Anna is alive and Eliot is a kind of jigsaw, why should Eliot kill even a young child? He kept pictures of his victims and in one of them you can see a 10 years old boy. Isn't he too young to be judged? Also, if Anna is really alive, Eliot must be a really lucky man. He risked many times that someone could understand everything but noone ever did for a series of TOO lucky circumstances.
But, if you choose to believe that Anna is really dead, why should Eliot use "Hydronium Bromide"?

So, you can just choose what you want. It's right and wrong at the same time because the director himself didn't choose which one is true. He wanted to make a film that can be interpretated in two ways, but he just failed to make a good job.
Nolan rules.

[–] oldahus 14 years ago

You have the best interpretation I have read. That explains why all of us can debate about it.

[–] The_Lost_Girl 14 years ago

Except that I believe the child you are refering to had closed eyes on his picture, indicating that he was truly physically dead when he buried him (the "living-dead" have opened eyes, the "dead-dead" closed ones).

But yes, the movie itself can be taken one way or the other.

Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo (the director) said that there is always only one "truth" to a movie, but many different interpretations.

I believe that "After.Life" is a movie that was left purposely ambiguous in order to give the viewers the opportunity to decide by themselves what this or that scene meant to them.

She gave us the intended answer behind the movie. Explained what inspired it and what her motives as director were. But once all is said and done, you can come up with your own conclusions!

I decided that Anna was suffering from clinical depression, and used her illness to explain the dynamics behing her relationship with Paul.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0838247/board/thread/170408522

But listening to the commentaries, the director didn't say anything to that effect.

So what you see/understand/perceive from a movie is ultimately a very personal experience.

[–] ZioScrooge 14 years ago

AH the director is a woman!
It explains everything, then :D

(joking, of course)

[–] The_Lost_Girl 14 years ago

Well, considering that women do tend to try to get men to guess their intentions instead of clearly stating what they mean to say, I may have to agree with you!

She did give the answer to the movie (whether Anna was alive or dead) though. Not in the movie itself, but in the commentaries. However, she acknowledged that movies can be interpretated differently and that there is no "wrong" interpretation per say, even if said interpretation isn't the "truth" (i.e. what the movie really was about from the director or the writer point of view... In that case, the movie director also wrote the script).

[–] ZioScrooge 14 years ago

Anyway, about open and close eyes in the pictures that Eliot keeps... What you said can be a possible explanation, but...

Why should he keep pictures of "normally-dead" people? And in this case, I guess that even one whole wall, with about 100 pics, wouldn't be sufficient. After sometimes he should start archiving.

Also, it's very possible that (assuming he is a sort of jigsaw) he can't force every victim to open his/her eyes when he wants to shoot a picture... some victims can just "give up" fighiting with him and lie waiting for the day, or just feeling too sick for opening eyes.

And anyway, your explanation (closed eyes for dead people, open eyes for victims) means that he is a killer, so there are still other problems about this theory, first of all his enormous LUCK :P

And, for concluding, I have to say there is a very HUGE PLOT HOLE if you believe that victims are still alive. They can't feel their own heartbeating, cause of the drug. It's scientifically impossible that a dead-not-dead person that is kept in that way with that drug can wake up and walk and talk BEFORE his/her heart restarts beating.

In this case, Edgar Allan Poe rules ;)

[–] The_Lost_Girl 14 years ago

Have you ever heard about Takayasu's arteritis? It is also nicknamed the "pulseless disease", because pulses on the upper extremities (ex: wrists) may not be able to be felt.

I'm thinking that if her hands are still numb to the pain when she wakes up (and thus, probably numb to the touch), she may find herself unable to feel the weakened pulse from her carotid artery too!

Anna's heart was never stopped... Just like people suffering from Takayasu's arteritis don't have a heart that stopped beating.

Anna's heart was SLOWED... Enough that you can't feel the pulse. That is scientifically possible.

So yes, she can walk and talk and still not be able to feel the pulse at her wrists (and have trouble finding the one at her neck) with her heart still pumping blood in her system.

Albeit, she will probably be very weak, and perhaps confused (because the blood doesn't travel as fast as it usually does through her brain).

"Normally dead" people are also people that Eliot helped transition from the dead to the living.

Eliot sees the "dead" among the living, whether they are physically or emotionally dead, and helps them make the transition. He helps the "dead" come to terms with their lives, and accept that it is time for them to leave it all behind, move on.

I'm even tempted to believe that he does "speak" with those that are physically dead. Not because of a "gift", but because he is mentally ill, and thinks that they are talking back.

The director confirmed that Eliot is indeed a killer, and that the wall in his room is meant to be a shrine (since a lot of killers seem to enjoy keeping a little something from their victims).

But yes, his LUCK was completely ridiculous (ludicrous, even!). That was my biggest problem with the whole movie.

I'm tempted to redirect you to this discussion... Because if not I'm going to start to do a lot of "copy/paste" (I've already started)! Lol!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0838247/board/thread/171810304

[–] ZioScrooge 14 years ago

The film just talks you about a drug "Hydronium Bromide" able to slow down your pulses and make you look like dead. It just made me think about what Juliet (from Shackespeare's Romeo&Juliet) takes to simulate her death, or about some of Poe's stories.

If your pulse is slowed down as much as you cant feel it (and even a DOCTOR cant feel it) it means that your blood is travelling too slow for being awake and able to walk and speak. And don't you think that at least ONE of his victims would feel the pulse? If its just slowed down and not totally absent, and even sufficient for being awake, it can be felt if you are patient. Victims are left alone for 3 days, its plausible they test their pulse many times in the while.

I never heard about that arteritis, but i looked quickly on wikipedia now. It says its a common illnesses for japanese women, and not something you can provoke artificially with bromide. Anyway its never mentioned in the movie.

Anyway I believe what the director said, the most likely solution is that Eliot is a killer but the movie makes the public doubt about it until the end and even after. It just misses something because of those "one-way things" that can never make sense if Eliot is a killer and Anna is alive.
Movies like Nolan's Inception are perfect from this point of view because EVERYTHING looks plausible in any interpretation you choose.

But its just a movie, its crazy to fight about a fictional story.

[–] The_Lost_Girl 14 years ago

Oh! I’m not fighting! Far from it! Lol! On the contrary, I just love discussing the movie and share opinions about it.

I gave the example of Takayasu's arteritis only to illustrate that in some cases, it is possible for someone to walk around without being able to feel a pulse.

But it has nothing to do with hydronium bromide... A drug that is, by the way, 100% fictional (though there are drugs known to create a similar effect).

The victims are completely unconscious when the paramedics or the doctors try to take their pulse. They are only awake when they’re in Eliot’s lab (or running around the house if they managed to escape it, apparently).

That being said, I agree with you regarding the fact that it is extremely unlikely (if not downright impossible) that there wasn’t a single victim that ever understood that they were not dead.

Or that didn’t try to get another “pulse reading” from the carotid artery while they were feeling a little bit stronger.

Though if they never got past the stage where they could feel pain again, I doubt that they would have been able to feel their pulse at all.

The skin has heat, cold, pain, and pressure or touch receptors. Perhaps the drug alters their pressure or touch receptors as well! So it’s not just a question of having no pulse, but of being unable to feel the pulse (because your own touch receptors have been tempered with)!

I’m even tempted to say that they can’t feel heat or cold. Eliot lowers the thermostat to keep the bodies cool in case someone would try to touch them (ex: that policeman). But I can’t remember Anna ever shivering or complaining about the cold itself.

Plus, Eliot keeps injecting them with that hydronium bromide repeatedly over the course of these 3 days. It’s not exactly as if they were completely on their own. Perhaps those that managed to finally feel a pulse were told that it was their imagination, and that they needed to let go. Eliot may even have used the argument that there was “no pulse before” as proof.

Still, how could Eliot convince so many people to just go along with what he was saying? Are there so many unhappy people in this town willing to believe that they are dead even if they’re not?

Heck! I may even have tried to stab myself with one of his tools a few times to see if it would have any effect on my body! Lol! Or tried to hold my breath until I start suffocating and pass out!

Perhaps if Eliot feels that he can’t manage to convince them that they are already dead, he kills them before the funeral. That’s probably what he did when he used that trocar on Paul right after he woke up. After everything that had happened between them, there was no way that he was going to be able to convince him that he had been killed in that road accident, and that his spirit was trapped at the funeral home for 3 days while Eliot got his body ready for the funeral.

The director did want her movie to leave a few things unexplained, and allow people to speculate about the ending. At least, if I remember correctly what she said.

So what you wrote when you started this thread still applies. There are no wrong or right answers! You can still choose to believe that Anna and Paul were dead before they got to the funeral home, and no one can tell you it’s wrong. If that’s the way you most enjoy the movie, and better experience it, that’s perfect!

She put so many elements in there to throw us off (even that little boy’s mother that looks like a corpse!) that one can watch the movie and conclude that Anna is dead, and it still works!

She didn’t “wrap things ups” at the end, or provide any answers for the most ambiguous parts (unless you watch the movie with the commentaries, and even there, she leaves a few things out)!

I, for one, have chosen to believe that Anna suffers from clinical depression, and that this was the reason why she took medication (that may have caused her nosebleeds). The director never confirmed this, but it made me believe in Paul and Anna’s love a lot more while watching the movie.

Inception, the Sixth Sense, Dark City, and many others eventually give us all the answers we need so that even if we are confused while watching the movie, we can still go back and see that everything fits together on second viewing!

But with After.Life, even if we KNOW that Anna isn’t dead, Eliot is a serial killer, etc. There are still a few things that remain kind of hazy while we watch it.

It doesn’t stop me from enjoying the movie, far from it! Lol! I truly love it! But it’s not a movie where every puzzle pieces fit neatly, that’s for sure!

[–] The_Lost_Girl 14 years ago

From the Bloody Disgusting website:

http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/interview/640

BD: Anchor Bay is the distributor, and they’re known for doing great special edition DVDs - have you guys started putting that together?

AWV: Oh, totally. I’m actually doing a commentary next week. And then the special features, one of which will be the clues... there’s this whole debate - is she dead or alive? So there’s going to be a piece on all of the clues, there are all these clues in the movie whether she was or wasn’t. Sort of subtle clues, but they’re there. I purposely wrote this wanting this interpretation to happen; I wanted the audience to have their own conclusion on life and death, what does it mean to be alive? And it’s not quite clear cut, you know? I didn’t want to have a paint-by-numbers ending, but there are clues. You’ll be surprised how divided people are, they see the same movie... there was this couple that came up to me after the AFI screening, and she thought Christina was dead, and the boyfriend thought she was alive. So they had this argument after seeing the same movie, and I love that! It provoked this discussion not only about the movie, but their life: are THEY really living life?

So interpret away! Lol!

[–] slapmonkey 13 years ago

Thanks. This is probably the best analysis of the film I've read ...and I've read every blog and seen the movie 3 times! A huge fan!

~~~I know I'm good for something... just don't what it is {yet}~~~

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] artistathome 14 years ago

How could she be alive after a burial preparation? Even if the cause of death is an accident you never bury the body with all the organs. Not in the US anyway.

So there is no freakin way Anna was still alive in the coffin if the mortician really did his job. Yes, he may have actually killed her during the burial prep. That is one theory --that Eliot got his thrills by talking to them and then subjecting to them to trauma and then they died before burial.

But there is a second idea. That she actually was paralyzed by the drug at her funeral, and Eliot's desire was to buy her alive. And kill her that way.

So either way he is a murderer.

I don't think she was dead in the morgue. How could she have breathed on the mirror upstairs. How could she have messed up the lab? Had to be alive.

so at some point Eliot did kill her.

Paul was probably alive also but died quickly when Eliot inserted that tube into him.

Very strange mind that came up with THIS movie.

[–] M_posse_bull 13 years ago

First off you can choose not to be enbalmed in the USA but they have a shorter time span to bury you and have the services etc. So that is possible.
For another thing he never embalmed her, she had blood clawing at the coffin at the end.
The tube he put in Paul's chest was for his embalming. He never did this to Anna.
She was buried alive.

[–] saintjoanna-867-629460 14 years ago

W just need to know or understand for sure... was the character that Liam Nisson played in the movie tuly a serial killer? The movie would make much more sense to us if Liam Nisson's character was a killer or really did have this "gift," that he talked so often of having. Thanks for any reply!

[–] slapmonkey 13 years ago

Yes he was a serial killer. But part of the fun is that both interpretations work. Some have said she's both alive and dead (!).

~~~I know I'm good for something... just don't what it is {yet}~~~

[–] doughboy3389 13 years ago

Please read everything before responding...

I don't see how there can be much debate or interpretation. I don't think certain things in the movie were left up to interpretation (such as whether or not she was alive and whether or not he was killing these people).

Before she got in her wreck at the beginning of the movie she was being wildly tailgated/abused by Liam in his white van. He was trying to wreck her just like he taunted Justin Long to drive drunk in a hurry so he'd wreck. The movie made a point of showing us that. When she wrecked it is shown that he had been there to drug her up to make her appear dead after he contributed to her wreck.

The only times that people were allowed to see her were immediately after she had been given a dose of the drug (her mom, the pervert police officer, the funeral itself). Anytime she was alive and active Neeson made sure to keep her behind those doors. Why would he go through such an effort to hide her if only he could hear/see/interact with her? Ok, maybe she's a zombie, at that point we've moved from Neeson being able to see and communicate with the dead to a zombie movie. I don't think so.

I'll skip over her actually being able to talk to Long's character since that could be interpreted differently.

She fogged up the mirror and he panicked...Pretty straightforward. Corpses don't breath hot air and fog up mirrors and if she was just seeing that then he wouldn't have panicked.

When Neeson got Long on the table after his wreck he stabbed him to drain his fluids, etc and Long screamed out in pain. If they were dead, they would feel no pain. That's one reason why the end is supposed to be so powerful and chilling--- because it makes the fact he is a killer very clear.

The entire theme of people wasting their lives wouldn't be stressed so passionately by Neeson's character if it wasn't the motivation for him making sure these people die.

Also when he'd say that all these people do is walk around and *beep* etc" that is heavily implying they are alive. Corpses don't defecate or walk.

The beauty of the movie is it makes you think this is going to be a weird afterlife movie but the whole time it is just a deranged serial killer.

And the idea that a boy was "too young" to be a part of his whole scheme is pure speculation. We know nothing about that boy (whether he was dead and was just your average customer or whether he spent 8 hours a day playing video games and cared about nothing- It'd be cruel of Neeson's character but not out of the question at all). As to the assessment that he got "lucky" too much....He had that drug that knocked her out. People didn't discover her because she was drugged each time. The movie makes it clear. He is shown injecting her each time somebody is coming to visit. Watch it again to see. Regardless both supposed "holes" are speculation.

I don't see holes in this interpretation...

[–] neztra 13 years ago

I have to agree with you. I had no clue that people were debating whether or not Anna was alive or dead until I viewed the imdb page. To me, it was pretty straight forward.

Of course the director is going to encourage debate, even if the truth is clear in the film. She will want to encourage as much conversation about the film as possible.

Good flick. I really enjoyed it.

Bam said the lady.

[–] blackandbluelights 11 years ago

This is an incredible interpretation, but did you ever think that Neeson's character truly believed they were all dead? That they were only animated because of their "will to stay alive?" She did say he was a *beep* lunatic, and he lost his *beep*

I think everything he said was 'true' - but in his own mind. He talked to those with eyes closed, and eyes open. Didn't matter to him. He watched her walk around, but he didn't see the cop's brother move an inch. He thought that guy had nothing to live for, or, no will to live. Somehow though, he always knew the perfect touch to the funeral.

Anyway, Neeson was all alone, and lived in a funeral home. His basement was filled with corpses, and his house was filled with no living body but his own. How can you not lose your mind in a situation like that? The problem is, crazy people don't know they're crazy. So maybe he truly thought she was dead. Maybe he could no longer tell the difference between the living and the dead, out of those that were sent there. As Long's character said, she was declared dead before the guy even took at a look at her - only from information through the phone. Anyone saying she couldn't be sent there alive must have missed that part.

"Also when he'd say that all these people do is walk around and *beep* etc" that is heavily implying they are alive. Corpses don't defecate or walk."

Yes, but who says he was lying? I think he truly thought that.

But the whole part about his van, that didn't even catch my attention at all initially. I don't really know about that, do you really think he "killed" both of them for *beep* I don't see his motive...... Or maybe... Did he kill her because she saw the man move at the first funeral? Did he kill Justin Long because Neeson admit the secret that she wasn't dead, or didn't really need to because Long pretty much knew she wasn't?

If she was alive, she would have died of dehydration or something. She never ate or drank a thing, just got a bunch of injections. She was weak because she hadn't eaten for 3 days, not because she was ready to die. Besides, how can you still dream when your brain cells are dying? She dreamed quite a bit, and had very strong emotions, which require healthy brain cells. Neurons don't fire if they're dead.

Also, the whole breathing in the mirror thing. Maybe he was just as afraid as she was, didn't understand it. Yeah, he wiped it away, but he would have done it in less of a panic if he knew she was alive. He would have expected something like that, but what did he do, rig the mirror to make her look like a corpse? Seems unlikely...

I am trying so hard to make this coherent lol I hope it worked. It's just that the writer made it so there are answers on both sides, which makes this movie an interesting headache.

[–] GreyHunter 13 years ago

The real question is how much we trust the director's intelligence and subtlety. For instance, if she's alive, it's implied, both from the Wall of Creepy Photos and from the final scene with Coleman that Eliot has done this sort of thing multiple times. The odds of a still-living person being sent to the funeral home in this day and age are fairly low. Possible, but low. The odds of it happening several times are extraordinarily low. So if the interpretation is that she's alive and Eliot is a psychopath, then we're forced to buy into some truly unbelievable coincidences.

But...if we trust the director, we can, perhaps, find a resolution. Perhaps the interactions were all part of Eliot's psychosis, for instance, and Coleman is dead but Eliot imagines him alive. Or perhaps Eliot's power isn't speaking with the dead, but actually reviving them. And so on.

[–] zadok-332-444684 9 years ago

Nolan rules..? Is that an Interstellar tease? Haven't seen it yet. Apart from that though there is Memento and that's it. When it comes to abstractions and plot twists even Inception is plain flat. A film that is supposedly founded upon abstractions ends up being one dimensional - despite multiple simultaneous stories and epic distractions. Anybody ought to be able to see through it at a glance. A poor smoke and mirrors spectacle that doesn't resemble actual dreams one bit. All subplots gamble too high: "If this van falls in the water Leo dies - w/o him being able to do anything about it!!!" (SloMo drumroll)... Yeah, sure mate. Whatever you say *yawn*.
After.Life actually poses the questions it pretends to pose. It really has multiple aspects instead of mere layers of distraction.

Akira Kurosawas Rashomon, David Finchers Gone Girl, Mary Harrons American Psycho and indeed Nolans Memento - there are better uptakes on a two-sided story and major plot-twists... but that's the epitome of great cinema, not a standard. This one beats almost all of Nolans mostly solid yet uninspired films in that aspect - with the one exception of Memento. Really dude: Nolan is a very good director yet his qualities do not lie in (plot-)depth and abstractions at all. Robert Rodriguez' Planet Terror beats him to that any day. So does After.Life.