If Emilie hadn't died....
Maybe somehow she and Albert could have gotten together. It would have been a great ending to the film (and she'd be 4 years older than when we last see her).
To love another person is to see the face of God!
Was it stated in the movie in any way that Emilie died?
shareAt the end when her father was trying to buy the horse he said it was because his daughter was gone and the horse was all he had left to remember her by (something like that..have only seen movie once). I don't know if he actually said the words "she died"..but from that scene that was the conclusion I drew automatically.
sharewell they did mention she was pretty sick in the movie....
shareWhen? I don't remember that
Hey son! Over here! I'm over here. At the banyan trees.
Emilie mentions how she is forbidden from riding because her bones are very brittle. The grandfather gives Emilie a teaspoon of medicine from a clear bottle. Later on when the Germans are confiscating their food, one of them holds the bottle of medicine, then her illness is mentioned again. Then the girl dies, the grandfather makes a pact with Satan to resurrect her. She lives in the windmill as a zombie. The grandfather has to kill the odd German to keep her fed. Or something like that.
shareLol.
shareGrandfather
shareI'm not familiar with the book or the play, each of which may have different endings regarding Emilie. What we hear in the film about her though is that she is sick and at the end the following (based on closed captioning):
...I knew whose horse he was. My granddaughter's. She saved his life. He was everything to her.
Where is your granddaughter?
The war has taken everything from everyone. He is all that I have left of her.
He belongs to you. That is, of course, what my little girl would have wanted. And she was the boss.
What was her name?
Emilie. Her name is Emilie.
To me this means that the grandfather bought the horse because that was "all he had left of her" this memory of her and her horse as she lived fully for those few short hours. But then he saw the bond between Joey and Albert. It was more than a proof of ownership but rather not being able to separate the two who share such a strong bond. Either the grandfather saw how much devastation the war had already wrought and could not inflict more upon the young solider OR he wanted the horse to have a happy ending and thereby carries on the spirit of his granddaughter.
You can deducte from the dialog between Emilie's grandfather and Albert. He didn't actually say "she died" but he said that he has nothing left.
However, in the book, it is specify that she died.