the end

My understanding is that, first of all, the end is supposed to be ambiguous to a certain extent. I didn't stay until after the credits, so I can't really comment about the specifics of the movie. That said, I have read the novel and, for all that's globally and necessarily different about the adaptation, the book's ending is just like the film's: the woman is on the verge of a very probable death after being attacked by her husband in a final fit of rage.

Now, does the soldier boy somehow manage to save her before she expires? In both novel and movie, we've no way of establishing whether or not it happened. My gut feeling, along with the general course and logic of the story, tells me that the woman indeed dies. I mean, the shattering of the "syngué sabour" is supposed to free the one who confides in it... but is there verily any way for her to break free from the trappings of her marriage and society, and enjoy that freedom while alive?

Also, for your information, the novel also opens and closes on these curtains depicting migrating birds. As for the symbolism, I don't think there's anything particularly related to Islam: curtains and birds are about as universal as it gets.

Hope my input helped you one way or another!

As usual I have a more negative interpretation of the ending than other viewers. She stabbed him. He strangled her. Maybe they killed each other. Maybe inspite of making sure the audience has every opportunity to understand her experience she had to be portrayed as an evil woman. She certainly went into the fight with more stamina than her husband had. With lipstick and creepy lear at the end she was either confirmed as a prostitute or dead. I thought the former. Her children playing with lipstick are innocent. Her use of it...not so much.

The story itself has some aspects of a fable: we can only guess we are in Afghanistan without it ever being named, the characters have no names other than “The Woman” and “The Man,” like some twilight Adam and Eve. Rahimi had to be able to embody this in an image, without denying to the fable the force of realism, and without denying to the real the symbolic sense of a fable.

In this respect, the ending is not ambiguous. In the novel, the Man dies when the Woman plunges the knife in his heart, and he kills her by wringing her neck. In the film, The Man also dies, knifed by The Woman, and she dies when The Man strangles her. In both cases, the story ends with a fable-ending: in the book, “The woman slowly opens her eyes.” “The breeze rises, sending the migrating birds into flight over her body”; in the film, The Woman says, exulting, “I am a Prophet! I just made a miracle!” In both cases, the Patience Stone explodes from all the hardships and pains it had absorbed, and the woman finds in death peace from her sufferings and worries.

The ending is ambiguous in that it's not clear how the soldier will respond upon discovering her. She survives the strangulation. There's nothing ambiguous about her open eyes, her sighting the soldier and her continued narration.

The distance is nothing. The first step is the hardest.

I have just finished watching it and she was crying and smiling at the young soldier who was looking through the window.For a few moments she felt superior to her husband because she had shattered the Patience Stone (him).

I would guess that she would not live too long once the Mullah found out, either that or she would be married off to one of the husband's brothers.

Running off with the young soldier would not have been an option because he was the "toy" of his superior and was obviously terrified of him.

Sorry but I don't think he killed her, she was probably lying there because she was over come by emotion and grief. it takes a bit to strangle someone to death. If anything she was recovering.