MovieChat Forums > Dark Horse (2012) Discussion > Marie *spoilers*

Marie spoilers

posted 10 years ago by christian102890
3 replies | jump to latest

I'm a little confused on the relationship between her and Abe. Why does Abe fantasize about her? She comes across very motherly to him, but he doesn't treat her as harshly as he does his actual mom. Then he visions her as a very dominant sexual being. Why does he see her this way? Why Marie?

Even more confusing to me is her thoughts on him. Why does she fantasize about him at the end? Was she in love with him or something? I mean, in the scenes that I'm assuming were reality and not Abe's imagination, she seemed to just treat him like an idiot nephew or something. So what does the end scene with her vision mean?

[–] lupis_noctum 10 years ago

It's been a while since I've seen the film, but our interpretation was that Marie was the titular 'dark horse.' They were both apparently interested in one another and might have had something together.

Instead of seeing what was right there in front of him, Abe chose to chase a woman that quite literally ended up killing him. This was typical of Abe's 'locomotive breath' life.

"At present nothing is possible except to extend the area of sanity little by little."

[–] forthesafetyofpuppies 10 years ago

Why does Abe fantasize about her?

Maybe it's simply that Abe is a stunted guy; basically a 35-year old teenager. And teenage boy sexualize everything, every woman encountered is a sexual fantasy waiting to happen.

That whole side-plot is a little bewildering. Particularly the end. I consider the film something of a backward dream, a before-death retrospective Abe's having in his mind, that blends with actual events, becoming more dreamy as the film progresses. But the end.. With the pull out on a thoughtful Marie, I've no living clue what Solondz was going for there.

___
You felt a lump in your breast, you looked at your wife and saw a stranger

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 8 years ago

Yeah, I can appreciate a well-done surrealist movie as much as anyone (like Mulholland Drive, for instance, or Holy Motors). But here, the turn to surrealism in the last half hour was not so well done and didn't redound to this particular film's benefit.

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