All right, I had many of the same questions (plus a lot more) when I first watched this movie, but I think I've come up with a theory that more or less explains it all.
The part that really confused me was when Carmilla was being attacked by the General and she slit her own throat, which at first I thought was her just pretending to kill herself to make the General leave. But then later, toward the end of the film, Lara discovers her corpse, indicating that she really did kill herself. How could this be if Carmilla was simultaneously running around as a vampire?
Well, the only answer I can think of is that Carmilla wasn't actually a vampire after all. Instead, she was just a young girl who had run away from the General (who was sexually abusing her). All the later scenes of Carmilla acting like a vampire in Lara's presence were either Lara's dreams or -- later -- hallucinations. The scene with all the vampires coming out of the mural was another hallucination. In other words, Lara was certifiably insane, which is why her father was planning to send her to the mental hospital. Odds are, her mother went crazy as well and tried to attack her daughter and got sent off to a mental hospital as a result.
The fact that one or more girls in the village went mad and/or committed suicide could be a combination of actual events caused by mass hysteria ("suicide clusters") as well as hallucinations experienced by Lara. Was Lara's father really attacked by Carmilla or did he fall down drunk and cut himself, as Lara originally thought when she saw her father lying there? I'm pretty sure the whole bit with hundreds of vampires running around was all in Lara's imagination.
So, there you have it. Just a guess, but it's the only thing that works for me...
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ms-zanadu
9 years ago
Thanks so much spam-183 for your explanation of this film .
It really does seem to make a whole lot of sense and also answered a few of these same questions for me as well .
IMPO Excellent film very eerie and mysterious too .
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