MovieChat Forums > How I Live Now (2013) Discussion > Why were they separated?

Why were they separated?

posted 10 years ago by maskedwriter87
4 replies | jump to latest

Is it ever explained why the military separates the children?

[–] ciocio-2 10 years ago

Q: "Is it ever explained why the military separates the children?"

A: Nope. I could come up with some possible reasons, having to do with best protecting them all, and what fate was likely to befall someone captured by the enemy forces, depending on his or her gender. Perhaps also that males of a certain age range were going to be conscripted, to fight in the military (though why would that pertain only to males? That would indicate a fairly dated perspective in this alternate reality). But I don't think it's explained at all.

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[–] mr_bickle_the_pickle 10 years ago

I figured it was because they would try and get the boys to join the war.

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[–] raf-33 10 years ago

That was my thinking, if it was too late to enact conscription because you have already been invaded then soldiers would probably be tasked to collect males of fighting age and send them on a crash course of weapon training and survival. I'd imagine in the 21st century though a western nation would recruit both males and females to fight.

Either way we don't know because they leave it very ambiguous, when we see Isaac's body it makes you wonder many things.

Was it a training camp that was attacked?
Was it a training camp and they executed those that didn't make the grade?
Was it a deathcamp where the soldiers sent anyone that could resist them? (naughty soldiers)

Very ambiguous, kinda why I like the movie, there are more questions than answers just as a good movie should. You are meant to talk about a movie afterwards, if you don't then it means there were no loose ends and everything was answered. Something American movies started doing a long time ago because questioning a movie can lead to criticising it and those penny-pinching studios wouldn't want that.

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[–] Yorick_Brown 9 years ago

The girls and young boys were sent off to work in munitions factories and farms while the oldest boys were conscripted into the military.

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