MovieChat Forums > Thale (2012) Discussion > Who were these guys? (spoilers)

Who were these guys? (spoilers)

posted 9 years ago by blisterpeanuts
4 replies | jump to latest

Someone, please explain!

This is what I think:

Leo and Elvis are "cleaners" who apparently work for some shady organization that removes corpses. We never really find out who pays them or why they exist.

Leo has a weak stomach. Elvis, more cynical and world-weary, is not bothered by anything, and is not surprised by anything. He seems almost to be expecting to find a Huldra there.

These guys are sent by Einar (or someone) to dispose of a corpse. Once they noticed something highly unusual in this cottage, Elvis immediately called for "Einar and the others" to come take over. He told Leo not to touch anything.

Then these other armed dudes working for Nina (whom we never meet) show up instead, and have no compunction about shooting anyone or any thing that gets in their way.

What's going on here? Are Elvis and Leo just your average police department or morgue employees who have to go dispose of bodies in remote locations, or what? How did they even know the old man was dead, let alone where his hiding place was in that remote forest?

My theory is that Elvis and Leo are part of the old man's organization that was protecting or hiding this Huldra. Nina's group was trying to kidnap Thale for their own nefarious purposes. Then, of course, there are the other Huldra hanging around, watching, searching.

I liked it. An interesting, thought provoking film, without too much exposition, much left to the viewer's imagination to figure out. I'm not sure that a sequel is required, but it'll be interesting to see where they go with this.

[–] drakkar 9 years ago

Elvis and Leo were just heavy duty cleaners stumbling into it. Actually it was just Leo running a one man company, Elvis was an old friend who was hired in from time to time, which explain his weak stomach - he wasn't quite used to it.

They were sent by the authorities to "scrape up a corps" that someone had found by chance. Einar represents the authorities, we don't know more than that.

I guess when you run a business like Leo, you're bound to run into suspicious cases now and then, hence Leo seemed to have a routine to call the authorities (Einar) when something looked odd (Elvis was just hired in, he hadn't the routine).

In the film, huldra (the wood nymph) is real and roaming the forests, hiding from mankind. However some authority/body knows about them, and Thale has been taken/fonud as a baby to being conducted experiments on. The old man was a defector who run away with Thale because he could't stand how she was treated. They hid in the remote cottage, where Elvis and Leo finds her when the come to clean up the corps of the old man.

Apparently Einar is in contact with "the Huldra department" who send the troops to pick up Thale and put a lid on the whole thing.

In Norse mythology, Huldra is a powerful deity governing nature, aiding people when treated with respect, and deadly when crossed. In the film, Thale cures Leo's cancer, he was terminally ill, and repairs Elvis' broken family (which we learn in last scene), and kills the troopers.

And here's the thing who wasn't quite right, the troopers seemed unaware about how dangerous Thale really was.

In Cod we trust.

[–] blisterpeanuts 9 years ago

How did Thale fix Elvis's family? (I think we're mixing up Leo and Elvis here--Leo's the one with the cancer, right?)

[–] drakkar 9 years ago

Oops, and the names were even mixed up just sometimes. Fixed that now.
It shines through that Elvis has hardly seen his daughter, and in the end scene, his daughter and her mother stands a few metres away. Leo urges him to join them, as he sits with the letter from the hospital saying that his cancer has just vanished.

The curing itself seems insignificant when it happens, with Elvis it happens when Thale lies under her bed, and Elvis lie down on the floor next to her. Suddenly she looks at him as if she just discovered something, and touches him with both hands. A shock goes through him. Same with Leo, right after Thale is finished eating his buns.

In Cod we trust.

[–] spookyrat1 9 years ago

The old man was a defector who run away with Thale because he could't stand how she was treated.

I agree, but then he appears to have carried on with his own experiments, which doesn't seem to make a huge amount of sense.🐭