As Nelly sang at the end, the friends looked stunned - what did that mean? I assumed they were just aghast at the obvious strong feelings between husband (who had stopped playing) and wife, though they wouldn't know the meaning of what they were observing. But I feel I'm missing the significance of that freeze frame of them. What was the director trying to portray?
shareMy interpretation was that they were stunned by the beauty and tragedy of the moment.
Nelly starts out barely audible and I wondered if she was going to get through it, then she ends the song with a very strong, pitch perfect voice, but her facial expressions convey nothing but terminable sadness.
They are also forced to "look" at her, this is a big theme throughout the movie, the choice of the population to live with amnesia. Johnny was right, they wanted the "old Nellie." They didn't want to think about what she went through, what she suffered. They just wanted to say "welcome back," like she has somehow just returned from a long, exhausting trip.
The poignancy of the moment as she finished that song however, ensured that they had to "look" at her and in turn and what their society had done, and yes silence is complicity.
Personally - I think that closing sequence may be one of the best endings I have ever seen in a film.
My assumption was they were all in the same position as Johnny: in order to survive they had had to do things that "betrayed" people close to them.
Those were the survivors, living with some combination of "survivor's guilt" and knowledge their own survival was partly a result of their willingness to do less than honorable things.
Many mentioned considerable pressure: the death of a child, etc. Horrible things happened to them, and they in turn had to do horrible things to other people. Being Johnny's friends, it's a good guess they were all "good Germans", and so facing the question of why they hadn't done more to stop the political insanity of their country. Most likely all of them were facing internal doubts, how much they were complicit in some indirect sense in what had happened to Nelly.
I can't tell if the friends were in on the ruse, and expected a fake Nelly, but then who is she even trying to fool. Some of them certainly knew it was her, and there were moments where they seemed to be questioning. If she hadn't been able to sing the song they would have just gone along with it, but her singing proved it was her.
share[deleted]
My immediate interpretation of that freeze frame was that THEY TOO were in on it with Johnny. The fact that they even said everything Johnny said they were going to say at the station, was either spot on coincidence (considering how close of friends they are) or straight up rehearsed.
shareWere they the same people in the photograph Nelly had who had been identified as Nazis or Nazi collaborators?
That's the impression I had... they were in on it with Johnny, and maybe he promised them money to say the woman was Nelly.
no, i completely disagree with you. I saw nothing to support your view. Nelly was prep'd by johnny to 'fool their friends' at the train station (it's likely they would have been brought along , eventually, to a lawyer to corroborate nelly's identity). Likewise, I did not see signs of them being 'astonished' when Nelly sang, because they believed she WAS nelly.And imo, Johnny would have kept his betrayal (including his divorce filing) to himself.
The way to have what we want
Is to share what we have.
I agree. The group of friends were NOT in on the scam. That would be a totally ridiculous story where Johnny would have to split the money with all of them.
However, it is possible that when they met her at the train station they realised deep inside themselves that it was "too good to be true", but they still wanted to believe the lie.
They were in with Johnny, well, at least, some of them, maybe not the guy who lost his whole family. Maybe he even promised them some monies for their part.
Now, when I think about it, there is really no other reason for them to be stunned like this. I initially though that the awkwardness of the friends was the illustration how Germans really greeted survivors, not will to talk, acknowledge the victimization and what happened, but now I think the stunned look means they were in the whole time.
I believe they thought it was a fake Nelly and were stunned when they realized that she was actually Nelly. I also think the one friend in the hat was the only person who recognized that she really was Nelly upon seeing her. Just for the fact that he didn't say what Johnny said he would say, that he deliberately hung back away from the group, and during the party he just sat there downing drinks in silence. I think it makes the reveal even sadder, knowing that this one friend immediately recognized her when her own husband (who hugged her, kissed her, listened to her voice, and saw her handwriting) didn't recognize her until she sang.
shareBest ending in a film in a long long time.
The hauntingly beautiful song and Johhny's face when it all unraveled was a masterpiece of cinema.
So refreshing to see a good film after all the superhero flavor of the month films of late.
I think the friends were aware of what Johnny did. Or at least 2 of them. Did you see the look the woman sitting closest to him gave after his "you are my life" speech? She wasn't buying it. I think the bald-headed friend knew the truth,too.
shareI didn't think the friends were in on it, my wife thinks they were in on it. She raises a good point - if her husband didn't recognize her, how did all the friends recognize her at the train station?
In other words, they couldn't and didn't recognize her and so were only playing along pretending to know her.
...I can't quite decide if the friends were in on it. Would like to hear a director's commentary on the ending.