MovieChat Forums > O Menino e o Mundo (2014) Discussion > Ending

Ending

posted 8 years ago by nardog
4 replies | jump to latest

Call me stupid, but frankly I didn't really get the ending. I'm assuming the father was something like a MacGuffin and a metaphor for industrialization the boy (audience) obliviously pursues (or a representation of the people it exploits), but as far as the story was concerned in a more literal sense, what was the ending suggesting?

Does it suddenly jump forward all the way from when he was a tiny kid to now he's a sad old man back at home? Or maybe he was already a grown up at least midway through the journey and he realized that only when it was too late and the parents were already dead?

I was so confused while watching I even thought for a second the boy was actually his own dad (or the other way). Anybody please tell me what was actually going on? It didn't seem it was intentionally vague either, which is why I'm baffled and also kind of embarrassed.

[–] lucoca 8 years ago

Hi! I'll try my best to explain:

At the beginning of the movie, the child meets the old man, right? Well, the old man is that boy. I'm under the impression the movie is following the old man's story. I think the whole introduction, where the boy is discovering the world, is only a dream of the old man. So we follow the old man to work until he is fired. He then travels to the factory, where he remembers his youth, because he used to work there.

That's when we begin to follow this young man who still tries to do his best with what he's got, never forgetting his family or how he always hoped to find his father. I think the boy represents how he viewed the world, how he never understood any of the things that happened to him, how his story is the same one as all the people that surrounded him (that is why he finds a lot of people who look like his dad at the train). I think the movie is criticizing what happens (especially in third world countries) when you are used to rural life and for whatever reasons you have to move to the big city and work for a life style that will never be yours. I think the movie makes it very clear it will always be confusing and kind of depressing, because you lose a lot of things in the way. Sometimes you can lose yourself completely. There will always be a lot of conflict between what is expected of you and what you really are. I think that is represented by the bird fight.

I think the movie ends with the old man accepting all that has happened to him. In doing so, he realizes the only thing he has left is to pass on to other kids the happiness and joy he never lost to the system.

I may be reading too much into this movie, but that is what I thought. Hope it helps.

[–] nardog 8 years ago

Oh, I almost forgot about the old man!

I can't remember the movie well enough that I can make sure the old man at the beginning looked the same as the one at the end (presumably the boy later in his life), but the whole journey he goes through was certainly like a string of memories and maybe you're right. Thank you for such an interesting interpretation.

[–] jmc4769 8 years ago

I agree that the ending was confusing. My guess is that the movie did jump from him being a tiny kid to him being an adult going back home. I assume that he was never able to find his dad and grew up in the city, perhaps living with the man with the multicolored poncho. Then when he was finally able to make it back home, wearing the same poncho, his mother and father were either dead or not living there anymore. But I would like to hear some other interpretations.

[–] nardog 8 years ago

Yeah, I just looked up some reviews and apparently I wasn't the only one confused (which I'm relieved). The film taking a leap into the future, like you said, seems indeed to be the majority though.