I didn’t Understand
A good film must have a good ending. If the movie has a bad ending then it makes you feel that movie was bad, even if everything else of the movie was good. Many films had flopped because of the same reason. There are some movies which end in a very confusing way. After watching the movie I ask myself, “What happened?” If anybody asks me the same question, I answer, “I too did not understand”. Some people found movies like Sixth Sense and Usual Suspects confusing. But, they were not. They had explained everything in it. But, there are many movies which do not have a clear ending. Here are some movies which I watched recently and had such confusing endings.
Warning: Spoilers (has plot and ending details of films)
1. Oleanna – The movie is about college professor, John, and a female student, Carol, who is failing in his course. Carol confronts John for help and he is ready to help her. Both of them spend a long time talking to each other. But, Carol takes what John says in a wrong way. After the night the two spent talking, John is slapped with a sexual harassment accusation by Carol. John’s career as a teacher begins to fall apart. His dream of building a house is also shattered. This leads to a good and confusing ending.
While watching the film I got very irritated with the female character. I wanted to beat her up. That is what the professor did in the end of the movie. I enjoyed her getting beaten up. But then the professor stops and he feels guilty of what he had done. He says, “Oh, My God.” The girl is crying in pain and she says “Yes, that’s right”. The next shot is two boys playing football. The film then ends.
I didn’t understand why she said “That’s right”. What was right? Did she accuse the professor for sexual harassment just to provoke him to beat her up? What was the meaning of the last shot showing two boys playing football? My mother was also watching the film. After it ended she also asked, “What happened?” I answered, “I don’t know. I didn’t understand the ending.” There were two more things that I did not understand. The girl was trying to tell something important to the professor two times. But the professor’s phone had interrupted her, both the times. What did she want to tell the professor? And the last question. Why the movie was named Oleanna?
2. Ichi The Killer – The film is about a search for Anjo, a gang leader. Anjo is dead and his body is missing. Kakihara, Anjo’s loyal gang member, does not believe that his boss is dead. He and the other gang members start a search for Anjo. But, the members are killed one by one by a psycho called Ichi, who is controlled by Jiji.
In the end of the movie, Ichi slashes Kakihara’s head with a knife. Kakihara falls down from the building. Jiji goes near the body and is happy to see Kakihara dead. But, then he looks shocked. He sees that there is no scar on Kakihara’s head. We then see Ichi getting beaten up by a boy. Ichi had killed that boy’s father. Then we see Kakihara in his bathroom with his mouth wide open. And then we see Jiji hanging from a tree. He is dead. A group of children pass by and we see guy from the group turning back and looking at Jiji’s body hanging.
I liked the plot of the movie. But I did not like the film very much. I found the ending of the film very confusing. I had to read what somebody had written in a discussion board to understand the ending. Even that person understood the ending because he had heard a commentary on the film. I also did not understand who Jiji was. Why did he want Ichi to kill Kakihara and the members of the gang?
3. Birdy – The film is about two friends. One friend, played by Mathew Modine, is in the mental asylum because he thinks that he is a bird. The other friend, Nicholas Cage, wants to help him and bring him back to normal.
In the end of the movie we see Nicholas Cage trying to escape with his crazy friend out of the Army Mental hospital. They reach the roof. Mathew jumps of the roof, trying to fly. Nicholas Cage tries to stop him. But it is too late. Nicholas shouts. I felt very sad. But, then we see Mathew standing down on the lower roof and asking, “What happened?” I liked that. It was funny. But the film ended with that shot.
The ending was unexpected. I had many questions. Was Mathew acting as if he was crazy? How are the two of them going to escape the Mental Hospital? What will happen if they were caught? Okay, maybe the director of the movie wanted the ending to be open and left the audience to think. Anyway the ending of the movie was funny but disappointing also.
When movies have such confusing endings I get irritated. What will happen if we reading an interesting novel and when nearing the end, we find that the last pages are missing?
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Justin John aur kaun
Welcome to PFC dear.
Completely agree that its a big challenge to have a satisfactory, apt ending. Unfortunately I have not seen any of the films u mentioned.
Manjeet, I recommend that you watch the movies, I mentioned above. They are good movies. But the problem was that I did not like the nding.
You can find more details of these movie in www.imdb.com
Oleanna – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110722/
Ichi The Killer- http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0296042/
Birdy – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086969/