Gilliam may like ambiguous stories, but I just don’t see much ambiguity in this film. There are some mysteries, but they all get solved, and there are some misdirections, but these sorts of things don’t count as ambiguity, because they are no longer ambiguous by the end of the film. Sure, the doctor thinks he’s crazy for awhile, and he doubts himself for a time, but they and the audience eventually see for sure that he’s not crazy.
Have to agree here. There’s barely any more indication that this movie is a head fantasy than any other film.
That’s how I interpreted it too. The goal has always been to get a sample of the virus, and that’s what she’s there to do. The rest of the time travel has all been shown to be a closed loop, so there’s no reason to think that she’s going to change anything. She’s just there for a sample.
What are these supposed loose ends? I can’t think of any loose end for the interpretation that everything was real, and the lady on the airplane was just there to get a sample.
I agree with how you saw the movie except for one tiny loose end. After Bruce has woken up at the movie theatre in his disguise, and then he looks for and finds Stowe, she at one point says something like “…this is how I remember you…”, or something to that effect.
Something that suggests she might somehow be ‘remembering’ his dream/memory, and thus re-opening the suggestion that he is crazy.
Or it could be just another example of someone “remembering” something incorrectly. She wouldn’t be the only character in the movie whose memory isn’t entirely reliable.
I didn’t feel the movie ending was ambiguous at all and I don’t see the need to shoehorn “twists” or “ambiguous endings” into every oddball film as if it makes it a better movie.
The movie firmly written as a predestination paradox. Any actions Cole takes in his past end up firmly fullfills present and future events. As he says, it is like a movie. The films doesn’t change, only his perception of it.
What makes it a great film is not that the ending is ambiguous at but that it is NOT ambiguous. It starts of bizarre and insane with lots of ambiguity. We don’t know if Cole is imaginging everything. We don’t know who is insane and who is really from the future. But one by one, all those ambiguities and insanities are reconciled with what we know to be Cole’s ultimate destiny.
Cole says that, not Dr Railly. Cole remembered Dr Railly in her blond wig when he saw her in the airport as a child. And of course, Young Cole is there at the airport a little while later.
At one time, “in the past”, Cole sees a vagrant in an alley who tells him that there is a tracking device in his tooth. Then, “in the future”, Cole is in a prison cell and hears the same voice (the vagrant’s voice), but he is alone. What is the explanation of that?
I don’t think the airplane adds or detracts in any way.
I’ve watched the film lots of times but have never noticed that the person involved is the scientist from the future.
It doesn’t change the film at all.
We are still left not knowing exactly what is real, remembered or imagined from Cole’s point of view.
If we consider the wider concepts are true (the plague and time travel) well we already know that multiple time travellers are used, so what would be so surprising or revelatory about sending the scientist back to complete the job?
We know they were getting better at locating the source of the virus so a more precise targetting would be the next logical step. The airplane scene confirms it but even without it I’d always assumed it.
I suspect I’ve never noticed that bit because I’m always choked up by the previous scene. When Dr. Railly looks up to the young Cole in the crowd is one of my favourite movie moments. I don’t think either Madelaine Stowe or Bruce Willis have ever been better.
I never thought the ending was ambiguous either. Cole (and the other paroled convicts) were sent back in time for two reasons:
[ol]
[li]To get a non-mutated sample of the virus.[/li][li]As guinea pigs so the scientists could learn to aim better.[/li][/ol]
There’s a reason why as we get closer to Ground Zero, we see more and more Time Travelers. When the time traveling process is perfected, and they know when and where the virus was first released they sent back a scientist to obtain the sample.
Jose gives Cole the gun and tells him to shoot Dr. Peters, not to change the future, but rather to clearly and unambiguously identify him. We know there are others in the airport. Why else would they be there, but to ID Peters and report back.
The airplane scene bothers me because suddenly the scientists have gone from being blazingly inept at doing time travel to being spot-on accurate with it. How they would go about obtaining their
ends is significantly affected thereby. If they’re klutzes, they have to keep sending someone back until they get the pure strain. If they’re accurate, they could just have investigated till they knewwhat was going on, after which they could have just walked into the lab and taken it. The only alternative, for me, is that they have two things going on at once: Cole is their agent prior to perfecting time travel, and the scientist is their agent afterwards. In which case, we have to see Cole’s whole adventure as futile. I can live with that; my problem is that the airplane scene feels tacked on, and not something integral to the movie. So, to me, the movie ends up being not so much ambiguous as incoherent. But I love it anyway.
As for the Brad Pitt subtopic, I think he’s one of the best actors of his generation, and also one of the best at picking scripts. I find few of his movies unwatchable (in contrast to Johnny Depp, and even better actor who nonetheless seems to say, “I don’t know what the hell to do; what’s Burton up to this week?”). And I think he’s fantastic in “Fight Club,” “A River Runs Through It,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “Thelma and Louise,” and this movie.
One thing that always throws me off a bit about this movie (but I love it) is the whole scientist/time travel aspect of the movie being “real”. About the only thing sciency about the scientists is the white lab coats. The lab and time travel machinery doesnt look remotely realisitic. It looks more like how somebody having delusions of time travel (but doesnt know diddly about science) would imagine it.
Another of my favorite movies. But at least in that one it ADDS to the story/feel. In this one it suggests its all a dream, which is not what Gilliam is going for is it?
They seem klutzy at first but they reason they are “spot on accurate” at the end is because of all the work Cole (as well as other agents) did. “3 minutes ago, 30 years ago…they just put it all together.” But they also know that they are physically unable to change the past.