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Before sleep came last night, I lay and thought about the fates of the three main characters. I decided that the movie, no matter how bleak and hopeless it may seem, is ultimately about redemptive hope, albeit a twisted one at that.
It was quite interesting how the beginning of the movie alluded to their pasts, then proceed to confuse whether or not what we next saw lay in the characters' past or future, but the subsequent reconstructuring pretty much leaves Del Toro and Penn (+ Toro's family and Penn's Brit girlfriend) to an uncertain, possibly grim, fate.
Del Toro, having been an alcoholic and criminal, has at one point seen the light of the Catholic religion; and even though he resists the offer of a drink and has so far lead a righteous life, an unexpected occurrence sees him taking the lives of three people - made all the more cruel in that he could have saved one of them - and he subsequently rejects the religious salvation. After he has been released from jail, he flees from his family and starts up a harsh, new life, where he has resumed his alcoholism.
Penn has a history of 'extra-marital' affairs, something the long suffering Brit girlfriend has put up with, possibly in order to achieve her biggest desire: having his baby before his death. After the unexpected and live-saving heart transplantation, he is consumed with the desire to know wherefrom and how the organ came about his way. Having obtained the knowledge about Watts, and her now deceased family, he intervenes in her life. And not a moment too soon, because his body rejects the new heart, placing another short, limited time-span before his eventual death.
Watts is the story of redemptive hope. A former drug abuser, has now quit her habit and goes to self-help groups and leads a normal family life. The loss of her family sends her back to resume drug use, and after Penn appears in her life, they commence an ill-advised affair. The knowledge that Toro could have saved one of her daughters leads to an even more ill-advised revenge plan - which ends tragically, not with the death of Toro, but - likely - that of Penn. When she gives of her blood to him, it is discovered that she is pregnant. And even though there are so many choices she has to make, I'd like to think that she kept the baby and eventually started a new life from scratch.
These characters find themselves beyond hope, finds salvation only to lose it again - with the possible exception of Watts. There is a strong religious subtext running throughout, which was most blatant in the scene, where something has befallen Penn and blood covers his soles, quite the Christ-like image. But rather than being a two hour long advert to the Catholic Church, it is that which designates the best works of art: the movie resists to tack on happy endings, and with the uncertain futures of all the characters, we are left with more questions than answers. |
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