Hirokazu Kore-Eda Thread

seems like the kids drowned and are in heaven or whatever?

I took the ending at face value. Great film regardless, wish it got more attention at the end of the year.

One of last year's best.

It’s hard to escape Yellow Kid’s conclusion because the two stories don’t really line up in terms of the.. er.. diegesis. I prefer to think that’s not what “really happens” but I kinda think it is.

I never considered that possibility, but thinking it over now it does seem a viable interpretation. But I don’t think we’re required to see it that way, unless there is some clue that I missed.

There’s a lot of talk about rebirth. Crawling through the under-wreckage and emerging in the sunlight is almost literally a rebirth. And then they run through the tall grass, to where usually there’s a fence and they can’t go any farther. The younger kid said “end of the line”. They can see tracks beyond. But at the end of the movie there’s no fence. They can keep going.

It is incredibly grim and I don’t like to think about it too much :/

Kore-eda said after the film’s Cannes premiere that the cast and crew opted for the positive reading of events, but he conceded that the tragic interpretation was equally valid.

That’s an interesting point about the fence. I think the end is not supposed to be entirely realistic, but you could read the symbolism in different ways. I think it symbolizes joy but leaves open the question of whether that joy can be achieved in this world.