this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2024
41 points (100.0% liked)
movies
22808 readers
296 users here now
Rules for Movies & TV Discussion
-
Any discussion of Disney properties should contain a (cw: imperialism) tag. If your post isn't tagged appropriately it will be removed.
-
Anti-Bong Joon-ho trolling will result in an immediate ban from c/movies and submitted to the site administrators for review.
-
On Star Trek Sunday only posts discussing how we might achieve space communism are permitted. Non-Star Trek related content will be removed and you will be temporarily banned until the following Sunday.
Here's a list of tons of leftist movies.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
“Owen” isn’t real. Isabel is working through a series of false memories planted by Mr Melancholy in the midnight realm while maintaining a psychic connection with Tara while they are buried alive after getting hopped up on luna juice.
Tara as “Maddy” starts snapping out of it first. She watches her real memories as a TV show called The Pink Opaque. It’s not a real show. The only time Isabel/“Owen” is able to watch it live is when with she is with Tara. Close to her in the midnight realm. Isabel never watches the show live alone. Tara’s power somehow causes the memories to be captured by a VHS tape (vhs is also the abbreviation for their high school) and those are able to be shared with Isabel by gifting the tapes in a darkroom.
Time is all stretched out so the seconds in the real world are perceived as decades. Isabel mostly rejects reality and Tara trying to help, so Mr Melancholy has an easier job with the false memories being implanted. But at one point “Owen” wants to watch the series on a streaming platform, and so Mr Melancholy twists the show to be something benign with a few references from the real memories to make it plausible for Isabel, who really buys into the lies, unlike Tara.
Other people have more metaphorical and representative reads on the film, this is more of an as presented in-universe reason the show is different. Jane the director said in an interview that it was a direct reference to having watched the Buffy musical episode and having that experience where it wasn’t as remembered.
But the question I am most interested in, and that really drove home the horror, was:
Would you be able to voluntary be buried alive, on the word of an old friend that you haven’t seen in almost a decade, on the off chance that all of this is actually happening?
Or at what point afterwards would you try it?
“I know it's scary. That's part of it.” is one line that sticks.
Jane said after watching Twin Peaks the Return they really wanted to make something with a similar feeling of watching a trapped character and desperation wanting to see them escape, and that definitely came through as I was yelling at the screen for Isabel to run away with Tara, then to get buried, then to try anything.
Some people see the ending as hopeful, finally having an egg crack moment.
I see Tara after putting her heart back in, having giving it her best shot to save her friend, knowing she doesn’t get another chance, beside a dug up Isabel, holding her body, begging her to wake up.
But there are many other great interpretations from people I’ve read.
To add another piece of evidence to your interpretation. I watched the movie with subtitles on (I think SDH), and when the little girl on the streamed show speaks it's captioned "FAKE TARA:". Which means that version of the show is a creation of Mr. Melancholy to dissuade "Owen" from further investigating her feelings
great catch! thanks for adding