Birth.
This film examines the possibility of reincarnation when Anna (Kidman) is confronted by a 10yo boy claiming to be the reincarnate of her dead husband Sean (the boys name too is sean).
The movie opens in a Kubrickian manner. It is a very slow and leaves much to be imagined with nothing ever really resoved. At the end of his trek through this park, Sean dies underneath a dark tunnel which to me was a reference to death like those who claim near death experiences say when they die that they go down a tunnel. If you watch closely you'll see a lot of symbols of birth and death in this movie. You then see a baby born right after this incident which right off the bat tells you he transferred to this newborn child.
Fast forward and you see Clara (Anne Heche) and her husband Clifford in the lobby and she's visibly distraught. We see this suspicious looking boy (Sean) sitting on a bench off to the side watching her. He grasps on to her with his attention and then follows her into the park in a later scene. This is how it begins, the end of Sean as a boy and the beginning of the mind of the old Sean emerging.
Later in the film they ask the boy how he knew where Sean died and he said that it was sort of like deja vu. I believe that he in fact had deja vu with Clara (Anne Heche's character) in that lobby.
Something strongly attracted him to her and so he followed. He witnessed her bury the letters and so found his past when he retrieved them. He had this abstract feeling of having been there before and some connection to these people but he probably couldn't connect it completely until he got those love letters. I think at that point it all started to come back. Because you do get a hint that he was normal before this incident happened.
Later in the film you notice a child knocking on Sean's door that is likely his friend and he now ignores it. So for those who found that he had lied the entire time, the movie gave that possibility credence if you didn't pay attention to some of the things he couldn't possibly have known especially when confronted by Clara at the end. The boy knew her to some extent with feeling but he forgot the love affair and the details of her. That could be because he never really loved her or never got real confirmation of it through any source. The love affair was never discussed because in his previous life only they knew. So probably he had no reference to jog his memory or the experience was pushed away because he felt so horrible about it and in truth loved Anna more despite what Clara said about the letters (more likely).
This is furthered by the fact Sean has opened the letters. In his life he never opened them and Clara remarked that he gave them to her unopened to prove he loved her more. If you notice, he's now given them to her opened (a symbol). When you see the boy run off you might think he's guilty as charged if you're of the mind he's a fraud. This is where you realize once again that he's still got the mind of a child and the actor who played Sean was brilliant in conveying that he had the mind of an adult in his child aged mental faculties. When he runs up the tree, he breaks down and his true child mind starts to show how hard it is to conceive of something like this. So he goes there and thinks, much like Anna did in the symphony scene. A torrent of ideas and thoughts rushed through his head. It is there he realized he couldn't be with Anna. He now believed that he didn't deserve her and that even if he could be with her there would be trouble from Clara and trouble just being a child of his age.
When he tells her he's not Sean in the bath tub, it's basically a sacrifice on his part and a realization of how hard it must be for her. He mentioned his state of mind when he said he loved her so he couldn't be Sean, the Sean that Heche made him see. Her husband realizes the wrongs of his past at these points and comes to conflict with those wrongs.
Fast forward to the wedding scene and you get what I myself see as a pretty brilliant ending. At first I was slightly disappointed until I watched it and caught all the things I've discussed in here. In this part of the film you watch Anna first. Things seem to be ok but it quickly degrades after a few pictures being taken by her wedding photographer. Anna begins to think and realize she lost Sean again for good. I'm not sure if she was married yet but I take that she was. Either way I think at this point she realizes it's final and she's with someone else and has lost Sean.
Then you start hearing Sean doing a voice over of his letter to her. It seems to indicate he's moving on and "the spell" is broken. You see him in a similar circumstance getting school pictures. This is where you notice a duality of the characters. Each was faking a smile and acting like they were happy for the picture. But Anna was obviously not and the last comment made by Sean on his letter seemed to indicate his view too. He said, "I guess I'll see you in another lifetime." All of these things were very deliberate.
It’s possible Sean really did go on and eventually forgets her. And this could be why she broke down, but I feel Sean went on with life knowing he was Sean because of that last quote. It shows that he believes in reincarnation and because this whole incident revolves around it, he does in fact realize he's Sean still. Anna breaking down at the beach was also deliberate because it was the place of her and Sean's first meeting.
There was a previous scene where her husband asks Sean while he eats cake, where they met. Sean finally utters after awhile, "The beach." This was symbolic for her and my initial feeling was that she'd commit suicide to see him "in the next life". I'm not certain of this theory but if you notice when her husband approaches her, she makes a slight move towards the water several times. It's like she's at the edge of life and death. This scene is very powerful and is often overlooked. A lot is going on here. It shows that she too like Sean finally succumbs to life and continues on knowing what they both know. Sean really did come back and this boy born 10 years ago was in fact her husband and he lost his wife once again. It's a bitter ending but a fitting one. It was obvious through this whole ordeal that only Sean and Anna believed they could work this out. Her family and her fiancée didn't ever at any point understand. Clara like I mentioned before would have ended it as well. So the movie actually never gave room for them to succeed.
But there is room for skeptacism as to whether Sean really is THE Sean. Did he learn of the life of Anna only after reading the letters (but somethings he knew that would not have been in love letters, such as what he gave his lecture on at the hospital)? Did Anna fall for Sean only because she transferred her love for her dead husband over to the young boy, and wanted it to be him and got lost in a fantasy?
Thoughts?
ps the bathtub scene was kind of creepy.
This film examines the possibility of reincarnation when Anna (Kidman) is confronted by a 10yo boy claiming to be the reincarnate of her dead husband Sean (the boys name too is sean).
The movie opens in a Kubrickian manner. It is a very slow and leaves much to be imagined with nothing ever really resoved. At the end of his trek through this park, Sean dies underneath a dark tunnel which to me was a reference to death like those who claim near death experiences say when they die that they go down a tunnel. If you watch closely you'll see a lot of symbols of birth and death in this movie. You then see a baby born right after this incident which right off the bat tells you he transferred to this newborn child.
Fast forward and you see Clara (Anne Heche) and her husband Clifford in the lobby and she's visibly distraught. We see this suspicious looking boy (Sean) sitting on a bench off to the side watching her. He grasps on to her with his attention and then follows her into the park in a later scene. This is how it begins, the end of Sean as a boy and the beginning of the mind of the old Sean emerging.
Later in the film they ask the boy how he knew where Sean died and he said that it was sort of like deja vu. I believe that he in fact had deja vu with Clara (Anne Heche's character) in that lobby.
Something strongly attracted him to her and so he followed. He witnessed her bury the letters and so found his past when he retrieved them. He had this abstract feeling of having been there before and some connection to these people but he probably couldn't connect it completely until he got those love letters. I think at that point it all started to come back. Because you do get a hint that he was normal before this incident happened.
Later in the film you notice a child knocking on Sean's door that is likely his friend and he now ignores it. So for those who found that he had lied the entire time, the movie gave that possibility credence if you didn't pay attention to some of the things he couldn't possibly have known especially when confronted by Clara at the end. The boy knew her to some extent with feeling but he forgot the love affair and the details of her. That could be because he never really loved her or never got real confirmation of it through any source. The love affair was never discussed because in his previous life only they knew. So probably he had no reference to jog his memory or the experience was pushed away because he felt so horrible about it and in truth loved Anna more despite what Clara said about the letters (more likely).
This is furthered by the fact Sean has opened the letters. In his life he never opened them and Clara remarked that he gave them to her unopened to prove he loved her more. If you notice, he's now given them to her opened (a symbol). When you see the boy run off you might think he's guilty as charged if you're of the mind he's a fraud. This is where you realize once again that he's still got the mind of a child and the actor who played Sean was brilliant in conveying that he had the mind of an adult in his child aged mental faculties. When he runs up the tree, he breaks down and his true child mind starts to show how hard it is to conceive of something like this. So he goes there and thinks, much like Anna did in the symphony scene. A torrent of ideas and thoughts rushed through his head. It is there he realized he couldn't be with Anna. He now believed that he didn't deserve her and that even if he could be with her there would be trouble from Clara and trouble just being a child of his age.
When he tells her he's not Sean in the bath tub, it's basically a sacrifice on his part and a realization of how hard it must be for her. He mentioned his state of mind when he said he loved her so he couldn't be Sean, the Sean that Heche made him see. Her husband realizes the wrongs of his past at these points and comes to conflict with those wrongs.
Fast forward to the wedding scene and you get what I myself see as a pretty brilliant ending. At first I was slightly disappointed until I watched it and caught all the things I've discussed in here. In this part of the film you watch Anna first. Things seem to be ok but it quickly degrades after a few pictures being taken by her wedding photographer. Anna begins to think and realize she lost Sean again for good. I'm not sure if she was married yet but I take that she was. Either way I think at this point she realizes it's final and she's with someone else and has lost Sean.
Then you start hearing Sean doing a voice over of his letter to her. It seems to indicate he's moving on and "the spell" is broken. You see him in a similar circumstance getting school pictures. This is where you notice a duality of the characters. Each was faking a smile and acting like they were happy for the picture. But Anna was obviously not and the last comment made by Sean on his letter seemed to indicate his view too. He said, "I guess I'll see you in another lifetime." All of these things were very deliberate.
It’s possible Sean really did go on and eventually forgets her. And this could be why she broke down, but I feel Sean went on with life knowing he was Sean because of that last quote. It shows that he believes in reincarnation and because this whole incident revolves around it, he does in fact realize he's Sean still. Anna breaking down at the beach was also deliberate because it was the place of her and Sean's first meeting.
There was a previous scene where her husband asks Sean while he eats cake, where they met. Sean finally utters after awhile, "The beach." This was symbolic for her and my initial feeling was that she'd commit suicide to see him "in the next life". I'm not certain of this theory but if you notice when her husband approaches her, she makes a slight move towards the water several times. It's like she's at the edge of life and death. This scene is very powerful and is often overlooked. A lot is going on here. It shows that she too like Sean finally succumbs to life and continues on knowing what they both know. Sean really did come back and this boy born 10 years ago was in fact her husband and he lost his wife once again. It's a bitter ending but a fitting one. It was obvious through this whole ordeal that only Sean and Anna believed they could work this out. Her family and her fiancée didn't ever at any point understand. Clara like I mentioned before would have ended it as well. So the movie actually never gave room for them to succeed.
But there is room for skeptacism as to whether Sean really is THE Sean. Did he learn of the life of Anna only after reading the letters (but somethings he knew that would not have been in love letters, such as what he gave his lecture on at the hospital)? Did Anna fall for Sean only because she transferred her love for her dead husband over to the young boy, and wanted it to be him and got lost in a fantasy?
Thoughts?
ps the bathtub scene was kind of creepy.
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