Beyond the Frame

Endings: 

An ending can make a film for me. I appreciate an ending that makes a statement. I don’t need those that tie up loose ends in a narrative.  An open-ended finale isn’t necessarily intriguing (like Steve McQueen’s Shame); a bleak ending isn’t necessarily effective (like von Trier’s Melancholia).  An ending should say something about the material of the film itself.  The most powerful endings are under-stated.  They are modest.  They are aware of their own power.  Sensationalism only works to undermine a great assertion.  We are small in the universe.  So is our plight.

With that being said, here are my favorite endings.  If you haven’t seen a film on this short list, I don’t believe this will spoil it for you.  Read on.

City Lights, Directed by Charlie Chaplin (1931) - We watch the heroine as her romantic dreams fizzle at the sight of Chaplin.  She is perplexed.  The only line she speaks is “You?” as Chaplin looks at her nervously, hoping that her new gift of sight does not make her blind to the love they once shared.  It says everything about how we judge people by the way they look rather than the content of their character.  In 1931.  In one word.  ”You?”  It is my favorite ending in cinema.

The Mirror, Directed by Andrei Tarkovksy (1975) - In a long dolly move, the camera crosses from a field rife with possibility into a dark forest.  The camera move itself is a fade to black.  As we cross the plain, a young child that stars in Tarkovksy’s reenactment of his youth lets out a primal yell.  You are well aware of how the possibility of youth becomes the entrapments of an adult.  It is a warning: unless we look into the mirror of our lives, we will always be trapped by who we were and it will not be possible to become who we want to be.

Munich, Directed by Steven Spielberg (2005) - I don’t care much for symbolism in films but this post-9/11 movie about the Palestinian/Israeli conflict was summed up beautifully in the final shot.  We, as the audience, get caught up with the right and wrong imbued within the characters of the film’s story.  But who did what to whom, who did it first, and what is a fair exercise of justice, is truly inconsequential.  There is something much larger at stake.  We see that in the still-standing Twin Towers.  It completely undermines the narrative of the past 2 hours and says that we must do the same in order to move into a civilized future.  

~ü