I had been wanting to see this film for a long time and finally watched it last night, courtesy of Chris.
I don't exactly know what I was expecting from Thelma & Louise, but I guess it wasn't that. I knew it was a road movie, but I had no idea they were on the run from the law. I knew there would be a lot of landscape shots, and because of this it seemed there weren't really that many. The characters were very likeable. At times it seemed their transformation was too simple, yet that was also one of the most appealing things about them. I was surprised to see Geena Davis completely outshine Susan Sarandon, and it's not hard to see why Brad Pitt's career took off after this film!
The ending was a bit hard to take though. I never expected it to end in glorified suicide, and at first my reaction was to be appalled at what I was seeing. The shot freezes with the car gracefully flying through the air, and everything about the music says that what we are seeing is a kind of victory. It really clashed with my values, as I've always seen suicide as a weak way out. Only a minute or two beforehand I had said to the person I was watching the film with, "Will they take the suicide option? Nah, they're too tough for that shit." I was so disappointed to find I was wrong. With a bit of time and space though, I see the sense in it. The problem is that my cultural context is different to theirs. The setting of the film is the deep south of the USA. The girls would have been facing the death penalty. The attitude towards their rape defence probably would have been, "She was asking for it". Growing up in Australia, the death penalty didn't cross my mind, and fortunately I also live in a time where sexist attitudes that blame victims for rape are far less prevalent. Once I put myself into the cultural context of the characters I do see the happy ending. They died because they had to, but they died free because they chose it.
Lessons learned: People interpret films according to their personal knowledge and experience of the world, therefore people's interpratations cannot be fully controlled by the filmmakers.
I don't exactly know what I was expecting from Thelma & Louise, but I guess it wasn't that. I knew it was a road movie, but I had no idea they were on the run from the law. I knew there would be a lot of landscape shots, and because of this it seemed there weren't really that many. The characters were very likeable. At times it seemed their transformation was too simple, yet that was also one of the most appealing things about them. I was surprised to see Geena Davis completely outshine Susan Sarandon, and it's not hard to see why Brad Pitt's career took off after this film!
The ending was a bit hard to take though. I never expected it to end in glorified suicide, and at first my reaction was to be appalled at what I was seeing. The shot freezes with the car gracefully flying through the air, and everything about the music says that what we are seeing is a kind of victory. It really clashed with my values, as I've always seen suicide as a weak way out. Only a minute or two beforehand I had said to the person I was watching the film with, "Will they take the suicide option? Nah, they're too tough for that shit." I was so disappointed to find I was wrong. With a bit of time and space though, I see the sense in it. The problem is that my cultural context is different to theirs. The setting of the film is the deep south of the USA. The girls would have been facing the death penalty. The attitude towards their rape defence probably would have been, "She was asking for it". Growing up in Australia, the death penalty didn't cross my mind, and fortunately I also live in a time where sexist attitudes that blame victims for rape are far less prevalent. Once I put myself into the cultural context of the characters I do see the happy ending. They died because they had to, but they died free because they chose it.
Lessons learned: People interpret films according to their personal knowledge and experience of the world, therefore people's interpratations cannot be fully controlled by the filmmakers.
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