Ya but if the movie thought that was good then why wouldn't the movie end with Toller righteously blowing himself up? bsky.app/profile/bone...
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That's right bsky.app/profile/thea...
aug 31, 2025, 8:31 am • 22 0 • view
I thought he was too afraid to act out his inclinations bc he was trapped in ambiguity
aug 31, 2025, 10:21 am • 0 0 • view
I think that's valid to the text of the film, but the film is in conversation with a history of other films about Christian ministry: a modern Bergman's Winter Light through a filter of Bresson's Diary of... But if we take Schrader at his word that the ending is referencing Dreyer's Ordet...
aug 31, 2025, 3:28 pm • 1 0 • view
Then Toller isn't trapped, he's transformed. The tension is between "God is dead" (or at least silent) and "God is love". In Mary Toller finds the voice of God, the hope to continue living, they levitate. Diary's deathbed "What does it matter? All is grace." is resurrected into new life.
aug 31, 2025, 3:28 pm • 1 0 • view
Realizing that my reading is premised on believing in climate catastrophe but not in a god, which puts me in a distinct minority
aug 31, 2025, 3:45 pm • 2 0 • view
Life's not about finding the voice of (a) god per se, but about finding a reason to hope for the future. Toller finds that not in a god, but in the love of Mary. But like I said, there's other valid interpretations here and mine comes with the baggage of religion/knowing some of Schrader's sources.
aug 31, 2025, 3:58 pm • 0 0 • view
To me, the film revolves around Toller's line – brilliantly delivered by Hawke — "Well somebody has to do something!". I agree that Schrader believes "something" is "find community and connection where you can" rather than "commit violence that harms innocents".
aug 31, 2025, 3:24 pm • 2 0 • view
I would need to watch it again (and I should, it's brilliant), but my recollection from seeing it once in a theater 7 years ago was that it was a meditation on the notion that the issues we face demand drastic action, but any drastic action you could feasibly take is just kind of nutso
aug 31, 2025, 8:06 am • 0 0 • view
I always interpreted the ending as "human emotions can prevent you from doing the right thing"
aug 31, 2025, 5:05 am • 1 0 • view
I don't think that interpretation of the ending is supportable given the other stuff that happens in the movie
aug 31, 2025, 5:09 am • 4 0 • view