I saw this film at the Seattle International Film Festival. The director was in attendance and provided much insight on the deeper themes of the film. It is based on a true story.
He said he tried to make it like real life, as you are going along the little fragments or events may not seem very important, but when you get to the end and look back then you see their impact.
He also said that the landscape was the most important character in the film. The film was divided into chapters; The Sky, The Dust, The Wind and The Road. To me these reflected the elements of the painting that the camera repeatedly lingered on during the film.
Yes, it is depressing. But I think there is more. This film is about evil and the way it grows. The nameless man starts off as an innocent bystander. Picking up bits and pieces of the characters conversations he starts to form an opinion about a girl he has never met. In the scene where he inspects her room, you can almost see the hatred growing within him. Hatred for some vile woman who only exists in his head. By the end it completely consumes him and he stalks her through the grass (in a hauntingly beautiful overhead shot), then rapes and kills her.
The director said it's about sin. It is about social responsibility. Was it partly the villager's fault that this man killed the girl? So often we think our words have no effect, it is only a little comment, I am not going out and murdering anyone, but these can have bigger consequences than we may think.
He said he tried to make it like real life, as you are going along the little fragments or events may not seem very important, but when you get to the end and look back then you see their impact.
He also said that the landscape was the most important character in the film. The film was divided into chapters; The Sky, The Dust, The Wind and The Road. To me these reflected the elements of the painting that the camera repeatedly lingered on during the film.
Yes, it is depressing. But I think there is more. This film is about evil and the way it grows. The nameless man starts off as an innocent bystander. Picking up bits and pieces of the characters conversations he starts to form an opinion about a girl he has never met. In the scene where he inspects her room, you can almost see the hatred growing within him. Hatred for some vile woman who only exists in his head. By the end it completely consumes him and he stalks her through the grass (in a hauntingly beautiful overhead shot), then rapes and kills her.
The director said it's about sin. It is about social responsibility. Was it partly the villager's fault that this man killed the girl? So often we think our words have no effect, it is only a little comment, I am not going out and murdering anyone, but these can have bigger consequences than we may think.