Re: Martha Marcy May Marlene
Posted: Wed Nov 02, 2011 11:56 am
SPOILERS ARE FLYING NOW, SO THE UNINITIATED SHOULD DEPART
It's obviously very ambiguous. I think at least the two options you suggest are there in that final scene -- the driver did "come out of nowhere", as Dancy says, and certainly seems to be dangerously tailgating. It could be a delegation from the cult...or simply her paranoia kicking in.
My rationale for the other option I brought up:
She was allowed to leave the cult awfully easily. The young guy (can't recall his name) found her at the diner, and just let her leave? This is a cult that has, not to put too fine a point on it, KILLED people. She KNOWS this. Would they let her skip off like that? Well, maybe...if there were an ulterior motive.
Though Martha certainly behaves as one who is confused between two worlds -- as when she inappropriately curls into bed with her sister and brother-in-law while they're in the act -- her most emphatic declarations show the cult philosophy dominating: the denunciation of the couple's materialism, and especially her "You'll be a terrible mother" shriek.
It's never explained just what those Hawkes-inspired home invasions were meant to achieve, but they seem rooted in the same sort of contempt for bouregois life as Martha expresses in those rants. So maybe the whole trip back into her sister's life was the ultimage revenge/expression of anger at both her early life (the one we presume made her ripe for cult-picking) and her sister's continued version of it. Maybe something really ugly happens to the sister/brother-in-law right after the blackout, and Martha/Marcy May has brought it on.
I'm deeply intrigued by the film's title, specifically the "Marlene" part of it. "Marlene" is only referenced in one scene in the film, and it's an oddball one: the scene is near the end of the film (after we know about both the fatal home invasion, and Marcy May's reaction to it), but nothing particularly story-advancing happens in it -- unless it's to show that Marcy May is continuing to interact normally with cult members even after this traumatizing event, not crawled off into a shell as she had been in preceding scenes. I got the idea (after the film was over): what is this scene was taking place after the entire event with sister and brother-in-law was over? If it was trying to show us Martha went back to being part of the cult? The once thing the scene tells us: "Marlene" is the identity one assumes when one is trying to appear normal to the outside world. Couldn't this suggest all her behavior at her sister's home was a pose?
Not to spoil yet another film within this spoiler, but I'm reminded of how, in The Last of Sheila, James Coburn said, early on, "You can solve the mystery without leaving this room, if you're smart". I wonder if the title is tipping us off fully about the Olsen character's life progression: she starts off Martha, for a while she's Marcy May, but she doesn't end up back as Martha...she ends up as Marlene, and therefore still part of the cult.
Whether I'm right or not, I love that the film raises such possibilities.
It's obviously very ambiguous. I think at least the two options you suggest are there in that final scene -- the driver did "come out of nowhere", as Dancy says, and certainly seems to be dangerously tailgating. It could be a delegation from the cult...or simply her paranoia kicking in.
My rationale for the other option I brought up:
She was allowed to leave the cult awfully easily. The young guy (can't recall his name) found her at the diner, and just let her leave? This is a cult that has, not to put too fine a point on it, KILLED people. She KNOWS this. Would they let her skip off like that? Well, maybe...if there were an ulterior motive.
Though Martha certainly behaves as one who is confused between two worlds -- as when she inappropriately curls into bed with her sister and brother-in-law while they're in the act -- her most emphatic declarations show the cult philosophy dominating: the denunciation of the couple's materialism, and especially her "You'll be a terrible mother" shriek.
It's never explained just what those Hawkes-inspired home invasions were meant to achieve, but they seem rooted in the same sort of contempt for bouregois life as Martha expresses in those rants. So maybe the whole trip back into her sister's life was the ultimage revenge/expression of anger at both her early life (the one we presume made her ripe for cult-picking) and her sister's continued version of it. Maybe something really ugly happens to the sister/brother-in-law right after the blackout, and Martha/Marcy May has brought it on.
I'm deeply intrigued by the film's title, specifically the "Marlene" part of it. "Marlene" is only referenced in one scene in the film, and it's an oddball one: the scene is near the end of the film (after we know about both the fatal home invasion, and Marcy May's reaction to it), but nothing particularly story-advancing happens in it -- unless it's to show that Marcy May is continuing to interact normally with cult members even after this traumatizing event, not crawled off into a shell as she had been in preceding scenes. I got the idea (after the film was over): what is this scene was taking place after the entire event with sister and brother-in-law was over? If it was trying to show us Martha went back to being part of the cult? The once thing the scene tells us: "Marlene" is the identity one assumes when one is trying to appear normal to the outside world. Couldn't this suggest all her behavior at her sister's home was a pose?
Not to spoil yet another film within this spoiler, but I'm reminded of how, in The Last of Sheila, James Coburn said, early on, "You can solve the mystery without leaving this room, if you're smart". I wonder if the title is tipping us off fully about the Olsen character's life progression: she starts off Martha, for a while she's Marcy May, but she doesn't end up back as Martha...she ends up as Marlene, and therefore still part of the cult.
Whether I'm right or not, I love that the film raises such possibilities.