Several other reviewers have commented on the fractured nature of this film. It appears to be a Kabbalistic approach to healing shattered reality, put together as a parable.
I know very little about Kabbalism, so that may be why so many pieces were nonsensical to me. Some things, however, were clear on reflection. Eliza's choice at the end was a redemptive sacrifice. It was a way of turning Saul's obsession back upon itself, so he, when he was brought up short by the apparent disaster, would be accessible once again to his family. The final implications are that she is successful in this, and happy with her choice. Eliza also connects with her mother through the camera, and apparently starts her back on the road to healing.
There are some very nice uses of glass and kaleidoscope imagery as metaphors of shattered personality and lives, particularly for the mother, but for all the characters to some extent.
All of that makes sense, but as a whole, it just doesn't work. The mother has apparently been in a psychotic break for many years, and no one noticed? The son, who seems to have a close relationship with both his father and his sister, responds to the father's extra time with Eliza for the bee with petulant jealousy, and finally runs off to join the Hari Krishnas, without any indication of why he is searching or why the traditions of his family do not work for him. His motivation seems to be nothing more than an exceedingly pretty face.
The daughter, Eliza, is the hardest one to believe of all -- even though she is masterfully represented. In an unusual form of Deus Ex Machina, she restores the shattered family by having paranormal abilities, and then denying those abilities as a sacrifice to redeem the ones she loves. (I suspect this is part of Kabbalistic mysticism, but I don't know.) In one spoken letter, she brings sanity back to her shattered family, reeling in all the fragmented pieces, just as her father had described, and her mother had tried and failed to do. It's a nice idea for a parable, but I found the final answer too pat, the mystical portions glossing over frightful danger, and the pain of the family both believably intense yet unbelievably represented, and I could not believe the solution.
Maybe it is because my own spiritual views are vastly different from the writers, but it was painful to watch, and neither satisfying nor helpful.
I know very little about Kabbalism, so that may be why so many pieces were nonsensical to me. Some things, however, were clear on reflection. Eliza's choice at the end was a redemptive sacrifice. It was a way of turning Saul's obsession back upon itself, so he, when he was brought up short by the apparent disaster, would be accessible once again to his family. The final implications are that she is successful in this, and happy with her choice. Eliza also connects with her mother through the camera, and apparently starts her back on the road to healing.
There are some very nice uses of glass and kaleidoscope imagery as metaphors of shattered personality and lives, particularly for the mother, but for all the characters to some extent.
All of that makes sense, but as a whole, it just doesn't work. The mother has apparently been in a psychotic break for many years, and no one noticed? The son, who seems to have a close relationship with both his father and his sister, responds to the father's extra time with Eliza for the bee with petulant jealousy, and finally runs off to join the Hari Krishnas, without any indication of why he is searching or why the traditions of his family do not work for him. His motivation seems to be nothing more than an exceedingly pretty face.
The daughter, Eliza, is the hardest one to believe of all -- even though she is masterfully represented. In an unusual form of Deus Ex Machina, she restores the shattered family by having paranormal abilities, and then denying those abilities as a sacrifice to redeem the ones she loves. (I suspect this is part of Kabbalistic mysticism, but I don't know.) In one spoken letter, she brings sanity back to her shattered family, reeling in all the fragmented pieces, just as her father had described, and her mother had tried and failed to do. It's a nice idea for a parable, but I found the final answer too pat, the mystical portions glossing over frightful danger, and the pain of the family both believably intense yet unbelievably represented, and I could not believe the solution.
Maybe it is because my own spiritual views are vastly different from the writers, but it was painful to watch, and neither satisfying nor helpful.