MTTH: Buying a watch

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MichaelPW
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by MichaelPW »

The first woman we see seems to be thinking about whether she will deal with the phantom. She leaves in the end. The couple seem to have an idea about what is going on. The woman from which we get a close-up seems to know even more. Maybe she already bought a watch.
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by Carl »

As has probably already been stated, the watch, the telling of time, seem to represent remembering ( accepting, if you will) what has happened. This may be in order to 'move on'.
So, the guy selling the watches is the one who enables things to be put in some kind of sequence,like, as Posted on another Thread, a director of a movie. Only, obviously, not an omnipotent one, as he is himself trapped, seeking to find the way 'in'.
So, DL made a watch commercial? I rarely watch ( ouch! sorry) commercials but this one I'd check out. I could use one of them luck watches, myself.
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by applesnoranges »

MichaelPW: I didn't notice that about the first woman; I thought she was just one of his slaves who came to him for some reason; he wanted something from her. But maybe you are right; it depends on how much of a zombie she seems to be. Eveyone else looks like a zombie to me.

Carl: The watch: The movie deals with time a great deal. The rabbits converse out of chronological order, when one asks, "What time is it?" the audience thinks it if funny, the visitor doesn't know if it is today, tomorrow, two days from now, etc. So watches appear from time to time. When Gruszka teaches Dern to look through the silk she says you have to be wearing the watch, then we see the dial move backward at high speed. All these seem to have to do with the fact that the scenes we see are always in the same order, but relative to each other they are not. So I don't see anything being put in order. I tried for a while to place this scene in Lost Girl's story: was the buying of a watch the beginning of her trouble because this is how she got mixed up with this guy? Or did she go to him because she was already in trouble? It never resolves.
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by MichaelPW »

Yes, the first woman is not sitting on the cushion as Lost Girl. The woman we get a close-up from now seems to me as knowing about the solution the phantom has, but as not being trapped. She seems to think "Again one is in the near of the trap, I would like to prevent such a deal, because I know about the very bad consequences, but it`s one own decision.". In the moment Lost Girl`s hand is in the hand of the phantom she is trapped. That seems to be the beginning of the state, in which we see her the most time in the feature.
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by Carl »

MichaelPW, I think that you're right about the woman watching. She , for whatever reason, can not intervene. ( Fear, would be my guess as to what that reason is: we seem to be dealing with criminals here.)
Again, I don't see them as zombies, or perhaps hypnotized by The Phantom ( though that would work), just stoned.


My wife and myself had a discussion about the 'out-of-sequence' scenes, yesterday.
Right, I take your point,applesnoranges: the material she is looking at is ( also) often not in chrono order.
For instance, and maybe you've got a thought on this, the scene where the rather dumpy woman is staring at a doorway and , entering and commenting,another woman says 'Who is she?', then from the other side, another woman says 'Who is she?'
Now, I guess she's the mustached man's wife, that he's playing around on. Isn't she the murky figure in the 40s style power skirt-suit who climbs the stairs, screwdriver in hand?Then we hear screams, running footsteps ( again, with the runnig footsteps) and see the figure stabbed in a pool of blood, something protruding from her side.

Now, when the irate Polish husband, the older guy, stops her in the street, has she killed the wronged wife, already? The one who came to kill her (almost as in OHIBT)? Or is this scene, in the street, out of sequence? Or is the dead figure actually the actress, herself?( Doesn't seem so, but it's too murky to really tell. I prefer to think it's not so trite a device as to simply, intentionally blur the victim and the murderer. Simiarly, I can't decide, though my wife has made up her mind to it, if the woman he talks to in the street, LG and the woman who wants to buy a watch are all played by the same actress. They must be, though.) Does she dissimulate , pretending not to know the identity of the murder victim of whom he tells her ( he says 'a person', not 'he' or 'she'), apprehensive that she might be caught out?
Then , of course, we see the person of whom he is actually speaking, the mustachioed man, the lead in 47, presumably, laying dead in a pool of blood.

**Another 'out-of-sequence' deal: Are we to figure that the seance occurs prior to the two searching for the man who, he is told, has decamped to the Inland Empire? So, he already has the gun? Already seeks to kill The Phantom, his boss? They're like 'white slavers', thugs shipping the women to the Inland Empire for, like, immoral purposes? This is that for which they have to atone, to 'pay an unpaid debt'? Gee, that almost makes sense. :shock:

'...to be understood is to be found out...'
applesnoranges
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by applesnoranges »

Carl wrote:My wife and myself had a discussion about the 'out-of-sequence' scenes, yesterday.
Right, I take your point,applesnoranges: the material she is looking at is ( also) often not in chrono order.
For instance, and maybe you've got a thought on this, the scene where the rather dumpy woman is staring at a doorway and , entering and commenting,another woman says 'Who is she?', then from the other side, another woman says 'Who is she?'
Now, I guess she's the mustached man's wife, that he's playing around on. Isn't she the murky figure in the 40s style power skirt-suit who climbs the stairs, screwdriver in hand?Then we hear screams, running footsteps ( again, with the runnig footsteps) and see the figure stabbed in a pool of blood, something protruding from her side.
I don't know about the woman in white or why a big deal is made of asking who she is. The superimposed scene of the corpse seems played by Julia Ormond, but the context is not clear. She is not dressed the same as in anywhere else in the film, but it is something Doris Side might wear. At first people were calling her "the Ormond character", then I think it was agreed that Julia Ormond herself did not travel to Poland for shooting. But the woman in white does seem to be his wife because she says that she can't give him children. She says the same lines that Lucas says to Dern later: "I'm not who you think I am", and that she cannot have children. It seems to me as if a character from one part of the story is placed into another part and that is why the person spoken to does not know who it is. The woman climbing the stairs with a screwdriver is played by Karolina Gruszka. Someone on imdb noticed that she has a pony tale in this scene, like Dern as Sue. But as I remember that is in a different part of the film (after the barbecue scene when we see Gruszka as Queen Kelly asking to be delivered of the wicked dream that seized her heart).
Now, when the irate Polish husband, the older guy, stops her in the street, has she killed the wronged wife, already? The one who came to kill her (almost as in OHIBT)? Or is this scene, in the street, out of sequence? Or is the dead figure actually the actress, herself?( Doesn't seem so, but it's too murky to really tell. I prefer to think it's not so trite a device as to simply, intentionally blur the victim and the murderer. Simiarly, I can't decide, though my wife has made up her mind to it, if the woman he talks to in the street, LG and the woman who wants to buy a watch are all played by the same actress. They must be, though.) Does she dissimulate , pretending not to know the identity of the murder victim of whom he tells her ( he says 'a person', not 'he' or 'she'), apprehensive that she might be caught out?
I have thought from the beginning that there must be a logical way to describe all this but I can't do it yet. I agree with your wife though, if I understand you right, that characters played by the same actors are different aspects of the same person. That is why he uses the same actress. True in Mulholland Dr. and in Lost Highway too.
Then , of course, we see the person of whom he is actually speaking, the mustachioed man, the lead in 47, presumably, laying dead in a pool of blood.
It looks like it might be a scene from 47, but how would we come to be seeing such a scene? It also has been noticed that he has been shot in the head (like the phantom at the end), that he is lying head down on a flight of dark stairs, and that his watch is missing. The use of the word, "person" opens more interpretations, but I am not sure what you mean about it.
**Another 'out-of-sequence' deal: Are we to figure that the seance occurs prior to the two searching for the man who, he is told, has decamped to the Inland Empire? So, he already has the gun? Already seeks to kill The Phantom, his boss? They're like 'white slavers', thugs shipping the women to the Inland Empire for, like, immoral purposes? This is that for which they have to atone, to 'pay an unpaid debt'? Gee, that almost makes sense. :shock:
I think the two scenes are in sequence. Janek seems to know the men who become the rabbits and to have served to bring the man to them when they heard Lost Girl's cry for him. Then when the get the gun, someone says they have to hurry because it is after midnight. They have to get him to the American story to plant the gun in Smithy's house so that Dern's character will find it after her death after midnight. We saw them searching at the shed in the daylight. I don't see who contacted whom, the man or Janek, but the man seems to be looking for the phantom. (So maybe this is why it seems that the scene comes after, but I can't explain that.) I've seen this before that people think the phantom is his boss, but the woman in the monolog clearly says that "They had this guy working there. They all called him the phantom." And he never looks or acts like boss. But Gordy does in both scenes. His captain's hat at the barbecue and his short manner at the shed. Gordy is played by Marek Zydowicz, who is the executive producer of IE in Poland, so he is part of the management team that Lucas works for. So Lucas and Zydowicz seem to me to have the same relationship as their characters.
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by Carl »

What I meant by noting his use of the word 'person', rather than 'he' or 'she', is that the sex of the murder victim is left ambiguous. He might be referring to a murdered woman or man. Is the woman he speaks to in the street the one that lies in a pool of blood, stabbed in the side, in the scene placed just before?
**It does look like Karolina climbing the stairs with the screwdriver.Who does she want to kll and why, though?
***I now do not think that any of the scenes are from 47. They are of the actors in 47 and their spouses. The older man, the one who, like Tom Rabbit, is looking for a way 'in' is Karolina's husband. Are they not the ones who play the opening scene, the one where he asks 'do you know what whore's do?', that is, the scene that mirrors the story told by Kinski? The mustachioed man is the husband of the 'who is she' girl ( dunno if this is Ormond. Doris seems a bit trimmer than that.)


I'm still catching up on the other Threads here. I'll surely address the other points in your and MichaelPW's posts later.
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by applesnoranges »

Mostly I'll recap some things I've read here and other forums.
Carl wrote:What I meant by noting his use of the word 'person', rather than 'he' or 'she', is that the sex of the murder victim is left ambiguous. He might be referring to a murdered woman or man.
Yes, I agree; I think I just forgot to respond. It is deliberately ambiguous, I think, so that people can explore different possibilities. I am still not sure that one story will ring more true than any other, but the matter of who killed whom is something no description I've seen yet has satisfied for me. But when he says, in a voice dripping with blood, "I have seen you with this person", it implies that she has been with the person secretly. We've talked here about when the woman in white says to the man, "I'll never let you have her!", it means that she wants her for herself or she wants him for herself. That is a bit vague too, but the line, "I can't give you children, I know that." makes it seem that he is the one she wants and fears losing to the Gruszka character.
Is the woman he speaks to in the street the one that lies in a pool of blood, stabbed in the side, in the scene placed just before?
The consensus I've seen posted is that it is either Julia Ormond or a clever digital composite of Ormond and Gruszka. I think most people think it is played by Ormond.
**It does look like Karolina climbing the stairs with the screwdriver.Who does she want to kll and why, though?
We know who is up at the top of those stairs so the only answer I see is Mr. K. I wouldn't know how to explain it though because the scene is a reflection of Dern climbing the stairs.
***I now do not think that any of the scenes are from 47. They are of the actors in 47 and their spouses. The older man, the one who, like Tom Rabbit, is looking for a way 'in' is Karolina's husband. Are they not the ones who play the opening scene, the one where he asks 'do you know what whore's do?', that is, the scene that mirrors the story told by Kinski? The mustachioed man is the husband of the 'who is she' girl ( dunno if this is Ormond. Doris seems a bit trimmer than that.)
The couple at the beginning are credited as "man #1 and woman #1, and two other actors are credited for their voices. But immediately we see Gruszka as Lost Girl, apparently having gone through the same thing. As above, I think the Polish Lucas character is the husband of the woman in white. There is something kind of comical about showing us someone with her back turned and then asking us who she is. If the corpse that the other woman asks about is a composite, that would be the same kind of joke on the audience. Just guessing. But I have read that Julia Ormond did not travel to Poland for filming.

But whether these scenes are of 4 7 or of the actors who play in 4 7, the same problem exists: How are we seeing this? It is presented to look and sound like an old movie. An odd feature of IE is that the only scenes that seem to be real, that resemble real life rather than a dream, are these and the filmed scenes from OHIBT, each in their own styles.
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by MichaelPW »

applesnoranges wrote:But when he says, in a voice dripping with blood, "I have seen you with this person", it implies that she has been with the person secretly.
I think not necessarily. But I assume that it implies primarily that "Gruszka" knows about whom he is talking. We can assume that he sees her usually only at home. Probably they have a kind of "prostitution-relationship". It seems that he only sees her usually alone, when he sees her at home. So maybe there was sometime a well known "coincidence".
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by Carl »

I mulled over wher to put this Post, then decided, wtf, does it really matter?
**
The 'half born' term, first used by Visitor #1, always interested me in this movie.
Some clues as to what makes a 'half': inability to speak or understand a language( Polish), both the watch-shopper at the party and Nikki ; a feeling that 'something's wrong', voiced by Sue as well as Nikki; an awareness that something is not right about the passage of time, as in Sue's monolog--'I was 40 years old in...'
Lately I've been thinking it may refer specifically to those that are beginning to realize that they are not free agents, those that are characters being acted, those that are hypnotized, those that are in some way controlled by others, but those that can not see the 'bigger picture' of which they are a part.
And, those that are aware that they once had and may again have a life that is not controlled by others, that is not a fixed part in a movie, that may awaken from hypnosis, be freed in some way: that is, those that may excercise their free will.
'Free Will', what a concept, if you really think about it's ultimate implications!
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by MichaelPW »

Carl wrote:'Free Will', what a concept, if you really think about it's ultimate implications!
Some say that there is no free will.
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by applesnoranges »

The term "free will" doesn't mean anything to me.
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by jina »

MichaelPW wrote:
Carl wrote:'Free Will', what a concept, if you really think about it's ultimate implications!
Some say that there is no free will.
well, as a concept it's very philosophical, i get a headache just thinking about it at this late hour after work. :mrgreen:

the decisions one takes in life are important. things can change very fast and from one point to another.
but now i don't remember what we were talking about in the movie.
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by Carl »

It is said that if something ( magic, science, whatever) is real, then it does not matter if one believes in it or not for it to work. :)
**
I think that Free Will is one of the themes in IE.
'Actions have consequences. For wrong actions there will certainly be consequences.' One is either a 'free agent' or not.
One chooses whether to 'buy a watch.' One chooses whether to commit adultery.
Sometimes, though, one has no choice: ' I do not allow her that freedom.'
One is, perhaps, hypnotized, controlled by others, actions fated by a curse, possessed. Then that freedom of choice, that 'free will' is denied. This denial creates an imbalance in the natural,flow of events, in one's Fate or Destiny.
When one awakens, is removed from this control, then 'choice' or 'free will' is restored and one has freedom of action, say freedom to remove the gun hidden in a set and use it to kill the Phantom.
This excercise of free will then may trigger other changes, such as freeing those that are imprisoned or thwarted.
If one can see the results of one's actions in the future, as Sue does, one may regain the faculty of making proper choices by putting things in their proper order, by being able to know 'before' from 'after', by knowing what time it is . 'You have to be wearing the watch.'

***
OFF-TOPIC
I would say that 'free will' means something, even if one thinks it does not exist. True, one may imagine things that do not exist ( such as the Golden Mountain), yet these things have meaning even so.
At very basic levels of the physical universe, the 'elementary particles' ( what a concept!) have positions and trajectories, momenta and charge, that are predictable only in a statistical fashion: perhaps human beings have as much freedom of motion as a photon.
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Re: MTTH: Buying a watch

Post by jina »

Carl wrote: One is, perhaps, hypnotized, controlled by others, actions fated by a curse, possessed. Then that freedom of choice, that 'free will' is denied. This denial creates an imbalance in the natural,flow of events, in one's Fate or Destiny.
When one awakens, is removed from this control, then 'choice' or 'free will' is restored and one has freedom of action, say freedom to remove the gun hidden in a set and use it to kill the Phantom.
oh yes, i see your point. i agree with this.
also i think the curse in IE could also mean something that Nikki has done but she doesn't remember it. this is the unpaid bill. Like they say : you might forgotten but you're not forgiven.
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