Does anyone have any suggestions as to why the dad was so aggressive in her dreams, since in the real world she was always talking about him, wanting to see him etc. He wasn't a threatening character at all in the real world.
Also what's the significance of her tearing him out of the picture but he doesn't disappear?
And, while I'm thinking about it, what happened to her that meant she had to have a heart massage?
Not sure. All I know is that the actor, Ben Cross, was in The Unholy 1988 and Wicked Little Games 2006. Sorry, no help. :(
http://www.oh-the-horror.com/
Ben Cross was also in "Exorcist: The Beginning" and "Nightlife," which would both be forgettable thrillers had he not made them worthwhile. In fact, looking at his filmography, I suspect he's the only redeeming feature of many of his movies. I'm just trying to continue adding a bit of levity to an otherwise heavy-handed thread.
shareI mostly agree with lighthouseman. One thing that I'd like to add pertains to the first question. Up until the point where she rips her dad from the drawing she is still not quite sure whether she can manipulate her dreams by altering the picture. Her mother has recently told her that "it's only a drawing" and in the real world Anna is probably both afraid and slightly relieved of the possibility that there is no link after all between her drawing and her dreams. After she tears her father from the drawing, this fear manifests itself as he slams open the door and attacks Marc - the physical presence of her father in the dream proves that her drawing doesn't have the special powers she thought it did.
shareThis is an interesting thread and I think I can offer an answer to the question of why the father is so aggressive in Anna's dreams. I read that the father being who he was in her dreams stemmed from the consequences of Anna drawing him the way she did, in the same way that her drawing Mark without legs caused the Mark in her dream to be unable to walk (this theory, I guess gets a little confusing when we learn that the Mark in her dream exists in real life). When she was drawing her dad in the dream, she had understood how drawing in real life created changes to her dreams (i.e. drawing stairs and a door in the house so that she could see Mark), but she accidentally drew her dad with an angry face and, of course, she could not erase the expression and start again so she scribbled over it. Hence, (at least where I read this) the father being what he is in the dream.
Hope that either helps or provides food for thought.
Interesting comments which sheds a bit of light.
Interesting too that lighthouseman mentioned a previous review that put the onus on the dad for Anna's sexual awakening. When I was watching the film I got the impression she was perhaps being abused by her father. Particularly the part (if I remember correctly) where she is in the bath and has that freaky dream/memory sequence of him pouncing towards her/the camera.
The fact that the story did not continue to develop in this vein I guess confused me, since that was what I had been expecting.
I wonder if the abuse theme had been the intention of the writer and/or director, but they decided to go against it in the end, hence why some suggestive elements still remain.
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Glad this film is being discussed at this level of interpretation at last. The layers of meaning in this film struck me as extraordinary, as I have realised different possibilities on every subsequent viewing.
I think the abuse angle is incorrect for the reasons that the previous poster has explained well enough already. I think an absentee father at that age is enough of a reason for the horrific dreams, regardless of whether he is working for the family's benefit or not. There is also some dialogue after the photo developing scene where Anna mentions her father's drinking and her mother says he hasn't drank in years. Anna replies that he was drunk when the photo was taken, explaining the bathroom shock somewhat. Imagine that on the rare occasions that you got to see your father, he had had been drunk. There seems to be a feeling that drinking was something he had vowed to give up, perhaps after a violent episode, but seems to have lapsed into again. Certainly even one drunken, violent episode would be remembered by a child and they could be concerned that it might happen again.
I think a big factor in the dream sequence is Anna's burgeoning sexuality, with her breaking away from being her father's little girl to being a partner to Mark (representing boys or men in general). His violence can be seen as a distorted version of his protectiveness, as she may see it as him not wanting her to grow up or disliking the woman she is becoming.
By the way, it took me a few viewings to realise, but this film his heavily symbolic, almost crudely phallic when you do notice.
This really is a great British film that hasn't been fully recognised.
Speaking of symbolism, I can't help going back to the abandoned tube station scene near the beginning, where Anna & Karen discuss Karen's boyfriend. Anna, on the verge of puberty, obviously still finds the whole boyfriend thing disgusting but is interested/fascinated at the same time. Soon afterwards she collapses in a tunnel, which looks to me like some kind of expression of her being unable to cope with the unexpected hormonal development centered around her vagina.
It all ends with a lighthouse, which Marc initially finds impossible to climb up, then when he does manage to climb up it, he disappears from Anna's life. Of course there's talk of him taking her in the helicopter, but you just know by that stage that its not going to happen. A lot like when, as we grow up, we imagine that we will always have our friends but then our very nature as newly adult people takes us all off in different and unexpected directions.
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There are some very thoughtful analyses in this thread, but ultimately no concrete answers, and reading them leaves me just as confused as I was when I watched this film.
I too was confused by the father's threatening nature in her dreams, but his apparent comfort to her in her waking hours. I suspected there had been a history of abuse – but the ending of this film seems to dismiss that possibility.
The father's absence during much of the film got me off-track in my thinking. I though perhaps he had died or was in treatment for alcoholism (I believe there's a reference early on to his drinking). I certainly didn't think she would be happy at his return.
Yes, this film would benefit from repeated viewings – as would most films – but ultimately it is up to the viewers to draw their own conclusions.
The dad's role in the story didn't really puzzle me.
Anne's father has been missing for most of her life, so she resents him on a deep level. On top of this, there are numerous instances where the movie hints at the dad being an alcoholic. The alcohol makes the dad into a "different person" altogether, and that's essentially who you see in Anne's dream. You're seeing "alcoholic dad," a foreign almost inhuman figure. He is also very authoritarian, wielding a hammer and ordering his daughter repeatedly to open the door.
It's obvious that Anne fears him and also doesn't fully trust him even when he's being nice/normal in real life. The implication is that his nice exterior could be a facade for the monstrous side of him that comes out when he drinks.
I don't quite agree with another poster's hypothesis that the dad is the "protector" and trying to keep her away from Mark, because whenever the dad finally gets her alone (in the dream), he keeps asking who she is and seems to hold her accountable for the fact that he's blind. His abducting her from the paper house seems to be motivated purely by vengeance and anger.
Also, I think the scene where "dream dad" is destroying Mark's bicycle with the hammer is one of the most important scenes in the entire film... maybe THE most important.
What I took from that scene, intuitively, is that "dream dad" represents everything wrong with adulthood. "Dream dad" is destroying the innocence and hope of childhood. The bicycle represented Mark's hope to walk again and to live a fulfilling life, and "dream dad" figuratively crushes those hopes. Dream dad's implicit message is that once you're an adult, you're miserable, blind and devoid of any compassion -- a jaded shell of who you once were, trying to take vengeance on the world for "what they did to you."
This adult = bad, child = good motif is further compounded by the landscapes. Whenever "dream dad" is in the scene, candles are blown out, everything is dark, and there is hell imagery with fire and brimstone.
Whenever it's just Mark and Anne, they are in a beautiful green field next to the sea.
The dad's role in the story didn't really puzzle me.
Anne's father has been missing for most of her life, so she resents him on a deep level. On top of this, there are numerous instances where the movie hints at the dad being an alcoholic. The alcohol makes the dad into a "different person" altogether, and that's essentially who you see in Anne's dream. You're seeing "alcoholic dad," a foreign almost inhuman figure. He is also very authoritarian, wielding a hammer and ordering his daughter repeatedly to open the door.
It's obvious that Anne fears him and also doesn't fully trust him even when he's being nice/normal in real life. The implication is that his nice exterior could be a facade for the monstrous side of him that comes out when he drinks.
I don't quite agree with another poster's hypothesis that the dad is the "protector" and trying to keep her away from Mark, because whenever the dad finally gets her alone (in the dream), he keeps asking who she is and seems to hold her accountable for the fact that he's blind. His abducting her from the paper house seems to be motivated purely by vengeance and anger.
Also, I think the scene where "dream dad" is destroying Mark's bicycle with the hammer is one of the most important scenes in the entire film... maybe THE most important.
What I took from that scene, intuitively, is that "dream dad" represents everything wrong with adulthood. "Dream dad" is destroying the innocence and hope of childhood. The bicycle represented Mark's hope to walk again and to live a fulfilling life, and "dream dad" figuratively crushes those hopes. Dream dad's implicit message is that once you're an adult, you're miserable, blind and devoid of any compassion -- a jaded shell of who you once were, trying to take vengeance on the world for "what they did to you."
This adult = bad, child = good motif is further compounded by the landscapes. Whenever "dream dad" is in the scene, candles are blown out, everything is dark, and there is hell imagery with fire and brimstone.
Whenever it's just Mark and Anne, they are in a beautiful green field next to the sea.
I read somewhere that the author of the book prefers to write for children because they understand that reality and fantasy aren't necessarily opposites, so perhaps at heart this is a story about the diminishment of imagination with age and maturity. As samuraisuave said, this may be what the dream dad represents.
"Thinking back, it does seem like the dream-world dad violently slamming her chest is maybe supposed to represent/parallel the heart massage happening in the real world."
That can't be correct because the reason that she received a heart massage was the broken ribs caused by the dream dad. Also, I think the fact that he gave her broken ribs like that proves that the dream world is real and not just a hallucination.
I did find it weird that he'd hammer her on the chest like that. Why didn't he attack her in a less remarkable way, like in any other movie?
Super duper late response, but the broken ribs was from the heart massage. When you give someone CPR you have to push so hard in order to get to the heart that it often causes broken ribs, especially in children. This is why you're not supposed to practice on real people.
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She's not seen much of him, so he's in some sense almost a stranger joining the household, which in itself may be a source of anxiety. Plus, if he was an alcoholic, as is implied, even if non-violent the changes in personality could be scary to a child. Even one violent incident, even if not directed at the child, could leave a profound impression. So it doesn't surprise me that she'd have that sort of dream about her father.
@pjs4sp: I don't think it was over-protectiveness what scared Anna - after all, her nightmare-father didn't go after Mark when she was away, as Mark himself remarks, he was after her, not him. I think she had no anxiety issues over this, either because her actual father hadn't been over-protective, at least in this respect, or because boys had never really entered the picture.
@samuraisuave: I like what you say about the bicycle's destruction - I hadn't seen much rhyme or reason to it, but I think you're right - at some level, the nightmare father also represents arbitrary adult authority (after all, Anna had behavioural issues) and the more killjoy aspects of adulthood. I also agree adulthood seems to be equated with everything wrong with the world.