To me, the movie epitomizes one of Kestrell's favorite sayings: "Grownups lie." Oliver's last line just reinforces that.
But if that's the intended reading, then there is no way to take the ending except as brutally bitter and cynical where everything else I remember about the scene suggests it was meant to be taken as delicately touching and tentatively redemptive. It is obvious that Oliver believes he's being supportive of Amy by telling her that he can see Irena, especially since he punished her at least once for stating truthfully that she could still see her friend standing in the snowy yard, which was empty to him. But the film seemed to agree that it counted as a supportive statement and that was what I hated and to read the film otherwise seems to leave the problem stated above, which feels out of key with the other Lewton films I've seen. Some of them close with irony, but mostly with poetry, and they are never corrosive.
no subject
But if that's the intended reading, then there is no way to take the ending except as brutally bitter and cynical where everything else I remember about the scene suggests it was meant to be taken as delicately touching and tentatively redemptive. It is obvious that Oliver believes he's being supportive of Amy by telling her that he can see Irena, especially since he punished her at least once for stating truthfully that she could still see her friend standing in the snowy yard, which was empty to him. But the film seemed to agree that it counted as a supportive statement and that was what I hated and to read the film otherwise seems to leave the problem stated above, which feels out of key with the other Lewton films I've seen. Some of them close with irony, but mostly with poetry, and they are never corrosive.