The last scene offers a radical change of location. Up until this point the children’s relationship has taken place in a highly confined, well delineated space. After they’ve run away they find themselves in a wide open space outside. They approach each other slowly throughout the course of the scene. The boy sees the bus, which carries the girl, arriving from the distance. When, at last, they are together with no barriers to how close they can get together, neither the will of their parents, nor the column between them on the balcony, they still stay a bit away from each other, not touching. In fact they seek the opposite of contact, they each chose an object that allows them to maintain their own space, she chooses a stick, he chooses some stones. The last shot, where they head off into the distance away from the camera is an obvious homage to the last shot from Chaplin’s Modern Times.
Comment
The last scene offers a radical change of location. Up until this point the children’s relationship has taken place in a highly confined, well delineated space. After they’ve run away they find themselves in a wide open space outside. They approach each other slowly throughout the course of the scene. The boy sees the bus, which carries the girl, arriving from the distance. When, at last, they are together with no barriers to how close they can get together, neither the will of their parents, nor the column between them on the balcony, they still stay a bit away from each other, not touching. In fact they seek the opposite of contact, they each chose an object that allows them to maintain their own space, she chooses a stick, he chooses some stones. The last shot, where they head off into the distance away from the camera is an obvious homage to the last shot from Chaplin’s Modern Times.