Sanctum Movie - Confused about the ending.

[DA Aquamaster]

I thought it was pretty clear he lived. And his survival was no more unlikely than the entire rest of the movie.

 

[ktomlinson]

I took it that he lived. I'm usually not a critic, but I thought the movie was pretty bad.

 

[smaucere]

He def survived. That film didn't have a single ounce of subtley.

that said, once you got past the corny dialogue and the improbability of it all, it was pretty exciting.

 

[Ashrubel]

The movie began in a similar way. It started with him floating in a void, being beckoned by his father. It ended with his father (who was already deceased) telling him he was "almost home".


The movie was littered with subtle existential irony.


Without going into significant detail about iony or existentialism... Existentialism is essentially the philosophy that your fate is governed by your decisions. That every decision you make is your own, and you must be held accountable for them. This concept is Highlighted most when Frank (the boy's father) is explaining to Carl (the guy that went nuts, played by Mr. Fantastic) and Josh (his son) about Victoria's death (the woman who got her hair caught in the climbing equipment and died).


Frank explained that Victoria made three huge, bad mistakes: Descending into the cave system with no experience, diving without the wetsuit, and using the knife to try to free herself, ultimately snapping her rope and falling to her death. He said most people ate not lucky enough to get away with one mistake... Much less three.


We again see it take shape in the "tank" room, where Frank leaves the decision to continue (or to stay) up to Josh... The first real decision he made the whole movie. It was at that point that Josh became accountable to himself. Before then his fate was tied to his father's. It was there that that I knew Frank would die, for sure. It was the writer's way of severing their shared accountability, and as such their shared fate.


In the end we are greeted with an unlikely resolution. We were shown in the beginning how deep and how much farther the cave system theoretically goes. We can easily estimate that it would have taken significantly longer to make the last push than it took Josh. This leads me to believe that Josh did not escape. He died in the cave.


The last bit where he washed up on the beach was a hallucination caused by severe oxygen deprivation and fatigue.


Doubting that, I have three questions:


1: why would he so suddenly perceive the surface light? He still had the tooth-torch on his neck lit. He had not moved any. Why the sudden brightness?


2: where did he muster the strength/energy/oxygen to make the last swim? It was so sudden, and he had seemed lifeless for so ling.


3: what are the chances that he would surface just meters from a populated beach? It is far more likely that he surface in the middle of the ocean, or near a remote part of the coastline.

 

[nimoh]

...the two people on the beach drinking Kool Aid and shaking their heads at him.

that is about the funniest post I have read in a long time...thanks for that!

 

[Ashrubel]

I do have 1 question, though. After the flood, one of the male chatacters was caughingband wheezing badly, n eventually started coughing up blood. He says to himself: "yep, yes..." and seperates from the party to die alone.

What caused his death? The bends does not usually do that, does it? I figured it could have been a punctured lung, but it takes a while to die from that, at times... Or so I thought...

Any ideas?

 

[DMDavid]

I do have 1 question, though. After the flood, one of the male chatacters was caughingband wheezing badly, n eventually started coughing up blood. He says to himself: "yep, yes..." and seperates from the party to die alone.

What caused his death? The bends does not usually do that, does it? I figured it could have been a punctured lung, but it takes a while to die from that, at times... Or so I thought...

Any ideas?

I don't believe there was any deep thought given in producing this movie that would justify any realistic analysis of it.

 

[cbrich]

I do have 1 question, though. After the flood, one of the male chatacters was caughingband wheezing badly, n eventually started coughing up blood. He says to himself: "yep, yes..." and seperates from the party to die alone.

What caused his death? The bends does not usually do that, does it? I figured it could have been a punctured lung, but it takes a while to die from that, at times... Or so I thought...

Any ideas?

He "fizzed," remember one of the characters told him "I can't have you fizz up on me again..." I gathered fizzed is he got bent pretty badly. The wheezing and coughing up blood was suppose to represent he had a ruptured lung.

I think he died in cave, and the beach represented the after life for him, because you never saw any light in the passage way. If hewas close to the exist, you would have seen light since he surfaced during the day.

 

[Hillmorton Scubie]

Having watched it again. I agree with those that think he dies at the end of the film. Anyone else think that too ?

 

[CT-Rich]

I think the this group should have been called the red shirts (an old star trek reference...) I assumed he survived, but with such artful film making I could see he could have died. On the otherhand, with the attention to detail of the film and the realities of diving, I think he probably did surface on a beach and with incredible depth of character and reflection on the death of every other character in the freakin' movie, he probably stopped for a daquiri at the resort bar before calling in for help....

My guess on the "fizzing" was that he had either a been bent and possibly an embolism.... two great things that go together....