The whole thing a fantasy?

[sauvin]

Something somebody said recently in the thread about how it's impossible for the kids to have a happy ending. Broadly, we can see only three possible outcomes: they drift apart (or one of them dies), she turns him, or the whole thing was just a dream, a revenge fantasy.

Time is very short right now, but I put this post up to remind me to expand on it later when there's more time. Very briefly, the idea that the whole story is a revenge fantasy as Oskar floats dying in the swimming pool has always struck me as false, but could never say why. What's bouncing around in my mind right now is that Oskar cast away his knife while Eli was eating Lacke.

What's the probability that a person entertaining such a dark dream would reject it while dreaming it?

[EEA]

I find it hard to accept the interpretation that it was all a dream but part of me does want it to be true. In a dream Oskar and Eli could find their happiness. It would just be the two of them together.

[TΛPETRVE]

And then wake up and everything turns out null and void? That would be a serious reason for suicide in my book .

[Klesk]

For me, it is obvious, that it is a fantasy (referring to the novel version). But it is not only a revenge fantasy. It is also a escape-from-blackeberg-fantasy aka escape-from-my-boring-and-depressing-suburban-existence-fantasy.

[Struan]

The idea that had been rolling around since back from the "old" days on the IMdB boards was not that the whole thing was a fantasy, but that specifically the ending was - that is, that Oskar had indeed died in the pool, Eli never came to the rescue, and the rest is just a revenge/romantic postmortem dream, or whatever you may call it.

Personally I've always thought it was a charming idea (not because of its implication mind you, but because how it elegantly sets up the fairy tale ending) and Tomas has gone on record saying that he also liked it quite a bit, that is before shooting it down as complete nonsense of course.

[LastDarkness]

I like this angle, im Captain of the no happy ending boat.

I actualy had a similar idea to the this, in that if youve seen the movie 'Fight Club' or better yet read the novel you can really wrap your head around and thats Hakan and Eli are figments of Oscars imagination. Parts of his psyche that branched off and are a excuse for him to fulfill his darkest desires and sate his murderer fantasies. In essance Hakan, and Eli and the scenes with them were Oskar all by himself in a psychotic state.

[lombano]

I don't think the fantasy idea is really tenable. It would be physically impossible for Oskar to do things like lift the body of an adult up with a pulley, etc. And we knoe the murders are real because of the newspaper. Also, Oskar is not the only one that interacts with/sees Hakan and Eli,a nd we see both of them on their own. As Tape points out, it doesn't make sense that Oskar would reject his own fantasy in the knife scene. That Oskar drowns in the pool scene is somewhat more ambiguous as the kinematics of the scene are rather strange - yet we're not seeing it through Oskar's eyes (he's in the frame) and there is no specific indication it's not real.

[gary13136]

As JAL stated in the movie commentary, Oskar is in fact JAL. Take out the vampire, and you have JAL at the age of 12. So everything else is in fact a fantasy. I think that the "fantasy" angle has been discussed off and on since the movie first came out. And apart from some very interesting discussions, we always end up in a "Scotch Verdict"; meaning nothing is proved one way or the other. But, what the heck, we can discuss it again. But personally, I can't even think of anything else to say. So you fellows can have at it.

[N.R. Gasan]

I am both amused and amazed at how people forget that this film began life as a book, which the author turned into a screenplay and Tomas then turned into a movie. In the book, Oskar is indeed rescued by Eli, as evidenced by the musings of the cop investigating both Oskar's disappearance and the multiple murders at the pool. True, we don't see this part of the novel in the movie, but there is nothing of significance in the film that differs from the book. So, if Eli is real in the novel, we can safely presume that she is real in the film. ::

[sauvin]

I am both amused and amazed at how people forget that this film began life as a book, which the author turned into a screenplay and Tomas then turned into a movie. In the book, Oskar is indeed rescued by Eli, as evidenced by the musings of the cop investigating both Oskar's disappearance and the multiple murders at the pool. True, we don't see this part of the novel in the movie, but there is nothing of significance in the film that differs from the book. So, if Eli is real in the novel, we can safely presume that she is real in the film. ::

I'm captain of the "It happened, it really did, but I don't have any URLs or references" boat, but some people seem to like the fantasy angle. I'll be useless in it, of course, but discussion in this vein (or just about any other) is a welcome thing, IMO.

If the whole thing was a fantasy, I'm stuck on this point, though. I've had some pretty strange dreams, done things in those dreams I could never even think about doing in real life, and while I remember having had dreams in which I appalled even myself, I don't ever remember rejecting a dream except ones in which I was either drowning or falling from some great height. Unlike Oskar, I never cast away my knife, and I can't imagine anybody else doing so, either. I suppose it's partially on strength of this single point that I myself reject the fantasy idea, at least as far as the whole thing goes.

Did Oskar fantasise the carnage at the pool, but nothing before that point? I personally don't think so. In for a penny, in for a pound - if he really did start holding hands with an honest to $deity vampire, there's no reason I can see the story should end in a fantasy.