One person did die, and it's not hard to tell who it was. Monica is not dead, Sophie is dead, which is a very important premise to understand the plot. Therefore, it is very important to correctly translate the subtitles at the end according to whose hand is bleeding. But you may ask, what happened to Sophie? This is because little Monica can't accept the fact that little Sophie is dead, or she really wants Sophie to be alive, so she has been thinking of herself as Sophie all these years. Note that she thinks she is Sophie, not Sophie. When she grew up, she also had a husband, two children, a mother and a job as a writer. But all this has changed because of unsatisfactory work.
Mental depression gradually touched the fragile nerves in her memory. She began to find that she seemed to be another face in the photo. There was always a little girl in sight and even had nightmares. In such a chaotic mental state, the temper is naturally bad and there are problems in family life. The husband filed for separation. She went to see her mother, but she was not at home. She went to the casino and was busy playing cards, ignoring her. In this way, the spirit is getting more and more nervous. When I am extremely nervous and fragile, I can feel my true self that has been buried for a long time, so I feel that my face is changing and changing until I open the mirror and find myself completely turned into another woman's face.
In this process, there are three characters to explain. First, her husband. At first I didn't understand why I watched her husband become another man. Later, I learned that the man who appeared at the beginning was also "treated" by Monica as if Sophie was herself. That man is actually Monica's biological brother. The face that impressed her most in childhood has always followed her into her life and is regarded as her husband. In fact, her husband is the same face as her, that is, the face that forced her to her parents' house later. And her mother, the face that appeared at the beginning, is also her childhood mother's face, which is just what she remembers. In fact, she lives with a white-haired foster mother. The little girl who suddenly appeared in her sight was her childhood self and an impression. She doesn't really exist, which symbolizes her memory. This is why she followed the little girl later, but actually followed her own memory. The little girl who had nightmares the night before and dragged her around is also her memory.
At the foster mother's house, she found a photo of herself as a child. There is her own mother on it, so there is a plot in which she goes to her hometown to find her later. Why did the foster mother lock the door and not let her go? In fact, she is afraid that she will not come back when she meets her real mother. After all, the foster mother has deep feelings for her.
Finally, she found the place in the photo, but her biological mother pretended not to know her. The man she "treated" as her husband's face later went to the hotel to find her. She still regards him as her husband, but the man just thinks she looks like her sister who died in childhood.
The little girl appeared again, which means that she is closer to her memory. So she followed the little girl. The fact is that she followed her memory and walked into her childhood home step by step. Back then, back to the scene of the accident. She, her adoptive mother survived the car accident, but little Sophie and her adoptive father died. Little Sophie is little Monica's beloved sister, and their hands were tightly held together in the car accident. The car accident greatly stimulated little Monica's mind. She can't accept what happened. She has always regarded herself as Sophie in her soul, and regarded the people around her as the people around her later, and she has lived to this day.
Little Monica changed clothes on the train and became Sophie. In fact, this process symbolizes that she has thoroughly recognized herself and Sophie after this journey of pursuing life. She looked at Sophie in the mirror, symbolizing that she had completely separated her sister Sophie's personality from herself.
When she got home, she opened the door and saw her husband and children. The children called "Mom". Everything is real at this moment. She has got rid of her nightmare and found herself again. Finally, Monica looks back at Sophie and says goodbye to Sophie who exists in her soul. From then on, Sophie was not in her soul, but in her heart. She no longer regarded herself as Sophie, but kept Sophie's memory. ...
Although I also use the word "soul" to explain it, this soul is by no means another soul and can be interpreted as "deep soul". Therefore, this is definitely not a ghost film, and there is no ghost. Everything exists in the protagonist's psychology.
On the whole, the film is very interesting. For example, the self in the mirror still exists as a consciousness, and the self in the photo exists as a fact. These are the details that the director took pains to show.
Supplement 1:
"Although I also use the word' soul' to explain it, this soul is by no means another soul and can be interpreted as' deep soul'." Monica's mental journey is more like a dual personality, a psychological disorder, belonging to mental illness, and does not seem to involve the category of "soul".
Supplement 2:
Here, an analysis of Monica's life experience and character relationship may help to understand the film.
At the beginning of the film, Sophie mentioned in an argument with the editor that her memory before the age of 8 was blank. It can be inferred that this is the age when Monica was adopted or had a car accident. From then on, she began to have a dual personality and forgot her previous memories. According to the translation in the film, the young man in the restaurant said that Monica was his sister when arguing with the blonde, but her parents told her that Monica had died, so the identity of the man could be determined. According to the performance of several people in the restaurant, we can infer that the family structure is like this: the father is the restaurant owner, the mother is a blonde, the young man is his brother, and Monica is his sister. From the restaurant owner's eyes, which are always alert and hostile to Monica, we can see that he hates Monica. Since Monica and her brother are brothers and sisters, why didn't the restaurant owner accommodate her brother, but forced her biological mother to give up adoption? A detail gives the answer. In front of her biological mother's dresser, the blonde stroked Monica's face and said that she looked like her father. The father mentioned here is obviously not the owner of the restaurant, which means Monica is not his own, so his hostility to Monica is justified. When I was about 8 years old, Monica walked out of her old house, and her adoptive parents were waiting for her outside. Basically, I can draw the conclusion that when I was 8 years old, the restaurant owner found that Monica was not his own daughter and could not accommodate her, so my mother was forced to finally give her up for adoption.
Little Monica should have a good relationship with her adoptive parents. In Monica's memory, there are pictures of playing with Sophie, and Sophie and her adoptive mother (the white-haired woman) are affectionate, including the conversation between Monica and her adoptive mother in bed after the car accident. The little boy in the car is more likely to be the younger brother in the new family than the illusion of Monica's brother (that is, the young man in the restaurant and his first husband), because the little boy in the car has his head lying flat on Monica's lap, which is more like his brother's dependence on his sister. Immediately after the car accident, there was a scene in which Monica's left hand slipped off the boy's leg, so it seems that the boy should be real rather than an illusion. Sophie used to hold Monica's hand. After the accident, the hand wrapped outside could not be released, which obviously showed that Sophie was dead. Anyway, after the car accident, it's just Monica and her foster mother. Monica hid under Sophie's mask, and her foster mother began to paralyze herself with gambling. Both of them are escaping from reality, but her foster mother still treats Monica as her own.
Many people say that movies look messy. The reason for the confusion is that the director directly uses characters to express people's subtle psychological changes in order to amplify Monica's inner feelings of illusion and real confusion. In other words, although the viewer is on the sidelines as an outsider, the images actually seen are the images and emotions that can only be seen from the "first perspective" of the protagonist. The most typical example is Monica's Half Face. Sophie's left face and Monica's right face. These are the protagonists' own fantasies, but they look grotesque and realistic. What is illusion? What is truth? Maybe this is what the director wants to achieve,