A festivalgoer has applauded the closing credits of an ambiguous drama with enough authority to conceal the fact that he has no idea whether its final scene was a memory, a dream or a problem with the subtitles.
Attendee Martin Vale began clapping three seconds before anyone else, establishing himself as the room’s leading expert on whatever had happened with the cupboard.
When asked for his interpretation, he called the film brave, then allowed a silence long enough for the other person to supply one.
He agreed immediately. He had, he added, been thinking particularly about space. This was safe because the film had contained several rooms.
The strategy nearly failed when somebody asked whether he preferred the director’s earlier work. Martin recovered by saying this one felt more assured, which can be said about absolutely anything except a faulty stepladder.
He is now writing a four-star review describing the ending as a refusal of easy answers. He would personally have welcomed one extremely easy answer: whether the woman had collected her parcel.
At the next screening he plans to sit closer to the front, where confusion is more readily mistaken for professional concentration.
