Spoiler
I was wondering whether the giddy final scene - where Lavant and Binoche emerge from the water and are "rescued" by the barge - was possibly forced on Carax by the studio? Pure speculation on my part, and I can't find any information online. I was taken aback by what seemed to me a very abrupt change in tone, especially after Lavant - mad with jealousy - had just tried to kill the both of them. Perhaps this jarring effect was what Carax intended, but I keep finding myself trying to "explain away" the ending somehow; to put it down to studio meddling or to recast it in my mind as a dying dream (someone pointed out to me that Binoche asks the old couple on the barge "Vous êtes marchands de sable?" - with "marchand de sable" also being the French name for the fairytale "sandman" who sprinkles magical sand into the eyes of children to bring dreams and sleep - is it at all possible that Carax is implying that this final scene is only a dream, or a post-death vision?)
I suppose I just really want for the two of them to have died there in the river, as to me that seems a more beautiful, moving and fitting ending - but perhaps this is my problem and not the film's!
I suppose I just really want for the two of them to have died there in the river, as to me that seems a more beautiful, moving and fitting ending - but perhaps this is my problem and not the film's!
