Thursday, March 12, 2009
Ratso dies with life fulfilled
There is an underlining message when it comes to Ratso and his name. Several times during the film he asks Joe not to call him Ratso but instead his real name Enrique. Ratso was the name given to by people who dispised him and called him what he was a thief and a scum. However as he and joe begin to develop a friendship he constantly asked not to be called ratso. Maybe joe would call him Enrique once bu then went right back to Ratso. During Ratso's fantasies he dreams on a beach in Florida having a good time with a good friend Joe. In the last scene on the way down Ratso finally makes it down to Florida with his good friend Joe Buck who calls him Enrique. Oh yea on the bus he was also surrounded by all those old ladies he fantasized about about.
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I wasn't sure if those old ladies were the one's he fantasized about, but since you said it too now, I'm more inclined to think it.
ReplyDeleteI understood the ending of the movie as basically the opposite, though I can entirely see where you are coming from. I interpreted the ending to mean that his dream was a failure. Just as he is moments away from his dream, he dies. In the fantasy, he outruns Joe; but he is unable to even walk by the time they go on the bus to Florida. The women on the bus (which may or may not have been the ones from his fantasy) ignore him the entire time. I mean, the guy wets himself and they still don't even notice. They don't see him until they realize there is a corpse on the bus with them. That's just my opinion, but I think the ending was meant to show that his dreams could never come true, just as Joe's dream to become a hustler cowboy in New York just couldn't happen.
ReplyDeleteWhen we watched it I was thinking damn he was so close. But now that you put it like that, I have to agree with you. He did get what he wanted and it was a fufilling ending for him. He also got Joe Buck out of a bad life in New York and to Florida where he could start a new better life.
ReplyDeleteSorry fellas, I don't agree with you here. Ratso pursues a false dream to the gates of death and beyond. For him, there is nothing. He's dead. The focus is on Joe. He sacrifices his own dreams to save Ratso, and in so doing, saves himself. The message is essentially Christian morality. The metaphor of rebirth is quite clear. THe old Joe has to die so he can be reborn into a new life. The mechanism of his rebirth is his sacrifice for Ratso. The movie is named after him. It is his story, not Ratso's.
ReplyDeleteYour point about the women on the bus is good. They do appear to be older and uglier (grotesque is the word) examples of the women in his dream. This is the reality. The other was fantasy.
The women was more of a joke. As for the theme of christian rebirth I strongly disagree. There maybe a theme of rebirth bot there is no spiritual rebirth at all. Also I think that his fantasy's main point was hanging out with his good friend Joe. Joe often neglects Ratso throughout the film and its not until the end that he no longer calss hom Ratso signifying the beging of there new friendship even if it doesn't last very long. Therefore in the aspect of finding himself a friend his fantasy becomes reality
ReplyDeleteI agree with Mr Bennett here. I don't think Ratso's life was fulfilled. He never actually saw Florida and his crazy dream never became a reality. The movie is more about Joe Buck rather than Ratso. However, those women on the bus were probably meant to look like the women from Ratso's fantasy.
ReplyDeleteThough it's Joe's story, Ratso found someone to satisfy his lonliness. Maybe it wasn't exactly what he wanted, but Joe didn't see him as a rat, he saw him as a friend. Their friendship contributed to Joe's transformation. His life wasn't for nothing.
ReplyDelete