Monday 11 June 2012

The Ambiguous Orphanage

Ambiguity in fiction, or art in general, is a difficult thing to master. Take it too far and the audience is left confused, in a bad way. Is he a ghost or not? Was the guy at the beginning her father or her great-great-great-great-eighty-second-cousin-two-thousand-times-removed who's time traveled from the past to warn her about genetically modified wombats? If the audience is asking these questions there's a good chance they're dissatisfied, left without an answer. However, if the writer/filmmaker provides enough evidence for each explanation - he is both a ghost and not a ghost, both a father and a time-traveling great-great-great-great-eighty-second-cousin-two-thousand-times-removed - it can be a source of great pleasure for the reader/viewer.
                  The trick is in the intent. I wrote a story a while ago in which I wanted three possible readings.

  1. The narrator is a ghost.
  2. The narrator comes from the imagination of another character.
  3. The narrator is real.
                  If I hadn't intended these three readings, a reader's response would likely be '...I don't get it... Is he real or not?' As it is, I don't think I've fully achieved my intended result yet - no one has read it and wondered about all three possibilities. But neither has anyone been confused. People generally say something like 'I like it... he could be dead, or imaginary.' Not, 'is he dead, or is he imaginary?' Because the ambiguity is not a result of careless or clumsy writing - is, in fact, purposeful - it works.
                  The finest example I've seen of this recently is in the horror movie, The Orphanage, directed by J. A. Bayona. (Spoilers ahead!) 
                  The basic plot of The Orphanage is: Woman moves into a now closed-down orphanage she lived in briefly as a girl, along with her husband and their adopted son. They plan to open it up for children with special needs. The adopted son, who is HIV-positive, has a vivid imagination - he sees and befriends invisible children in the house. The son goes missing and his mother spends the rest of the film trying to find him, when everyone else has given up, growing more and more desperate. I won't reveal the ending.
                  The horror of this movie - and it is terrifying on a first viewing - is not due to gore (there is only a small amount). Neither is it really to do with the threat of violence. It comes through in the way the suspense is built, so slowly it becomes unbearable. It comes in the conflict between being unable to tear your eyes away from the screen because you know something will happen at any moment, and wanting with every stretching second to turn on the lights and play some happy music. And then you come to the end of the film and the horror becomes about emotion - the emotion of a mother who's lost her child and will go to any lengths to find him, the emotion of a husband trying to bring his wife to a better place but being pushed away for not believing in ghosts or mediums.
                  And then the ambiguity comes in. Is the mother right, or is the father? You build an argument for superstition, and then before you finish it a rational explanation presents itself in your mind. Even the most difficult events to question have reasonable answers. In one scene a medium is invited to the house. She goes into a trance and has a terrifying encounter with some dead children. Microphones are placed throughout the house, with corresponding monitors to show feedback. And there is feedback, lots of it. According to the medium, this is the children screaming. But if you know anything about this equipment you know that random feedback is a frequent occurrence, and the noise it produces can sound an awful lot like a distorted human voice. There is an explanation for everything. But the viewer doesn't say 'is it supposed to be real or not?' The viewer sits and discusses it for days with anyone else who's seen it, saying 'that was amazing... it was all real... but none of it was real.' The ambiguity makes it the film you remember.

7 comments:

  1. You've highlighted an interesting point there. Ambiguity in fiction and film can be tricky to work with, your post has made me realise that if it works it's largely down to the explanation given - the big reveal moment. I guess this is particularly relevant to ghost and mystery stories, ultimately it has to be about the ending. Take The Sixth Sense, the story works fine as simply a story, but it's only satisfying because suddenly you realise what was really happening throughout the film.

    Excellent stuff, I'm going to bear this in mind in future. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad it's given you stuff to think about! It's one of the things that concerns me most in writing, and something I'm always always thinking about!

      Delete
  2. '- no one has read it and wondered about all three possibilities'!!!!
    No one? Ahem!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ...No one apart from Jim! Haha sorry Jim, momentary memory lapse!

      Delete
  3. Very interesting stuff here. I agree with Angela, it's given me something new to think about when I'm writing. Sometimes ambiguity can be a happy accident, but I think it's definitely best when there is definite intention.
    In the case of the orphanage, the 'debate' about whether it's real or paranormal can go on for days, and I think it's only with the second viewing that we came anywhere close to a definite decision! But even that is still our own opinion...others may differ...
    I'd love to write something that a reader kept wanting to re-read and pick up hints and clues as to where the truth lies...would you say that as a writer you need to know the answer yourself? Or is it maybe just as much of a mystery to you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well I know in my case I had a definite preference for the second explanation - the narrator was a character conjured from the imagination of another. So among the clues/suggestions for this I made sure the other character had a strong motivation for needing an 'imaginary' friend to talk to, and I made the other character an author - someone who already imagines people into existence on a daily basis. But obviously I didn't want the reader to just subscribe to that viewpoint, so I laid hints for the other two possibilities as well. It could be interesting for the writer not being able to make up their mind, but this could show through, that there's some uncertainty, a lack of focus on the part of the writer. On the other hand, if the writer knows the answer 100% he may subconsciously give that answer more preference and obscure the others. So I think it would be best for the writer to know the answer, though perhaps not a hundred percent necessary. Maybe the writer's uncertainty could become a big part of the story/novel/whatever!

      Delete
    2. It would be interesting to play around with it a bit. Just a suggestion, but maybe it would be worth re-writing scenes (maybe even the whole story) three times? One where each time you as the writer know for definite what the truth is. So you'd write the story once where you know he's definitely a ghost, but hint at the other two. Then rewrite where you know he's from the other characters imagination etc.. It might help you decide for yourself!

      Delete