O'boy scene describes Elin

Discuss Lukas Moodysson's first feature film Fucking Åmål (Show me Love).

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O'boy scene describes Elin

Postby Nemo_Me » Thu Feb 02, 2006 2:41 am

I was just thinking, everyone thinks Elins talk about the O'boy is pointless but I see a big connection between the things she says about the O'boy and her real life, or how it used to be before she met Agnes. She always used to try filling her life with too much, making out with millions of boys and stuff like that, just like she put too much O'boy into the milk. And then when she finds out that it's too dark, that her life is too full of things she doesn´t really need, she tries to even it out with milk, or in real life the 'milk' is when she goes depressed, and does nothing, doesn´t want to hang out with anyone and thinks everything is so boring. Then the glass isn´t big enough, just as her real life is, she feels like she's too big (not literally) for Åmål. Then she tries to pour it into another bigger glass, just like she dreams of moving to a bigger town than 'fucking javla-kuk Åmål'. Then she sees the pointless in all of it, the only thing she ends up is a lot of coco-milk.
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Postby Anny » Sun Feb 05, 2006 2:40 am

interesting point! i thought about that too. and maybe this scene at the beginning (where one sees elin the first time) has something to do with if too. i think the main aspect is to show, that elin in different from jessica in "a special" way... and i don't mean it's how they like to drink their choco-milk! i guess everyone knows that it should be a metapher. there is just one point i'm asking myself: why got elin so angry? maybe she knew before that she's lesbian (or will find out about that soon) or something like that, who knows...
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Postby Nemo_Me » Sun Feb 05, 2006 11:33 pm

Anny wrote:interesting point! i thought about that too. and maybe this scene at the beginning (where one sees elin the first time) has something to do with if too. i think the main aspect is to show, that elin in different from jessica in "a special" way... and i don't mean it's how they like to drink their choco-milk! i guess everyone knows that it should be a metapher. there is just one point i'm asking myself: why got elin so angry? maybe she knew before that she's lesbian (or will find out about that soon) or something like that, who knows...

I think Elin always got so angry because she knew something was missing. She made out with a thousand boys yes, but something was missing, and she had no idea. I don't think Elin's a lesbian. I think she's bisexual and was looking for someone who understood here and respected her. Johan was nice yes, but Agnes was the only one who really understood her. And that's why she fell in love with her.
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Postby Anny » Mon Feb 06, 2006 11:05 pm

Nemo_Me wrote: I don't think Elin's a lesbian. I think she's bisexual


maybe it was what i wanted to believe... :wink:
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Postby kant1781 » Sun Feb 12, 2006 1:00 pm

Discussing the last scene will never stop it seems.... good! :)
I absolutely agree with you that it’s not meaningless at all. I’m not sure if the chocolate milk is really a „symbol“ for anything, but it’s true that in a way Elin describes herself or rather her life in her little monologue. This is how I see it:
I think the best way to bring out the meaning of the O’boy scene is to imagine what would be missing if it hadn’t been added to the script. The film would have ended with Agnes and Elin walking away from the schoolyard, which would have made a rather conventional, triumphant Hollywood-style ending – „me and you together, happy forever“. But I think that it is part of the magic of Fucking Åmål that it does not end this way. Because everybody knows that this is not how such stories really end. The typical Hollywood romance ending is a lie, and everybody knows that. Fucking Åmål does not tell this lie. It does not end with false promises, like Agnes and Elin walking away into a huge setting sun on the horizon or embarking on a white carriage to Stockholm. It shows Elin and Agnes where they were all the time, right there in Åmål. This points to the fact that life goes on and that the real problems for them still lie ahead. Fucking Åmål stays true to its realism: On the one hand, the film shows how happy Agnes and Elin are, how perfectly comfortable they feel with each other – for the first time, Elin seems to be completely relaxed and at ease with herself, while Agnes is all smiles and giggles, and the two have the time to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. On the other hand, the film doesn’t cheat: It doesn’t deny the fact that this moment will pass, that the two will have to stand new conflict and fights against everybody in Åmål, but also between themselves. So we cannot know what is going to happen. But we can believe in them. And this makes the ending all the more powerful, because that's how life is. No »happy ever after« ending is guaranteed. But the thing is, we can believe in Agnes and Elin precisely because the realness of this ending. That’s why we care for them so much more than for all the other film couples. We can relate to them and we can aspire to be like them exactly because what’s happening here is so true and realistic.
Now, what about the chocolate milk? I think it’s there to teach us this lesson. Elin pauses and thinks of the way she used to be: desperately searching for fulfilment, trying to get the darkest, sweetest and most intense chocolate milk possible out of life, struggling and fighting against anyone who tried to hold her back. This obviously makes the film come full circle, it reconnects it with its beginning, when Elin mindlessly attacked Jessica for finishing the last drops of O’boy. Fucking Åmål begins with a relentless fight over chocolate milk in which nobody gets to have any. But now it ends with a gentle sharing of it, showing that Elin finally found what she had been looking for and how much she has changed. And it's no coincidence then that she finally gets to have the happy sip of O'boy that she, or rather her former self, didn't get in the beginning, just exactly in the very second when Agnes looks up at her with that laugh and that precious look of love. But on the other hand, if you pay attention you’ll notice that Elin doesn’t speak in past tense when she talks about her trouble: „I usually... Jessica gets mad! I use two grams of milk and 5,000 kg of chocolate. And it's always nearly black and then... Then I usually pour in more milk, but then the glass isn't big enough. Then I have to pour it into a bigger glass - or another glass if there isn't a big one. It makes a lot of chocolate milk.“ And this is just the realism that I was referring to: Elin is perfectly aware that this is how it is, even now, and how it’s gonna be. The world hasn’t changed. Life goes on, and there’ll be hard times ahead just like before, and a lot of tough fights, especially with Jessica. But – and this „but“ is what is new, this is the crucial difference that meeting Agnes means to Elin and makes her a new person: „But that doesn't matter!
She has found someone. So let them come!
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Postby slarti » Thu Feb 16, 2006 8:59 pm

My perception of the last scene always has been, that it was well, really funny adding a last bit of comic relief into the movie, just after the "dramatic" comming out of the (well not closet) scene.

On the other hand one could interprete the whole chocolate milk discussion as an allusion on Eijlin's constant struggle for being different then those around her.
It goes like this:
"I'm special, and i show this by drinking really strange kinds of chocolate milk."
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Postby Agnes&Elin Forever! » Thu Jan 10, 2008 7:59 pm

I think it's both a comic relief moment, and that it describes Elins energy and restlessness in a funny way, and of course the whole scene is also so cute and romantic :D

And the Robyn song also works perfectly, to have a song by Broder Daniel for the end titles would have been totally wrong.

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