What if everything you consider normal, suddenly disappears? No more cell phones, no more music services, no more streaming movies, no more news alerts, no more online payments, no more people everywhere you go. What if for the first time in years you have to face the question of your own identity, without football teams, or movie genres, or political parties, or religions, or anything that defines you? What will you be reduced to?
Leave The World Behind makes a smart cinematographic approach to those questions under Sam Esmail’s clever direction and Julia Robert’s greatest performance in years. But now, if in the midst of the grounded ships, the falling planes, the massive cyber attacks, the interpersonal conflicts, and the forbidden interests, you still have no idea what was going on in this movie, do not worry, because now and without further ado, we will explain the ending and everything else about this movie in detail. Let’s go.
1 ^ What is going on in Leave The World Behind? Is it a Civil War? An Invasion? An Attack?
Two big clues to understand what really happens in the film: 1) what G.H. (Mahershala Ali) tells Clay after leaving Danny’s (Kevin Bacon) house, and 2) what Rose (Farrah McKenzie) finds in the Thornes’ bunker.
From what G.H. tells Clay we know, in the universe of Leave The World Behind , the United States is under a coordinated attack, executed with extraordinary precision by some organization that wants to take power of the country and do it on a very low budget. Just as G.H. said, the plan has three stages: isolation, synchronized chaos, and collapse.
The first stage – isolation – consists of launching a massive and coordinated attack on the country’s entire communications and transportation system. Through an army of hackers, this organization managed to block the Internet, Radio, Television and all satellite communication in the United States, and managed to penetrate the whole transportation network that works with autopilots, such as oil tankers, airplanes, and of course, electric cars. In this way, not only is the country’s population is isolated, but also immobilized, leaving limited resources in the cities over which the population would soon enter into conflict.
The second stage – synchronized chaos – seeks to alter the psyche of the population with very well-planned attacks. And finally the collapse, caused by the country’s own population when they fight for their resources, or worse, when they want to eliminate the supposed cause of the chaos.
2 ^ What is the noise that is heard throughout the film? Where does it come from?
The noise heard during the film, as Danny seems to suggest, is a sonic weapon that uses microwaves at very high intensity, which can result in permanent damage to the body of anyone who is exposed to it, like Archie. The noise is part of the second stage of the attack that the United States is under, and together with the pamphlets in Arabic, Chinese, or Korean, which are found throughout the country, they leave the way clear for it to be consumed. the third stage, the collapse.
It is possible that this sonic weapon is in the same drones that are dropping the red pamphlets with fake information about an upcoming military invasion.
3 ^ Why did Archie’s teeth fall out? Why are deer and other animals behaving strangely?
The effect of the sonic weapon that they are using throughout the country not only generates alterations in human tissues, but also in animals, causing their behavioral patterns to alter, which is why we see birds flying by the hundreds towards New York, or hundreds of deer grouping together, trying to escape the strange noise.
This attacks were also acknowledged in the media, when they informed that natural disaster took place in The South, most probably caused by disoriented groups of animals.
4 ^ Who is bombing cities in the United States?
The attack seems to be a joint action of radical elements within the United States (who were in charge of all the local destruction), and foreign elements, who – with a small budget – want to take down the government of the United States. Now, the pamphlets were clearly intended to create panic among the population and make them believe that they were under imminent attack and that they must seek shelter and supplies at any cost, in effect creating a civil war.
Now, moving on to what we saw in the Thornes’ bunker, in addition to the seasons of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Friends, it is an information system that was not altered by the initial attack, an oscilloscope, which can detect lengths of tiny, or exaggeratedly large, waves that are not used within normal radio, television, or internet channels, and that indicated that 1) Washington DC and other cities are under attack by Rogue Armed Forces, and that 2) several population centers show high levels of radiation.
What is happening then? The main objective of the cyber attack was not the civil population, it was to disconnect the United States Armed Forces, which is why, after the massive disinformation attack, some of the local armed bases dedicated themselves to trying to control the main urban centers, and once there, they were attacked by other groups armed with nuclear weapons, who were made to believe that the enemy was within those cities. The plan is actually very simple, you disconnect the military bases from each other, and you make them believe that the enemy, the one that caused the blackouts, the communications crash, and the war propaganda are indeed in neighbor cities. Now it is just a matter of time that they start attacking each other, even with nuclear weapons, just like the civil population is in conflict for the few resources left.
5 ^ Who is behind the attack on the United States?
We all know the answer, but let’s elaborate on it. It is very interesting that Danny confirmed in a physical newspaper (that sounds weird) that Russian diplomats in the United States have left the embassy to return to Moscow. And it is also notable that none of the pamphlets mentioned are in Russian. So, within the context of the film, who is behind the chaos of the United States is not China, or North Korea, or Iran. It is Russia.
6 ^ What’s wrong with Amanda Sandford? Why does she hate people?
Amanda Sandford is a typical case of a misanthropist. But what in the world is that?
Misanthropy is the general hatred, dislike, or distrust of the human species, human behavior, or human nature. A misanthrope or misanthropist is someone who holds such views or feelings. Misanthropy involves a negative evaluative attitude toward humanity that is based on humankind’s flaws. Misanthropes hold that these flaws characterize all or at least the great majority of human beings. They claim that there is no easy way to rectify them short of a complete transformation of the dominant way of life. [1]
Misanthropy is not a psychological disorder, which should be treated with medicines, as seems to be the trend these days for everything you may find, it is just a point of view that generally comes from negative experiences around the construction and social context from which the individual comes. For Amanda, her job, in which she must read people very well, to sell them things they do not need, has allowed her to glimpse that human beings, in general – and including herself – are a species that destroys everything, only for meeting frivolous and superficial standards in front of other people with whom they have no ties other than sharing common spaces.
However, Amanda’s arc in the film involves understanding that the cause of her misanthropy is precisely the need she has for other people and not being self-sufficient, and Ruth (Myha’la) has a lot to do with that, because although she also considers that the human being, in general, is a negative element, she understands that the definition of human being is useless if it does not go through the ties that are established with other people.
7 ^ What does the end of Leave The World Behind mean?
Leaving The World Behind follow the trend of not having an explicit conclusion, apparently leaving an ending open to interpretation. But it’s not like that. The film, although it does not explicitly show what is going to happen, does leave all the ends closed, making it very easy to infer what is going to happen, and here is the list:
- Rose finally gets to watch the final episode of Friends at the Thorne house.
- Amanda and Ruth find Rose, and thus find the bunker where they can stay and survive until things calm down.
- The Scotts and the Sandfords form an alliance to survive once the civil war expands to suburban and rural territories.
8 ^ What is the message of the movie Leave The World Behind?
The film has two messages, the human and the political. The human is embodied by the character of Julia Roberts, who in fact states that what makes us human, worthy and capable of surviving even the worst adversities, are the bonds we form when we consider others as worthy as ourselves. When despite our differences and mistakes, we consider every human being on the planet as worthy as we ourselves. Without that consideration, we soon simply fall. This is also demonstrated by Clay, that if he had not had that great sense of trust with others, as he had with G.H., and later with Danny, he possibly would not have survived.
Now the political message is much more subtle but is fully connected to the previous one. It is no surprise that we are in a world under an ethereal cyberwar, where the simplest way to destroy a country is by forcing its population to not consider their own compatriots as human beings, to suspend any kind of communication with someone who is and thinks differently (isolation), that they panic when they believe that the other side is their enemy and affects their survival (synchronized chaos) and then they take to the streets to destroy each other (social outbreak, strikes). The United States, Chile, Colombia, France and Ecuador are just some examples where this same idea- extrapolated in the film – has occurred.
It is not that Leave The World Behind warns us of something that could happen, it is that it informs us of something that has already happened, of how we are manipulated within our own borders, through social networks, and how we come out, like sheep, to hate each other, while a minority enjoys the money and power given to them in the midst of chaos. A certain coup d’état. How long are we going to be victims of this type of manipulation? How far will we be able to go?
9 ^ Who was sleeping in the cabin in the woods? Who is the owner?
Well, first of all we must remember that Leave The World Behind is based on the novel of the same name written by Rumaan Alam, who has indicated in several interviews that he wrote his book taking advantage of and at the same time altering the common spaces of horror, such as, for example, the family that goes on a trip, the strangers that knock on the door in the middle of the night, the animals surrounding a house, the cabin in the forest and the strange figures marked on the floor. Generally these clichés develop into something terrifying and deadly as the stories progress, but in the book and movie they are just hints that something bad may happen, but never comes in the end. So the mark of the person in the cabin is simply someone who rents one of the local things to hunt and uses that position to rest between shots. No more.
10 ^ Where is Point Comfort?
Point Comfort is a fictional place that, in the universe of Leave The World Behind is a suburban community located in Long Island. According to the reference points in the movie, Point Comfort is a fictional version of Sands Point in Long Island. The movie was filmed in Old Westbury (where the house is located), Westchester County, and Smithtown, all in New York.
Questions? Annotations? More doubts? The comments section is open just below so feel free write. See you in the next installment of Ending Explained here at El Sabanero X.
[1] THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD PROBLEMS & HUMAN POTENTIAL http://encyclopedia.uia.org/en/problem/misanthropy 12/09/23
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