For me, the movie Arizona Dream gives a great account of how dangerous it can be to be caught up in your dreams and the little worlds those dreams can create and if you don't move beyond, you're dead alive. The only character that seems to be able to step out of his own little world and capable of reflecting is Axel. All throughout the film nobody else changes, but Axel.
Leo, a caring but wallowed in guilt character, can not see his nephew as a real person but just a boy who'd take over his business once he dies. He's so caught up in his own version of reality that he doesn't see that Axel has grown up in the meantime and may want to figure out life for himself. Leo tries to shove down his world as a ready-made future for Axel, who has none of it. At the same time, Axel can grow beyond this when Leo commits suicide and offers to help his uncle in his car-dealer business. Axel seems to have a deep appreciation for life a trait no one else seems to have in the movie.
Elaine is completely caught up in her childhood dream for flying in order to overcome her own depression. The only thing that matters for her is her own survival. She is unaware how much she steals any independence from her stepdaughter and her self-serving nature makes her empty a trait that Axel recognizes by the end of the film. In contrast, Axel is first drawn to this quirky world of flying high as it seems real, but once he discovers that flying is only a form of displacement for Elaine, he sees through her and she looses her magnetic energy for him.
Grace is the only other person capable of growing besides Axel in the movie. In her first appearances she seems like a two-dimensional depressed character totally overshadowed by a sexy stepmother and consequently too depressed to be more than a little destructive animal. At the same time she seems to relate to others at least emotionally her destructiveness at least seems like a form of connection to others. Towards the end of the movie, she can grow beyond herself and can start showing love and appreciation the other side of her negative emotions and thus turns into a real person. But this transformation is too much for her psyche as she doesn't know how to live a healthy life, and even though Axel recognizes the real person in her, she chooses to kill herself she has no choice, really.
Axel who at least makes the effort to connect with characters, symbolizes the strength one needs to grow up and beyond what is around him. He's the most involved emotionally but because he's not caught up in his dream or because his dream is abstract enough, he can stay detached while being attached. He's capable of caring and he's the one who's always there for more adult people who need help and he delivers: One thing I was sure about: The moment my parents died, my childhood was gone forever. And it was gone forever, he becomes more of a grown up than most grown ups around him. He knows how to keep a distance even when Grace abuses him and there's only one point in the movie when he almost looses it when Grace invites him to play Russian roulette.
For me, the Eskimo scene wonderfully sums up why we are here and that's something I think Axel finds for himself by the end of the film. Instead of the existential questions brought by the first Eskimo scene how do you survive by love; nature can kill you and save you; why do we replicate our lives in inhuman conditions; in the last Eskimo scene he just talks about fish with his uncle. The message, for me at the end was that instead of asking all these questions you just get on with your life, learn a trade you love and your life grows into the answers. At the same time, coming to understand this, you may have to go through a real emotional discovery of love, dreams, reincarnation, death and if at the end you survive and strong enough, life might be worth living.
It seems that Axel was lucky to have had the guidance he received from his parents, but he had to experience them through his own skin. That's how he embarks at living in New York as his Mom suggested that New York has one of the eight magnetic pulls. But initially he chooses a job that not only allows daydreaming but also fosters it; he tags fish for an organization. Later, he's taken or dragged into a more real life, but a life still of dreams and not his own yet he moves first into his uncle's dreams and then into Elaine's and Grace's. First he has to discover responsibility by rejecting his uncle and he has to discover love and death through love. It's only after these experiences that he can leave other people's lives and dreams and start his own. It's a wonderful fairy tale where a young boy wades through the quotations from his parents to discover his own place and soul.
"Good morning, Columbus." My mother's eternal words, reminding me America was already discovered, and that daydreaming was a long way from life's truths."
"For 15 years, he'd smooth down the road between Mexico and Arizona, and every morning he'd be out there looking for footprints in the dirt. But my father always said that work was like a hat you put on your head. And even without pants, you didn't have to be ashamed of your ass."
Leo, a caring but wallowed in guilt character, can not see his nephew as a real person but just a boy who'd take over his business once he dies. He's so caught up in his own version of reality that he doesn't see that Axel has grown up in the meantime and may want to figure out life for himself. Leo tries to shove down his world as a ready-made future for Axel, who has none of it. At the same time, Axel can grow beyond this when Leo commits suicide and offers to help his uncle in his car-dealer business. Axel seems to have a deep appreciation for life a trait no one else seems to have in the movie.
Elaine is completely caught up in her childhood dream for flying in order to overcome her own depression. The only thing that matters for her is her own survival. She is unaware how much she steals any independence from her stepdaughter and her self-serving nature makes her empty a trait that Axel recognizes by the end of the film. In contrast, Axel is first drawn to this quirky world of flying high as it seems real, but once he discovers that flying is only a form of displacement for Elaine, he sees through her and she looses her magnetic energy for him.
Grace is the only other person capable of growing besides Axel in the movie. In her first appearances she seems like a two-dimensional depressed character totally overshadowed by a sexy stepmother and consequently too depressed to be more than a little destructive animal. At the same time she seems to relate to others at least emotionally her destructiveness at least seems like a form of connection to others. Towards the end of the movie, she can grow beyond herself and can start showing love and appreciation the other side of her negative emotions and thus turns into a real person. But this transformation is too much for her psyche as she doesn't know how to live a healthy life, and even though Axel recognizes the real person in her, she chooses to kill herself she has no choice, really.
Axel who at least makes the effort to connect with characters, symbolizes the strength one needs to grow up and beyond what is around him. He's the most involved emotionally but because he's not caught up in his dream or because his dream is abstract enough, he can stay detached while being attached. He's capable of caring and he's the one who's always there for more adult people who need help and he delivers: One thing I was sure about: The moment my parents died, my childhood was gone forever. And it was gone forever, he becomes more of a grown up than most grown ups around him. He knows how to keep a distance even when Grace abuses him and there's only one point in the movie when he almost looses it when Grace invites him to play Russian roulette.
For me, the Eskimo scene wonderfully sums up why we are here and that's something I think Axel finds for himself by the end of the film. Instead of the existential questions brought by the first Eskimo scene how do you survive by love; nature can kill you and save you; why do we replicate our lives in inhuman conditions; in the last Eskimo scene he just talks about fish with his uncle. The message, for me at the end was that instead of asking all these questions you just get on with your life, learn a trade you love and your life grows into the answers. At the same time, coming to understand this, you may have to go through a real emotional discovery of love, dreams, reincarnation, death and if at the end you survive and strong enough, life might be worth living.
It seems that Axel was lucky to have had the guidance he received from his parents, but he had to experience them through his own skin. That's how he embarks at living in New York as his Mom suggested that New York has one of the eight magnetic pulls. But initially he chooses a job that not only allows daydreaming but also fosters it; he tags fish for an organization. Later, he's taken or dragged into a more real life, but a life still of dreams and not his own yet he moves first into his uncle's dreams and then into Elaine's and Grace's. First he has to discover responsibility by rejecting his uncle and he has to discover love and death through love. It's only after these experiences that he can leave other people's lives and dreams and start his own. It's a wonderful fairy tale where a young boy wades through the quotations from his parents to discover his own place and soul.
"Good morning, Columbus." My mother's eternal words, reminding me America was already discovered, and that daydreaming was a long way from life's truths."
"For 15 years, he'd smooth down the road between Mexico and Arizona, and every morning he'd be out there looking for footprints in the dirt. But my father always said that work was like a hat you put on your head. And even without pants, you didn't have to be ashamed of your ass."