无尽

没时间读完的朋友，简单总结就是导演说了，结尾是happy ending，不是loop，兄弟俩逃出生天。

http://collider.com/the-endless-explained-interview/

‘The Endless’ Filmmakers on Their Trippy Mythology & Deciphering That Ending

This week, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead‘s The Endless rolls out on Blu-ray and digital, which means that folks nationwide are going to be unravelling the headtrip horrors of the film’s unnerving, mysterious Lovecraftian mythology and looking for some answers.Earlier this month, I published the first part of my conversationwith the filmmaking duo, which spanned from the duo’s early ideas for expanding the universe they built in their first film, Resolution, to the experience of taking the finished versionThe Endless around the world. And now that the movie has hit more theaters, it seems like a good time to serve up the spoilery portion of the interview, which dives into what to make of the film’s mysterious mythology and ending.

If you need a refresher, The Endless follows Benson and Moorhead as Justin and Aaron (yes, they’re using their real names, but no, they’re no playing themselves), a pair of bickering brothers always at odds who return to the UFO death cult they escaped as kids in search of answers. Except when they get there, they don’t find a UFO death cult at all, but a happy and healthy, if admittedly weird and unsettling, commune of people living life on their own terms. They also find something more sinister lurking in the hillsides of the remote camp — an unseen, oppressive presence that communicates through voyeuristic photographs and video clips, trapping people in time-loop prisons where it manipulates and torments them into various horrific fates for its own amusement. A frontiersman trapped in a loop of mere seconds, a man who has to kill himself every few minutes to prevent a worse fate, and the local cult, who have it relatively easy by comparison — living out a decently long three-moon loop that ends with their “ascension,” aka being shredded into bloody bits. Yikes. At least they don’t have to worry about aging.

Image via Well Go USA

And of course, there’s the return of Mike (Peter Ciella) and Chris (Vinny Curran) from Resolution,who are trapped in the bitter week-long loop of forced sobriety and failing friendship detailed in the 2002 film. The unseen evil in The Endless is the same chilling cosmic threat we met in Resolution, and the films share more crossovers thanyou’d probably imagine on a first watch, so you’re looking for more answers on The Endless, a rewatch of Resolution is the perfect place to start. Or first watch if you caught The Endless first, which works just as well.

However, if you’re looking for an easy play-by-play explanation of what goes down in the film, you’re not going to get it from Benson and Moorhead, who insist everything you need to solve the puzzles of their unconventional cinematic universe can be found right there on screen. However, the duo was more than happy to dive into the ideation behind the film’s mythology and the mindset behind ending it the way they did, so check out the interview below for a discussion of the different ways their “monster” is revealed through the characters and settings in the film, the ideas that helped inspire the unseen menace, and why the ending is more about character payoff than answering specific questions.

I know you guys have said you have this whole mythology totally down from top to tail. Was that something that you had already achieved at the time ofResolutionor did that come later?

JUSTIN BENSON: It’s definitely expanded.

AARON MOORHEAD: The rules didn’t change.

BENSON: But like withResolutionthere were … In both of these movies, there have been massive documents of things that people never see. And it’s really cool because we’re pretty sure people feel these things in the movie. The things that are into that. But like in the case ofResolution, for example. The unseen antagonist ofResolution, which is the same unseen antagonist inThe Endless, obviously. Except inResolution, the point of view of the whole film is from the unseen antagonist. There was like a massive document that went into everything about that “monster” that went to our sound designer to help them design the sound of the whole film. So that existed duringResolutionand there are things in that document that ended up more conspicuous inThe Endlessthan expanded upon. That’s just like one example of one thing.

When it comes to how nailed down the mythology is… Whenthe camera pulls back on that canyon and you see all those bubbles, the time prisons, would you be able to look at that shot and say exactly what’s happening in each one of them?

Image via Well Go USA

MOORHEAD: I can tell you how long those loops are, when they reset, and all of that. That exact area, we know it pretty well. And that’s desert, so there’s a whole bunch of poor animals. It’s probably something like that, but I wouldn’t say that we have an entire map of the world and who’s in it. But it wouldn’t be hard to theorize. We definitely have enough. So it would be pretty easy to take a good gander. And then, the little sequence that — the music trimmings for the montage that follows Justin and Aaron walking past the big totem and it’s in the sort of monolith carved monster looking thing.

BENSON: The rusty dragon sculpture.

MOORHEAD: And the rusty dragon sculpture. So those would all be individual loops that have developed their own sub-cultures and have their own interpretation of what this unseen antagonist is. Depending on how they saw it, the state of mind they’re in, and their own personalities, and all of that. And that these things they’ve created are artistic representations of how they see the antagonist. Whether they’re going specifically through the loop you see in the distance, because they do walk off, that we don’t know. And luckily, we only shot in 4K so you can’t really punch in. [Laughs]

BENSON: And what’s funny is … it’s weird how important that sequence was to us because in the movie we basically, the oldest loop that you ever see is what, 1800 something? Some kind of frontiersman like in a tent, but we have a non-existent Easter Island type subculture that developed its own kind of mythology around it. Clearly. And of course, Native Americans with the totem pole. But even the monolith to us — which is kind of the big image of the film anyways — to us. it’s supposed to scare the hell out of you when you realize that’s what that is. When you realize that, that’s the antagonist of the film as seen by people that are so ancient they’re gone in America.

In a similar vein, along with those monoliths I loved the ways we see this presence interpreted through the eyes of the characters in the film, like Lizzie’s art and Hal’s equation. What was your process of creating all these different understandings of this one being?

MOORHEAD: I mean, that’s something that did start with Resolution but it’s so small. It’s so small. It’s like literally there’s a journal running during the credits sequence of Resolution. It’s a bunch of monster sketches, and that would have been what the French researchers in Resolution were seeing it as. So that goes way back. I don’t even remember anymore what the inspiration for that was. Besides the fact that, unless you can get Giger, the guy who did Alien, unless you have a designer on that level to build a monster … We’re just trying to figure out ways that we can present it visually when we need to at least hint at something and not just show nothing, always. And in this case, we get to show it through sketches, and through sculptures, and things like that.

Image via Well Go USA

In the case of Spring, we showed a monster because the premise alluded to nature as being our designer. And since we don’t have our own Giger, we come up with these, hopefully interesting, clever ways to show an otherworldly being or “monster” and it won’t be really uneventful.

I mean if you wanted to pour a glass of wine, on a dark night and think about it. There’s this idea of every civilization has developed an idea of a deity and a God. And their interpretation of it has trickled down into our religions today. Or died out. But in the same way, their visualizations of it have looked so wildly different. And a lot of the time there’s the idea that … There’s two ideas. One is, what if it’s the same thing? What if they’re all the same thing? Of course, unified religion theory, which is kind of an idea that we play with. But we’re merging it with the idea of, what if wasn’t God? What if it was just a monster? Or what if people with porphyria were seen as vampires? You know, that kind of an idea where it’s like, “Oh, there’s nothing metaphysical about it.” Obviously, our movie’s metaphysical. But what if it was a natural phenomenon that people just tried to interpret as a god. And that’s a lot of what we’re talking about with this; they saw it as God and it’s actually just this thing.

BENSON: And as you saying that, I just remembered where it comes from. It comes from … This is a deep cut. There’s a guy named John Keel, who’s the guy who wrote The Mothman Prophecies. The book is very different from the movie. It’s not a fictional narrative. It’s sort of a journalist’s account of what happened in an area over a period of time. He wrote a whole collection of other books. The one that I’ve read is Our Haunted Planet and what it’s basically about is this concept of ultra-terrestrials.

I’m not saying it is an ultra-terrestrial in this movie, but the idea is that throughout human history whenever human beings saw something and interpreted it as being like, “Oh, I saw something. That was an angel from the bible.” Or, “That was a demon.” Or, “That was an extraterrestrial being.” “That was the Men in Black.” “That was the Mothman.” Whatever. That it’s actually always the same thing. In his case, he was arguing that it was this thing called an ultraterrestrial. That just basically, something that had been here among us, always manipulating the situation and everyone just seeing it differently depending on their culture. So it’s vaguely where the idea comes from. If you could imagine, there are so many species that we haven’t yet cataloged in the Amazon. Things like that. Imagine if there’s like an enormous blind spot that we just completely missed; one really big thing. Again, that’s not what’s in The Endless but it’s that idea.

I do have one very specific question. Are we meant to interpret at the end where we see the image of two cars coming into a collision, that it has anything to do with the car crash that put them there in the first place?

MOORHEAD: No.That’s an interesting one where we realized that was an unintentional thing. About 10% percent of people, they’ll kind of have that question of like, “Do they?”

When I watch Resolution andThe Endless back to back, something I had not picked up the first time was, they seem almost opposite ending moments. Resolution ends on a feeling of helplessness and being trapped and The Endless is all about breaking free. Was that intentionally designed for those two endings to be on opposite ends of the emotional spectrum?

MOORHEAD: Oh, that’s funny. I’m going to give you a yes and no. I think afterSpring, we got addicted to optimistic endings. I think we realized that we are just optimistic people and saying like, “You’re fucked no matter what” is just not our feeling about the way that life is, or at least the message that we want to put out into the world. And also, frankly, it more comes down to the construct of The Endless where, if you’re talking in really broad terms about the movie. If you’re talking about the fact that it says, “Break out of your cycle or be doomed to repeat history forever.” It seems like we should be showing what it looks like to break out of your cycle. And like, “Does that help you?” I don’t think it’s a moral as much as it’s an exploration of it. Because there are people that do enjoy it inside their cycle. I mean, the cult at the end. And you don’t even feel bad for them. A little bit, but it’s more melancholy. It’s like, “Oh. They kind of enjoy it there.” But I think that it would have been untruthful for ourselves if we’d ended it as dark as Resolution had ended.

BENSON: Yeah. It just seemed like we know, yes there is a very literal answer to the movie. And the answers in the film…It may take a few viewings, but everything’s very literal and all the evidence, if you want to call it that, is there. In terms of, where’s the movie ending in the sense of the supernatural, and otherworldly, and the sci-fi aspects, and all that.

But the thing that’s definite, that’s there, that was the most important to us, was just that you’d see that there was a transformation in the interpersonal relationship between these two brothers. And that you’d see that transformation in just a really understated gesture. And that the emotional satisfaction should come from that. I think anything else beyond that, we do things stylistically to kind of like poke the mystery part of people’s brains a little bit. One example is that it’s a hard cut going out. Things like that where just like you sit there and you go, “Oh, wait. There’s another piece of the puzzle to figure out.” To think about longer. It’s things like that. But there’s definitely one answer to the sci-fi part of it.

MOORHEAD: Actually going back to your questions, I just remembered when you said, “People who have viewed the movie multiple times.” There’s something that’s an interesting thing we’ve realizes. Our movies kind of exist in what people have called a Lynchian sort of universe where just things are a little off and all of that. I hadn’t seen almost any Lynch when that comparison started, but what’s interesting is, all of the answers to the movie are, I promise you, they’re in the movie. They are there. It’s not a dream logic situation. We’re not being deliberately obtuse. We just want to tell a mystery that’s got a lot of depth to it. And we just don’t want to lay it all out on the table but they’re in there. If you think about it long enough and hard enough. And you know, you might have to take a couple of, not leaps of logic but leaps of faith that like, “Okay. That is what they meant.” Something like that. But our movies are meant to be, I guess literal. That might be the word for it. They are meant to be telling a full story.

尝试解释影片的前因后果，但感觉很多地方都会矛盾，很难自圆其说。就像片中的营地男子所说的，他自己也无法解释到底发生了什么。

首先录影带、照片这种BUG物品先放一边，它们用上帝或导演的视角都解释不通。

1循环区域

片中的循环类似于电影《土拨鼠日》，但本片在同一地区出现了若干不同的时空循环区域。这些区域类似于平行空间，不同区域的人并不能互相看见。诡异的是这些区域的循环周期也不相同。比如帐篷里的老头每隔5秒就经历一次从死到生的循环。虽然他拥有了永生，但更像是永世不得超生。这一幕的确令人震撼。令人想到古代神话里月亮上的吴刚，永远陷在砍树的死循环里。

从已知的几个循环来看，5秒钟的帐篷老头，3小时的上吊男，时间未知的自焚男（感觉周期也不会超过1天），循环周期结束时，对应空间内所有物体会重置，空间内的人会被杀死，而且死得很惨。随后会重生，但人的记忆会保留，所以这些经历过重置的人宁愿上吊甚至自焚来逃避更惨烈的死法。这个设定的矛盾是，当营地重置时，那个带锁小屋里的录像带并不会重置，以至于保存了很多以前的录像带（归根到底这些录像带及照片都是BUG物品）。

2.惯性记忆

只有5秒的老头为什么每次都要朝同一方向冲去。我觉得他可能最初有个起身冲的想法，这个想法在他被重置时仍然保留了下来，以至于他在这5秒生命里惯性地重复着这个动作，事实上他也可以冲向其他地方。这样就可以解释为什么吸毒男和自焚男被重置后每次见面的台词都一样。也是记忆的惯性。

3.到底过了多少年

如果能和5秒老头交流，他对时间的概念一定是最薄弱的，因为他的时间完全被碎片化了，而自焚男认为他自己只被困了几个星期，实际上他十年前已经认识男主了，他的时间误差也很巨大。然而上吊男虽然看上去暴躁无脑，他的时间却是精准的，他知道男主是十年前离开的，并且很准确地说这一切是从09年开始的。而当前最晚算18年的话，十年前就是08年，也就是说在男主至少离开一年以后，上吊男陷入了3小时的死循环。

而5秒老头以及自焚男这些死循环也应该是在男主带着弟弟离开以后发生的（或是刚刚发生），因为过程太诡异了。当时年幼的男主如果见到他们不可能没有印象。

4营地的循环

而营地的循环开始时间就不那么好判断了。如果按照小屋内的录像带年份来看，循环早在兄弟俩被救到营地之前就开始了，而且周期比较长，在兄弟俩小时候逃离营地时还没重置。按这种算法，营地的人甚至可能是20-30年代的人，那重置时的服装应该是古老的样式，然而片尾那些刚刚重置的人们衣服仍然是现代样式。

抛开录像带从另一角度看，这里先从和自焚男同一时空的吸毒男说起，吸毒男和上吊男是一起玩枪的朋友，他认为自己一年前还和上吊男有来往。而上吊男09年开始就陷入循环，之后不可能接触到其他人了。那么吸毒男所在空间的年份最迟也就是10年左右。他和自焚男最迟在10年就陷入了死循环。而自焚男却觉得只是过了几个礼拜，只能说他的循环周期要小于几个礼拜，实际上要远远小于，可能只能按小时算或更短，导致他对时间也没什么数。而营地里来了自焚男的妻子，这个妻子不可能如她所说刚来营地找丈夫，因为丈夫早在10年左右就失踪了。所以她来营地的时间应该也是10年左右。（而此时男主已经离开，两人不认识也很合理）。而她不可能找丈夫找个七八年，她觉得自己才找了几个礼拜。所以营地的周期也就不会超过几个礼拜。而循环开始的时间是男主带着弟弟离开以后。

所以，如果抛开录像带及照片这些无法调和的矛盾。故事的脉络可以是这样的。

营地最初生活着一群有共同宗教信仰或生活理念的人。有一天他们救了两个发生车祸的小男孩，之后两个男孩就留在了营地生活。随着时间的推移几年以后，营地渐渐变得奇怪。发生了诡异的事情。大点的男孩感到害怕，带着弟弟离开了营地。之后营地出现了3个月亮，所有物体重置，其中的人们陷入了各种循环中，后面来了一个寻找丈夫的妻子，然而不久在营地再次遭遇重置，这个妻子也陷入循环。两个男孩在十年后回到营地，发现营地的人还像十年前一样年轻，两天后营地又将开始重置。。。

每个人都活在自己的轮回里，不管你是否意识到……

看到70分钟左右的时候，我暂停了，猜测剧情往下会怎么走。后面的克苏鲁神话对我来说有些不过瘾，我更愿意看到哥哥带着弟弟走出“邪教”团体，但是在弟弟的反抗下意识到，即使离开了集体生活，自己奋力逃出了一个围城，自我感觉获得的无限可能也只是另一种轮回，可是哥哥会让年轻的弟弟明白自己为什么离开集体生活的选择，因为自由给了你无限可能的同时，也要求你自己去做努力，去寻找并实现自我价值。哥哥愿意在这种自由状态下接受现实中投靠无门、难有立锥之地的困境中轮回，也不愿意交换不知道有何用的权利来换取有保障的生活，这是为人者的尊严，是我们精神独立，人格完全的操守。

愿我们有一个机会做出这样的选择。

每个人都有自己的轮回，或短或长。在自己的轮回里挑选自己应对轮回的姿态，尽量有尊严的活着。如果有机会跳出这个轮回，跳出去看一下，或许在这个过程中才会发现什么才是对自己最重要的事。建议一直困在公司格子间的同仁能够出离一下，审视自己生活的轮回，愿你感受到得不只有悲哀。

烧脑片是什么？我一直觉得烧脑片也好，悬疑片也好，都有个大前提是不能变的，那就是你不能在整个影片里都表现的很武侠，最后结局却是神仙作案！这就是伪悬疑，也是赤裸裸的对观众的欺骗和嘲讽！把大象塞冰箱里，只要3步，作为笑话或者脑筋急转弯，可以哈哈一笑，但是作为故事或者影片，那就是耍赖了！

首先，关于真时空的轮回片是最难讲的，因为这里面涉及到的问题无限多，时空可以快慢，像星际穿越因未知因素导致某一区域出现时间速差可以有，因为我们对于时间的认知只在三维世界！像源代码那样穿越时空可以有，因为它只是用某种技术把一段记忆穿越时空，就相当于人造先知，世界是存在平行宇宙这一说的！像恐怖游轮那样命运轮回可以有，因为它并不涉及真时空，它只是在某种强大的生物影响下做灵魂轮回！

而本片却出现的真时空轮回和断层，以目前人类对时空的理解，不可能有生物或者意识能控制真时空，不管是几维都不行，当时间和空间合在一起的时候，是不可逆的，以闪电侠闪电悖论举例，你穿越到以前，去改变世界，那只是你穿越到一个平行世界而已，实际上你所在的时空和你穿越的时空都是在正常运行的，如果是真的时空回流，那就是你变成自己小时候的样子，依然是小时候的记忆，依然不会有什么改变，因为你小时候就是这么过来的，如果闪电侠小时候有人救了他妈妈，那未来就没有穿越回去救妈妈的闪电侠了（没死也没必要救了），那闪电侠的世界就是小孩的一个梦，或者没有闪电侠的世界就是闪电侠的一个梦，不然这世界就是个笑话了！本片就拿那个只有几秒钟轮回的老头来举例，如果是时空轮回，那他就不可能知道自己下一秒会怎么样，那就是时空断层，如果他有上个轮回的记忆，那就不叫真时空轮回，那叫游戏机，和游戏投币一样，我死的够多，我还是可以通关的，只不过这个游戏只有几秒钟，制作这个游戏的生物和玩这个游戏的生物毋庸置疑，都是脑残！本片其他人类都可以参照这个例子，那这么说来，这整个世界，都只是某个生物制作的一个大型AI游戏 而已，连玩家都没有，对于制作这种脑残游戏的脑残生物，你还去烧脑猜剧情，猜哲理什么的，那我只能说你和它一样了！

也许这世界真的是个笑话，但是能把世界当成笑话的存在，倒底是有多蛋痛，才会拿这几个在宇宙中连尘埃都算不上的人类耗蓝？？？

本片把轮回的情况拍成小电影情节是最大的败笔，而且是技术那么落后的录影带，这个情节就是直接说明了，这只是个游戏世界，不是真的世界！就像未来AI技术制作的一个游戏测试，这几个人类都是AI，我们只是看了一个AI游戏测试片段而已！

为什么说，不管是几维，时空不可逆呢，如果你回到你小时候，那你是真实的（那穿越对于你来说就是一个梦：闪点悖论），还是小你是真实的（那你就是小你的一个梦：黄粱一梦），是你在的世界是真实的（那你穿行的世界就是一个梦或者AR游戏：死神来了），还是小你的世界是真实的（那你的世界就是小你的一个梦或者AR游戏：虐杀原型0.0）！

所谓黄粱一梦，梦里不知身是客！时间不可能重来，切记！

神秘，诡异，无解，压抑，释放。幻觉，现实，愉悦，悲伤，希望，绝望。麻木，激情，幻想，沉默，骄傲。浮躁，冷静，忧郁，踌躇，不安。渴望，欺骗，谎言。科幻，奇幻，恐怖，悬疑。焦灼，思索，无奈，无力。奇妙，危机，逃离。开始，冗长，后来，有戏。沉闷，互动，有趣。烧脑，探索，解题。神奇，友谊，创造，挑战，奇迹。

1，营地的轮回不是十年一次。如果十年一次，则片末才是营地众人的第一次死亡，但众人显然意识到自己在轮回中，意识到怪物（我倾向于外星人）的存在，说明他们轮回过了。而且如果三月齐圆就是轮回周期，兄弟呆了两天就经历了从一月到三月的变化，则营地的轮回周期只是几天而已。轮回重置后人会“返老还童”，营地众人如果十年轮回一次，则不会如此年轻，证明他们的周期其实很短，导致他们“青春常驻”。

2，兄弟二人也在轮回中。证据大家说得很多了，比如母亲纪念处前幼时作的画是崭新的，哥哥在路上发现左右的景色是对称的，再看才看到营地的山，说明他们从家来到纪念处都属于一个轮回圈。片末兄弟驾车冲出营地时迎头撞上结界，结界上也反映出车子，说明轮回圈之间的结界会反映景物。弟弟与服装女夜观两个月亮，右边的月亮显然也是反映造成。还有车油始终是空的。

3，进入轮回的人来自不同时代，轮回周期也不同。帐篷男的着装最古（有说南北战争时期的），他的周期只有五秒。上吊男是三小时（据豆友说），营地众是几天，其中酿酒男、画画女都是单独入圈的，和其他人不是一波。兄弟俩应该超过十年。因为二人冲出结界后只是脱离了营地圈而回到了原来生活了十年的圈。兄弟二人在生活圈过了十年，从小变大，重返营地又出来后没有“返老还童”，证明他们的周期还没到。而且兄弟俩的权限应该也最高，他们可以出入所有的轮回圈，而有些人只能困在自己的圈里。最明显的是上吊男穿过结界又从农房里出来，他无法去戒毒男那里。领袖男不陪弟弟去车房，因为他没有去那里的权限。

4，寻夫女就是自焚男的妻子，因为她就有贴小纸条的习惯。画画女有个爱枪的前男友，或许是戒毒男？磁带是怪物寄给兄弟俩的，注意观察磁带是凭空落在他们家门口的。这再次证明兄弟俩生活的城市仍在轮回圈里。轮回众人无论是被怪物杀死还是为了避免痛苦而自杀，都有记忆。

5，兄弟俩的轮回周期未明。假设他们老死后重启，则是：重回车祸后母亲死亡的时刻，兄弟俩被救入营地，开始困入轮回。哥哥怀疑营地是邪教，带弟弟逃出，其实是进入了其后生活十年的大轮回。十年后重回营地，然后再返回大轮回。此后生活到死，大轮回重启。其间营地众、上吊男、自焚男、帐篷男等小轮回各依周期重启。大小轮回之间，好比月绕地30天和地绕日365天一样，组成复合系统。

//collider.com/the-endless-explained-interview/

一个很长的对于兄弟俩导演的采访。

导演说了很多，其中有两个事情给出了明确答复：

1. 结局是“乐观的”。

2. 最后兄弟俩驾车冲出loop的时候和镜面相撞，这件事和他们年幼时候遭遇的车祸不是一个事情。

那么影片最后的关于汽车没油了的对话，便可以理解为，车子确实快要没油了，只是因为汽车会给你一个冗余量而已（让你尽早加油）。而哥哥那句“You figured it out”只是为了表现哥哥再也不强求弟弟了。（这么多年来哥哥对弟弟都是非常强势的，影片中多次体现。）

所以其实结局是两重欢喜。第一重，他们逃离了循环；第二重，兄弟俩不再是命令和屈服的关系。尤其是第二点，导演也有在采访中暗示。

大家都想多了。但目前已有的影评中，确实有很多看似有道理的分析，但都被导演简单粗暴的定性答复否决了。这样看来这部电影其实逻辑性并不明确，你也可以说有bug。