The first time I saw the movie, I noticed the sign and found it freakin' hilarious. But I was the only person in the theatre who laughed, because it was not translated/read out loud to the audience. Got me some strange looks
From Katherine:
While also describing more or less what happens to Jack and Ennis, who "trepass" against society's rules.
This occurred to me the first time I saw the movie in English. Not at the beginning, when the sign is to be seen at Aguirre's trailer, but at the end of their summer. When Ennis crouches in the alley and one split-second before the scene cuts to his and Alma's wedding, the minister is already heard "And forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us".
When I heard the word "trespasses" I thought immediately of the sign at the trailer. And suddenly it wasn't too funny anymore.
The fact that the love between Ennis and Jack, and living that love, was regarded as trespassing rules is sad, not funny.
Jack's the trespasser who is shot, Ennis is the survivor who is shot again:
- receiving the postcard stamped deceased (the first shot)
- then at the Twist farm, when OMT talks about "one other fella" (look at him in this very moment: heart-shot is the fitting descrption)
- the denial of Jack's ashes
- then when he finds the shirts (although finding the shirts is both: heartbreaking, but a blessing nonetheless)
- and finally in the end, when he is all alone in his trailer, swearing to empty, old shirts - and they are all which he has left.
So the sign sums it up, it's like a warning, a foreshadowing
This list reminds me of my very first impression of BBM. After seeing it, my friend and me could not talk about it. The only thing which was said was: this movie is completely different from any other movie I've ever seen (then we talked about Linda Cardellinni and ER).
When I came home, I said very few to my husband. But what I said was, that it is the saddest movie I've ever seen, because the pain finds no end. It goes on and on: after Jack's death, Ennis is as devasteted as one can be, he is simply finished. But the torture is not over yet. There comes another punch, and another, and another. This is so painful to watch.
I feel the same as Mel and Katherine: Jack is the one who ends up dead, but it's Ennis my heart aches for to no end
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