Pahanhautoja (Hatching) is a classic representative of Scandinavian horror, where events develop slowly, and the meaning is not always clear. At the same time, the film looks quite interesting, although it is difficult to call it a traditional horror film. Rather, it is a psychological drama dedicated to the transformations of adolescence and the pressure of adults on the child’s psyche. In this vein, the meaning of the film “Hatching” begins to play with other colors and becomes quite clear.
What is the movie “Hatching” about?
Analysis of any director’s idea should begin with the basics – a description of the film itself. The content of the film “Rattle” introduces the viewer to an exemplary Finnish family. Aichi is a mother who runs a popular video blog, telling subscribers about the simple happiness in the family that she builds with her own hands.
Isa is a father, a rather phlegmatic person who is completely under the heel of his wife, not having his own opinion. Matthias is the youngest son, an eccentric boy who demands attention and is jealous of his older sister, who is given more attention. Tinya is a 12-year-old gymnast who is preparing for a competition her mother has high hopes for.
The film begins with Aichi recording another video for his blog. Unexpectedly, the shooting is interrupted by a knock on the window. Tinya opens the frame and a bird flies into the house. The crow rushes about inside, simultaneously breaking everything around, from dishes to a crystal chandelier. Tinya manages to cover the bird with a blanket. The girl wants to let her out, but her mother asks to give the crow to her. After receiving the bird, Aichi twists its neck and hands it to her daughter, advising her to throw it in the bio-waste.
The girl cannot sleep at night. She hears the cry of a crow. She gets out of the house and goes into the forest, where she finds a lying bird. She is alive but unable to move. The girl takes a stone and beats the bird to death, in fact turning it into a mess. Nearby, she notices an egg, which she takes with her and hides in bed, under a teddy bear.
Things are not going so smoothly for Tinya in training, and the coach tells the girl that she must work harder, otherwise she will not be able to participate in the competition. After classes, other athletes invite her to take a walk, but she says that she needs to run, because Tinya promised her mother that she would only think about competitions. At home, the girl sees her mother hugging the craftsman who hung the chandelier.
Aichi comes to her daughter’s room and tells her that adults sometimes have special friends, hinting that she has taken a lover. The woman asks not to tell her father about this, insisting that it will be their secret.
During training, the mother sees that her daughter is losing in terms of physical training to the neighbor girl Reetta. Realizing that her daughter may not become a champion, she keeps her in the gym, forcing her to repeat the exercises on the uneven bars to bloody calluses. At home, the girl strokes the grown egg, and sees how it glows red where her fingers lean against the shell. Gradually, the egg grows to an incredible size, and a strange creature hatches from it, resembling a hybrid of a man and a crow.
The creature scares Tinya and she hides in the closet. The creature notices her, but flees the house after breaking the glass. The monster returns the next day. It hurt and a piece of glass sticks out of his hand. The girl pulls out this fragment. Thus a friendship is born between them.
Tinya hides a strange creature under the bed. At night, the girl cannot sleep: the barking of a neighbor’s dog disturbs her. The monster gets out of the house, and the awakened girl finds the headless corpse of a dog next to her on the bed. The girl vomits from what she sees, and the creature eats the vomit. Out of fear, Tinya buries the dog’s remains in the garden.
The monster grows and becomes more and more like a man. The girl dresses up this creature in dresses, fastens hairpins to her hair. During the next training session, Reette shows a brilliant result, and it is she who will perform at the competitions. However, on the way back, the girl is attacked by a creature raised by Tinya. Reetta ends up in the hospital: her face is disfigured.
The mother takes her daughter to live with her lover. The father does not object to this. Aichi is sure that for the first time in her life she met the man she fell in love with and wants to introduce her daughter to him. Tinya is glad to be distracted from everything that happened, because she blames herself for what happened to Rettee.
Tero really turns out to be a good guy who single-handedly raises a newborn daughter. A man tries to befriend a girl and Tinya likes her. However, Alli appears in the house – that is the name of the bird-man. She looks more and more like Tinya, but she can’t speak. In her room, the girl feeds Allie vomit, the sounds attract Thero and he tries to enter the room. He does not see Tinya herself, but he notices Alli, who pounces on him.
Aichi takes her daughter to the competition, Alli stays in the house. There is a telepathic connection between this creature and the girl, and Tinya sees Alli with an ax sneaking to the crib where the newborn is sleeping. She deliberately falls off the bars and hits her hand hard. The creature is in pain and drops the axe. Thero runs into the room and sees a creature on the windowsill that looks a lot like Tinya. When Aichi and her daughter return home, the man kicks out his mistress along with her “crazy daughter”.
In the car, Aichi screams in frustration and hits his head on the steering wheel. When her daughter tries to comfort her, she states that she hoped she could make her happy. At home, the daughter visits her mother, who is trying to record another video for the blog. Aichi states that the girl stinks, and she goes to the bathroom. Meanwhile, the mother finds Alli in the closet, whom she mistakes for her daughter. She tries to comb it, but pulls out a tuft of hair. Alli attacks the woman, but Tinya saves her. Mother and daughter arm themselves with knives to find and kill a strange creature.
Aichi finds Allie in her daughter’s room and manages to shoot her in the leg. Tinya immediately feels pain in the same place. Realizing that if her mother kills Alli, she will die, the girl tries to protect the monster, covers herself and is stabbed in the chest by her mother. The girl falls on a lying creature, which drinks the blood dripping from the body. This has a healing property. The monster’s wounds heal, it rises and croaks “mother”. End.
Explanation of the ending of the film “Hatching”
The meaning of the ending of the film “Hatching” is quite deep, albeit scary. Throughout the film, Aichi tried to create a picture of an ideal Finnish family, not realizing that she herself was destroying everything around. She always smiles, but she does terrible things. She never loved her family and made her family only a decoration for her blog.
She needs her daughter only to win the competition, because these are excellent shots for subscribers. It is possible that she does not like Thero either, but he has a tiny daughter, and this is a great story for the future. That is why lisping with the baby.
The whole point of the film comes down to the fact that the mother actually stole childhood from her daughter. Tinya constantly strives for the ideal. In the video, she notices that she does not pull her socks when doing the exercise. While showing Thero various gymnastic combinations, she collapses, but assures that she can do better. When a man asks why, he replies that it is necessary.
What do we get in the final? A mother kills her daughter, that bright image that we see on the screen. In return, she receives a corrupted copy that calls her Mom. This is the very “happiness” that Aichi deserves.
“Hatching” how to understand the ending?
Almost at the very end, we are shown the most important competitions in rhythmic gymnastics, for which daughter Aichi has been preparing for so long and hard. In parallel, we are shown that the monster takes Thero’s ax and is going to kill the baby Helmi right in the crib. Tinya, during preparation, sees what is happening with the help of a telepathic connection. And in the finale, he falls on purpose and injures his hand in order to prevent an unknown creature from killing the child. But, while Tinya lies on the floor with an injury, Tero bursts into his child’s room – and sees a “crazy copy” of his beloved’s daughter.
When Aichi and Tinya return to Tero, a row breaks out. The man is sure that the girl attacked his child with an ax and screams that she is crazy. Aichi tries to convince her lover that she was with her daughter during the performances and that she could not do it in any way. But Tero is adamant – and everything ends in scandal and separation.
Enraged, Aichi returns to her daughter’s car and starts screaming and banging her head against the steering wheel of the car. She seems to have gone crazy. And then Aichi wipes the blood from her broken nose and tells Tinya that she hoped that at least she would make her happy – success in sports.
Mother and daughter return home. Aichi tries to record another vlog, but can’t. Then she runs into the “daughter” – and we realize that the creature looks almost exactly like Tinya. Aichi decides to clean up the monster and tries to comb his hair, but pulls out a tuft of hair. The monster loses his temper, but tries to calm his mother.
In the end, we are shown how Aichi learns the terrible truth. In her daughter’s room, she sees two girls – a real one and a monster. The creature tries to attack the woman, but Tinya covers her mother with herself and the creature escapes again. The mother and daughter then arm themselves with kitchen knives and begin to hunt the monster.
Aichi finds the monster – and as a result of a short brawl, he almost dies. Tinya then separates them. Aichi is about to kill the injured creature, but Aichi feels sorry for the mutant. And when Aichi brandishes a knife, Tinya closes the monster with herself.
In the finale, we are shown that the mother killed her daughter: Aichi is horrified and hysterical, Tinya dies. But after the death of his mistress, the creature survives. And after the death of Tinya, the monster finally turns into her. Becomes a complete copy of the girl and calls Aichi mother.
But how to understand the ending of the horror movie “Hatching”?
As for the images, everything is pretty obvious. The monster simultaneously symbolizes the suppressed anger of Tinya, who is forced to unquestioningly fulfill all the orders of her mother and is deprived of any freedom of choice, and her loneliness. It is no coincidence that the monster ends up looking just like Tinya – in fact, they are two halves of one whole. And if Tinya personifies all the good that can be in a human character, then the creature is her dark side, which is constantly trying to break free and seize control.
It is no coincidence that the monster at the end takes the place of its deceased mistress. Director Hanna Bergholm makes it clear that it is Aichi who is to blame for all the troubles: she actually destroyed her family and brought the situation to tragedy. Moreover, she destroyed her daughter – and now she is forced to reap the fruits of her deeds. And live alone with a real nightmare.
The meaning of the film “Hatching”
Unlike the explanation of the ending, the overall meaning of the film is much deeper and more multifaceted. The clue to the essence here lies in the very first scene. Here the viewer is shown an ideal picture that literally shatters into pieces when a foreign body appears that does not fit into this idyll. The black crow contrasts very well with the white living room, and the broken glass shards perfectly demonstrate the true essence of this family.
Tinya tells her mother that she was the one who nursed Alli. It really is. Only the chick was nourished by the girl with her children’s complexes, fears and suffering. Judging by the size of the egg, the girl had a lot of problems. She is alone, without friends, lives in a house where sports achievements are expected from her, without giving in return either love or affection.
As a result, Alli appeared – a set of complexes and fears. Alli eliminates everything that her little mistress is so afraid of, fulfilling the will of Tinya and gradually becoming one with her. This explanation is well supported by the fact that Alli feeds exclusively on dirt, literally absorbing it into herself.
The key here lies in the problems of modern society. The director managed to very accurately convey the story of abusive family relationships, when a mother psychologically suppresses her own daughter for her own interests. Alli is the result of this influence, embodied in the artistic image of a terrible creature. If you remove the horror component, then the film tells about a 12-year-old girl who turned out to be of no use to anyone. This is the story of many young athletes who were deprived of their childhood by their parents and did not live up to the expectations of adults.
