Kinds of kindness - symbols, the meaning of the movie and who is RMF?

Just six months after the triumphant "Poor Unfortunates", the brilliant Lanthimos released the film "Kindnesses of Kindness". And it turned out to be much more mysterious, ambiguous and confusing - a kind of warm-up for the brain. Let's find out what the point is, what the film is about, and what happened in each of the three stories.

Set in the contemporary United States of America, Kinds of Kindness is an anthology in three separate parts:

- "The Death of R.M.F.": Robert, living in complete subordination to his powerful boss Raymond, tries to regain control of his life after being asked to perform an unforgivable task.
- "R.M.F. Flies": A policeman named Daniel learns that his wife Liz, thought missing at sea, has returned. However, he begins to suspect that she is an imposter, which threatens to destroy their marriage.
- "R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich": Two cult members, Emily and Andrew, embark on a journey to find a girl with supernatural powers who is destined to become a prominent spiritual leader.

Interestingly, all the stories feature the same actors, which, by the way, is reminiscent of American Horror Story or the works of Wes Anederson.

All three episodes are connected by almost nothing, except for the mysterious hero R.M.F. They are told out of order, and it is almost impossible to determine their correct sequence. R.M.F. dies at the end of "The Death of R.M.F.", but is resurrected in "R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich". He is alive in "R.M.F. is Flying", which means it can happen either before or after the other segments.

The titles of all three stories are also kind of randomly chosen, too. While "The Death of R.M.F." is essentially about R.M.F.'s death, "R.M.F. Flies" and "R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich" have almost nothing to do with him.

Most of the flashbacks and imaginative episodes are in black and white.

The central themes of the entire film:

- How kindness can be manipulated, used or exploited.

- As in many of Lanthimos' films, a constant theme is control. All three segments show characters in positions of power who want complete control over the people "under them" (Raymond's complete and obsessive control over his employees and every detail of their lives, Daniel's desire to control his wife due to rage-induced paranoia, and Omi and Aka's control of their cult members through sex) and the characters under their control trying to find a way out.

- The film also focuses on horrible people doing horrible things to each other. The more sympathetic characters present in all three segments either suffer as a result of the actions of the more unsympathetic characters or get very little screen time.

In the first story, we see the constant appearance of the letters R M F. In addition to the initials of the character with that name, Robert Fletcher and Rita Fanning are also present in the story. We don't know Raymond's last name, but we can tell from his narcissism that it is also in F.

I was most moved by the second story. It also left the most questions. The twist about the hero's wife being switched is reminiscent of the film Vanished in the Stars, and we you keep expecting an imposter to come out of Liz. But things go in a completely different direction. For example, Daniel says he saw Liz beating herself. Liz then shows up bruised and bloody and tells the doctor that Daniel did it. It is unclear which one is telling the truth, as both accounts do not match what we see.

The main question of the story is: Was Daniel right or crazy? Because if the former, then the story becomes completely unrealistic, but it's not clear where the "real" Liz came from. But I'm more inclined to the second version: Daniel has lost his mind. Because of his paranoia about Liz, he becomes emotionally abusive to her, refusing to eat her food or even talk to her, and if Liz told the truth about her injuries, physically abusing the girl.

Liz, in turn, becomes a martyr to love and stubbornly refuses to believe that Daniel is doing anything wrong to her, falling into the most abusive relationship possible. At the end of "R.M.F. is Flying", Liz dies after cutting out her liver because Daniel told her to, or, more likely, her liver is cut out of her by him.

Liz talks about a dream of a Parallel Universe where dogs were the dominant species and lorded it over the humans they kept as pets. The credits show footage from this world of dogs doing ordinary human things. But since the footage is in black and white, we realise that this is just a figment of her imagination anyway.

As for the change in the size of her leg and the cat reacting aggressively at first, I think it's normal after the shock she's been through.

The third episode is perhaps the most understandable and satirical. Here we see an unusual sexual sect whose actions are built around water and purification through sweat. Of course, the search for a girl with unusual abilities is an unrealistic component, but the abjection is shown even more vividly and obviously than in the second story. No metaphors. After all, Emily's husband rapes her and puts her to sleep, and there's no telling how many times he's pulled this kind of thing before and what threatens their child.

My favourite moment was Emily's dance when she found Ruth.

All three stories have a very bleak ending. All four main characters in the three parts of the film end up much worse off than they started, either with their lives completely ruined or back to where they started, with even less to lose. The only character who seems to get better in the end is R.M.F., whom Ruth resurrects in the episode "R.M.F. Eats a Sandwich."

What symbols and hidden meanings did you see in this film?