Vengeance Is Mine ending explained

What happens

Enokizu is caught and executed, rejecting his father to the end. Afterward his father and wife carry his bones up a mountain and throw them into the air, where they seem to hang, suspended. The film gives no verdict.

The last image

The bones thrown from the mountaintop seem to hang in the air, and the film ends there without settling what his life meant.

Two readings

1 · Refusal of closureThe suspended bones deny you the comfort of judgment or forgiveness.

2 · Unsettled legacyHis father and wife scatter him, yet he remains something they cannot be rid of.

What it says

The film studies Enokizu without explaining him away, so it will not close with a moral or a cause. Faith, family and society are all offered, but none accounts for him. It leaves you with the discomfort.