A FULL BREAKDOWN of ALL SYMBOLS and MAJOR THEMES in Kinds of Kindness | EXPLAINED

Intro & Agenda okay so last week I saw kinds of kindness and honestly I had no idea I was so lost but after a day or two it all just seemed to kind of fall into place in my mind and I've done some additional research now and I would love to share with you the meaning of this film the play that inspired it the Thematic meaning between each of the three stories the major symbols and the meaning of RMF and we'll talk about the very specific little symbols like the twin sister dreams the dogs owning people the purple car the dance sequence the music choices even the posters and many others so let's jump run into it in The Inspiration order for me to give you the best context on this film I have to start by spending a little bit of time on the famous play that writer director yoro lant Theos read that inspired him to make this movie in many interviews yoro states that he decided to get started on kinds of kindness after reading Caligula a play written in 1938 by Albert cus the play is based on the real tyrannical Psychopathic Roman Emperor Caligula who ruled from 37 to 41 ad after cigala's wife dies he comes to the realization about the point lessness of life and how we depend on things like relationships religion spirituality a personal moral compass dreams goals and personal growth to give us meaning when truly we're distracting ourselves from the ultimate truth there's no point to any of this Caligula decides he will truly become free truly free from the distractions in life like morality relationships and values and he uses his power to demonstrate and exercise this extreme personal belief he begins torturing ing innocent people forcing people to watch and celebrate the killing of their family members and performs heinous sexual acts with men's wives right in front of them as well as many other things that cig has done that are awful he would also let innocent people off the hook proving to the public that he is not tied to the Temptations of evil nor the motivations of good he is in total utter complete control of himself independent of anything else in the universe and there's way more to this story but ultimately this is exploring this thematic idea of ultimate Independence transcending humanity and the true freedom of being attached to absolutely nothing in life but as you can see in this story such an ultimate freedom is actually imprisoning it's self-destruction and it's actually more pleasing and fulfilling to give in to this absurdity in life we develop our own values seek acceptance from others and create these actually limiting systems in our own minds to keep us sane and happy and from absolutely losing our minds and that is exactly what Yos is trying to capture in this movie kinds of kindness he's approaching the same thematic conclusion as the play but from the opposite direction instead of being trapped by complete Detachment from Humanity like Caligula yoga's characters are trapped by their desperate need to be accepted loved and validated by humanity and there's no better story to Story 1 introduce this point than the first out of the three stories in this film in the first story called the death of RMF our main character Robert is completely obedient to his boss Raymond Raymond is not only in charge of Robert from an employment perspective Raymond controls every aspect of Robert's life his clothes his house his car his physique his drink of choice his romantic partner even their ability to have kids the moments in this story covered by this film capture Robert beginning to become fed up with how abusively controlling and patronizing Raymond is to him but when Robert begins to defy Raymond's demands and expectations Robert starts to notice his possessions relationships and symbols of status beginning to slip away from him he even notices his new romantic interest has replaced him in his old position working for Raymond without Raymond Robert has access to a new level of freedom but with Raymond Robert has a comforting promising sense of security and approval yogos Lanos of course paints this picture in this incredibly bizarre world that wildly exaggerates the ACS and behaviors of people in the real world like how part of Robert's job is to crash a car into another man to kill him and how Robert keeps receiving these goofy luxury gifts but all these hyper exaggerations about our behavior in this film are just used to amplify a very real truth about us and the truth about Humanity in this story is that we are often desperate to earn the approval of our socioeconomic superiors and can be terrified of a life without that order that we are so familiar with that those those socioeconomic superiors provide us with and if someone else were to come in and take our place it would kill us and we'll go to Preposterous lengths to hang on to this lifestyle we might even actually hurt innocent people indirectly and we'll celebrate that success by buying some of the most ridiculous and needless things even the first track we hear from the soundtrack opening the movie before it even really starts symbolizes that entire way of life Sweet Dreams by rhythmics sweet dreams are made of this some of them want to use you some of them want to be used by you some of them want to abuse you some of them want to be abused those lyrics are the Thematic core of this movie all three stories actually and having said that let's move on to the next one next Story 2 we have RMF is flying in this story with the same actors but a completely new set of characters we have Daniel who is grieving the loss of his wife Liz who was lost and likely dead however Liz is found but Daniel soon begins to notice that this woman is not Liz this woman has to be somebody else her sense of humor the food she likes her sex drive things she remembers about Daniel it all has changed and most absurdly her feet are a little bigger than they used to be although this woman seems to look and sound exactly like Liz Daniel refuses to believe this is her this canot be his wife to him and as Daniel becomes more and more skeptical he requests Liz to commit these horrendous acts of self harm for him like severing one of her own fingers and cutting out her liver since this story is told from the perspective of a main character who seems perfect ly normal this time the Thematic message seems a lot harder to uncover but this story RMF is flying still exists largely in the same thematic territory as the first one the death of RMF this story is still very much about our fear of change in this story's case it's about the fear of change in our romantic relationships and our disapproval of the evolution of our partner as an individual in most of the world the pattern is to marry one partner and be with that person forever however because the concept of monogamy is so longterm we are bound to change along the way we are guaranteed to change mentally emotionally sexually physically all as we see in Liz in this story and sometimes these changes can weaken the bond between us even when these changes might actually be better for the individual who's changing and Liz signifies this as this returned Liz has changed in so many ways but still has this undying love for Daniel she will still do absolutely anything for him which is symbolized through her physical sacrifices for him and through that monologue that she gives to her father in the driveway about chocolate and lamb ultimately saying you should be with a partner who will always be there for you and not invest your time in someone who you enjoy in a more shallow way that doesn't love you back in a genuine way because when you need them the most they likely won't be there she also mentions how dogs were the owners of people in this reverse Universe in Her Dream she was having and they took care of her very well we actually see a big sequence of the string the credits of the story dogs are of course the quintessential symbol of loyalty which is the key issue thematically in the story her father refuses to forgive Daniel for his disapproval of his daughter's changes which makes perfect sense when you consider it from that perspective especially when you lean into the belief that Daniel actually did hit Liz and she wasn't actually lying when she said it this story is just told from the perspective of a man who has a delusional expectation of what his wife should be but since this second story is directed through his perspective everyone else in this story looks delusional Liz Liz's father the psychiatrist Daniel's best friend they're the normal people and in the end the real Liz returns to symbolize the hypothetical unchanging young woman that Daniel is so stuck in love with so let's move on to the final story RMF eats a sandwich in the third story Emily and Story 3 Andrew are on a mission for the cult they're a part of to find a woman who apparently can revive the Dead the story is focused much more closely on Emily than Andrew and shows us that Emily is unwaveringly dedicated to achieving this goal for herself even to the point where she has abandoned her husband and daughter who she loves so dearly and the cult that Emily is pursuing this goal for is certainly a strange one to say the least they have this sexual hierarchy where the members seem to be scheduled to have sex with the leader Omi and beforehand they are tested for infection with this torturous process where you are almost cooked in a sauna and then you have your sweat tasted for disease or infection the story takes an even darker turn when Emily finally visits her family and her husband spikes her drink and has his way with her while she's unconscious when she's tested by the cult for this sexual act she wasn't aware of she's exiled by the cult and I'm sure at this point as I get into the analysis of this third story you would expect this third story to have a lot of thematic Crossover with the last two stories and it does this story is about how we determine our values and the worth of chasing our goals it actually ties back really nicely with the first song we heard at the very beginning of the movie sweet dreams Emily has been conditioned by this bizarre sick group of people that this is what she needs to do and by achieving this she will earn that ultimate validation and approval from this group who conditioned her in the first place in the real world we do this in so many different ways for example we may be conditioned by our families and our peers to take on certain careers or be in certain romantic relationships that we wouldn't have been interested in in our most natural date but we feel obligated to fulfill these expectations set by the people that conditioned us to earn their approval and this story is also a societal critique on the common double standards between different generals Omi represents a powerful man who exists at the top of a societal hierarchy and sleeps with endless women and is respected and revered for it while the women who have sex with them are ashamed and likely to be ostracize for exploring their sexuality with other partners it's also Emily's husband who shames her in front of their their daughter for having the sexually transmitted infection that he transmitted to her Emily also demonstrates many stereotypical masculine behaviors such as buying a flashy car speeding it down the street wearing a suit and working overly long hours away from her family this is all intentional to enhance the importance of her gender which is the sole factor for her treatment being different from Omi and her husband and I hope I'm not overanalyzing with this one but I love how in this scene where she has achieved her goal she breaks into her most overtly feminine and liberated moment in the story with that dance that has a lot of funny awkward moves but a lot of trendy feminine provocative moves and also the track that plays during this dance sequence is by Cobra who is almost always embracing her femininity in her music in a very provocative uncensored sexually liberating way and this track from Cobra is a perfect example of that it's almost as if this scene is Emily realizing she's about to break free from the sexual judgment and scrutiny attached to her gender because her Monument mental accomplishment will outshine that shame in her community so she's embracing her sexuality finally in the most Shameless way with the dance moves and the specific lyrics of the song we hear in the background this also ties in with how one of the twin sisters freed Emily from her shackles under the water during her first Dream sequence of the Twins and in the end when she does find the magical woman and then accidentally kills her before anyone else can find out it actually does raise a really important and thought-provoking question about our relationship with society when determining our goals and that question is how important would it be to you to achieve a life goal if no one ever gets to witness or find out that you achieved it you might just realize that you were never living for yourself and the entire Journey was just a waste just like Emily's journey in this third story including all the irreversible sacrifices that people who were close to you made to help you along the way just like the twin sister in the empty pool and another quick point about the twin sister they're just another symbol of how our figurative dreams our goals can compel us and convince us of a greater purpose calling Upon Us in real life as the twins are appearing in Emily's dreams literally and crossing over into Emily's reality and the one thing I still haven't spoke about is the meaning of the RMF character why RMF is the only recurring character in the film and what RMF stands for to answer this one I first want to go over how joros himself answered the question at the New York City premiere when we started writing the first story we incorporated that character this man with his initials on his shirt that everyone misread and then when we decided that the movie was going to be more than one story we were looking for a link between the three and we didn't want it to be one of the main characters so we just thought that RF would be a nice singular presence that appears in all three stories without appearing for a very long time but being pivotal for each story and during my research I saw yorgos answer this question again and again at many other interviews and he continues to dodge the question either by joking it off or by literally saying RMF means nothing but if you want to get into theories that I find really impressive and very plausible I think the best one I've seen is from a redditor saying that it stands for Redemption manipulation and Faith which are all terms that have heavy thematic weight in all three stories and ultimately if you ask me I think the most important thing about this RMF character is the fact that he is recurring throughout each of the three stories because that essentially proves or confirms that all three stories exist within the same universe the same world and further evidence to that is that all three stories are set in the same time period modern day and that's as a whole what this film is trying to capture three shallow forms of affection or better yet three kinds of kindness that all exist ever so prevalently in the world we live in today we see it even literally in the posters with three lines of the same texts but in different colors three kinds of kindness that look a little different but send the same message and The Masks we wear in front of our true faces to conform to the bizarre expectations we call normal life all right this is my analysis if there's any symbol that I didn't cover in this video that you were hoping I would have please feel free to comment and I'll reply to it with my interpretation I hope you enjoyed and thank you so much for watching see you later