The Keeping Room (2014)

Muna Otaru: Mad

Photos 

Quotes 

• Augusta : [about burying Bill with the Union soldiers]  Don't think he should go in the same place as them.

  Mad : Don't worry. They aint goin' to the same place.

• Mad : [comforting Louise after her ordeal]  At my second farm, there was this one shed we wasn't allowed at. All the other buildings had their jobs. One for feed. One for tools. But there was this one shed we was told never to go in. Not to play near it. Not to get curious. We made up all sorts of stories. Gold. Ghosts. God.

  Mad : Then, one day when I was 'bout ten, the man told me to go to the shed. I was goin' to the shed. I would get to know. I walked to the shed, my heart comin' out my dress. I was gonna get to know. I was gonna get to know. I was gonna be the one to tell all the others. I opened the door. Only thing in there was a low cot and no windows. I stood there a minute so unsure. So sad. Wonderin' why we wasn't supposed to know for so long. And then the man come in. And he had me. He was so big and I was so small. So small that I didn't even know what was happenin'. That was the first time. And there were many more.

  Mad : Some times they cut the baby out. Other times they keeps them. I don't know where they are now. There are many kinds of monsters in this world, you never know which one goin' be yours. Don't know what happened to mine. Probably died old and happy. But yours... You killed him.

• [first lines] 

  Louise : Heard you shoot. What was it?

  Augusta : Somethin' small n' fast.

  Louise : Rabbit?

  Augusta : Maybe. I don't know if it was even really there. Once that gun goes off, everythin' livin' is gone.

  Louise : Why's it so hard when the only thing there is you and the rabbit?

  Mad : [serving up stew]  The wood is big and the rabbit's small.

• Augusta : [sitting in the keeping room]  What if all the men kill all the other men? What if it's the end of the world and we're the last ones left?

  Mad : It aint the end of the world.

  Augusta : Think 'bout all the women sittin' in their houses - were supposed to be taken, but aint. Learned to shoot a gun 'fore they learned to bed. Learned to be men instead of a wife.

• Mad : [about Bill]  I didn't know people looked the same whether they was dead or alive. He gone. But he don't look so bad. Like hes sleepin' maybe.