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In “Magnetic Rose” (“Kanajo no omoide,” “Her Memories”) the salvage crew, like Odysseus’s crew in The Odyssey, are lured into danger by a woman’s song and image. The two crew members dispatched to the SOS signal, Heinz and Miguel, meet different fates but both are captured by the trap set for them. What exactly ensnares them? To what do they ultimately succumb?
It became very obvious that Miguel was a lot more naive than Heinz when he started eating the fake food given to them by the angel robot at the beginning of the movie. It was apparent that Miguel was going to be much easier to trap than Heinz. At the beginning of the movie it is also mentioned that Miguel loves women and that he has a couple he is thinking about from home. Miguel eventually falls into the trap of the pretty flowers and the prospect of a beautiful woman telling him that she will be with him forever. Even though this beautiful woman, Eva, was talking about Carlos rather than Miguel directly, Miguel assumes the identity of Carlos and succumbs to the trap of the alternate reality.
Heinz was portrayed as a person with a lot more layers with his experiences, such as his child dying. He was definitely harder to entrap in the movie. Because the memory of his dead child had such a deep emotional impact on him, the hologram of his child alive and well temporarily entrapped him in the alternate reality. He was finally able to get out when he dropped his wallet and saw the picture of his wife and child, also when his child “died” but he couldn’t grab her. He gets out of the alternate reality, but he ends up in deep space.
I definitely agree in saying that Heinz was much more difficult to “lure” into Eva’s trap. Just like how Eva has a ragged and painful past, she cleverly used Heinz’s past experiences to ensnare him. It is clear that Eva is mentally stuck in the past–she refuses to relinquish her memories of Carlos and because she is unable to let go of the past, she will never be able to peacefully move on.Her attempt to turn her past memories into reality means that Carlos is eternal–she will make others suffer instead. She finds Miguel to be an easy target–he’s a womanizer; that makes for an easy job. Heinz, on the other hand, has a bit more grit and determination. His hardships from past experiences seemed to have taught him to be less naive and more wary, more on his guard. But, is this actually so? The audience is initially led to believe that Heinz is waiting to return home to his family, and more specifically, his 10-year old daughter, as Miguel puts it. But, we learn that his daughter has been dead. Does this mean that Heinz, too, is stuck in the past? Has Heinz been struggling to accept the reality that his daughter is dead? Eva uses this horrific memory of Heinz’s past to attempt to seduce him, in which he seems to be fighting against himself rather than Eva. It seems that he is trying to convince himself that is the past is the past, and that memories should remain in the past, and that they shouldn’t dictate how we live our present lives. He fights against this, and even says, “Memories aren’t an escape!” Not only was this a very sensitive memory for Heinz, but he was still trying to accept it, and Eva used his fragile emotional state to attempt to destroy him. Some part of Heinz, however big or small, still desired to be reunited with this daughter, and just like Miguel desired to be with a beautiful women, it was both of these desires that Eva manipulated and used to destroy the men.
The difference between Miguel and Heinz’s characters was apparent from the introductory scenes of the animation. Miguel’s lighthearted personality and his desire for love portray him as the amateur of the crew while Heinz’s serious and cautious nature insinuates his experience in space missions. However, Eva is able to trap both men through their desires; she utilizes their desires to create an illusion that ultimately replaces their sense of reality.
Eva takes advantage of Miguel’s naive desire for love to persuade him into staying with her forever. Captivated by her beautiful figure, Miguel does not need much more to be trapped by Eva. Miguel is unable to overcome the temptation of staying next to a beautiful woman for eternity, and the perfect setting (clear skies, roses, butterflies, birds chirping, etc.) that accompanies Eva is more than enough for Miguel. Miguel comes into the rescue mission thinking that he is a knight in shining armor, ready to save any woman in distress. By becoming that “woman in distress”, Eva fits into Miguel’s perception of himself, making him unable to distinguish his desires from reality. As for Heinz, Eva exploits Heinz’s love for his family, especially his daughter Emily. Working a job that required him to be separated from his beloved daughter, Heinz did not get to see Emily frequently. In this case, Eva is still able to fit herself into Heinz’s desires. Rather than directly becoming Heinz’s lover, Eva portrays herself more as Emily’s mother. The family that Heinz cares about so dearly is right in front of him, ensnaring him in Eva’s trap.
Miguel almost instantly falls into Eva’s trap when he first walks into the palace. He is awed by the opulence of his surroundings. Miguel also starts to eat the food on the table without questioning whether it is a trap while Heinz is on high alert. However, Eva’s beauty is what really ensnares Miguel into her trap. This glorious life style and beautiful women is what Miguel succumbs to and he now can forever live in this false memory with Eva. Heinz stay alert and wary for traps set up for the both of them. Finally, Eva takes it a step farther and actually recreates memories of his family which is where he starts to let his guard down. Ultimately Heinz succumbs when Eva focuses heavily on memories of his daughter. In one of these memories his daughter actually dies and this is when Heinz is at his breaking point. Eva then shows Heinz that Emily is still alive and that they can live together forever happy and safe. Heinz breaks free from this illusion but is now trapped in his current reality where the abandoned space station he is inside is about to be destroyed. Heinz is thrown into space alive but with his fate unknown.
When Miguel was first introduced to us, his “passionate” side was immediately made apparent when he was shown struggling to decide which of two ladies to be with when he got home. Unsurprisingly, when he saw Eva’s portrait, he could not help talking about how beautiful she was and how much he wished to rescue her. Miguel’s desire to love and be with someone made him easy to manipulate, so Eva had no trouble ensnaring him in her trap. He was even willing to give up his identity and become Carlos if that meant he could be with her. His desire to love perfectly complimented Eva’s desire to be loved.
Heinz’s weak point is much more personal. It is the desire to be with his daughter again. A desire to fill the hole left in his life when she died. I agree with Charles that he does seem to be stuck in the past. The crew mentioned him having a 10-year old daughter, and I found it curious that he did not even acknowledge the statement about her. When we saw her death, I found myself questioning whether she was actually dead, or if it was a false memory created by Eva. When he says, “memories aren’t an escape,” it was clear that her death was something he was yet to come to terms with. Seeing his daughter again, even if just in a memory, must have had an extreme emotional impact made even greater when reliving her death. It makes sense that he would be willing to give up his reality in order to spend more time with her. The trap he fell in would be hard for anyone to escape from. In fact, I am surprised he was able to escape it at the end, even if it was too late.
For Heinz, the source of his hope and expectation had been his family. Emily, his daughter, is his most precious and beloved one. Every trap Eva designed for Heinz involved Emily. Eva takes Heinz back into his memories about giving Emily her birthday gift. In the second encounter of Heinz and ‘Emily’, Eva presented Emily as wearing the space suit given by Heinz. These continuous projections of pieces of Heinz’s past memories gradually captured Heinz. After all I think Heinz is ensnared by his unbreakable bond with his family and finally succumbed to the cruel reality that his family is no longer existing.
As for Miguel, the affection he had for beautiful women evolved into an intoxication that prevented him from separating illusion and reality. Eva presented herself as the grand madam who fell into tragic love with Carlo. Miguel took the role of Carlo unhesitatingly. Miguel’s desire was promoted to becoming an illusionary world unable for him to escape. Ensnared by emotional needs, Miguel succumbed to obsession of the romantic relationship and everlasting love for ‘Eva’.
For Miguel, he is the kind of person that is susceptible to desire. From the beginning of the movie, Miguel is always distracted by circumstances and forgets his mission. For example, he becomes reckless as he discovers the grandiose hall and the hologram. Gradually, he surrenders to his desire for woman, and the illusions (such as he meeting Eva in the imagined garden) address and strengthen Miguel’s desire, which eventually drives him toward the unreal eternity with Eva.
Heinz, from the start to the end of the movie, is established as a more rational character. As Miguel loses his vigilance when facing various attractions, Heinz always keeps his missions in mind. However, Heinz to some extent is lost in his memories, because he is regretted for his daughter’s death. The feeling of regret and emotional pain torture him, so that for twice he is almost ensnared by his peaceful imaginations, which is an escape from the regret that afflicts him all the time. Finally, Heinz makes it to break the illusions, for he begins to understands that he cannot immerse in the past, and dream is not an escape from the existing pains.
Both characters are entrapped due to their emotional weaknesses, yet only the one who defies such weaknesses manages to go back to the reality.
Sirens have always been known to attract people with their beautiful song. While this does occur in Magnetic Rose, mostly by how Miguel was sucked in by the beautiful interior of the ship, the sirens take on a role similar to those in Percy Jackson and the Olympians: Sea of Monsters. In this book, the sirens have the ability to show the listeners their greatest weakness. This occurs as soon as the men reach the inside of the ship. It is evident from the beginning that Miguel’s greatest weakness is women. Because of this, the AI is able to easily take control of him by presenting him with a beautiful woman who is enamored with him. By letting him live this fantasy Miguel enters a world that he has no desire to leave. Heinz was much harder to ensnare. His one regret and thus weakness is the loss of his daughter. The AI takes control of this by placing him in a world in which his daughter is still alive and he can be with his family again. Heinz, being a stronger character is able to tell that the situation is fake and escape being sucked into the world.
In his book The Silence of the Sirens Franz Kafka wrote, “Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence.” The Sirens, or in this case the AI, creates a world so incredible for the subject that they do not wish to escape. It gives them everything they desire and thus makes them never want to leave. This raises the question of whether or not this was the creation Eva had in mind. Eva, trying to bring back her glorious past of her singing career and bring her lover back, created a space where she could hide in her memories and relive what would be her glory days. To do this, she created a spaceship with an AI capable of recreating one’s memories and creating an ideal world for them. Eva, after creating this place, fell in love with what she has created. Not being able to live without her lover and now having a place to have him again, she fell victim to her own creation.
The brief exchange regarding women that the crew of the salvage ship shares at the beginning of the film introduces the motivations and core characteristics of Heintz and Miguel, foreshadowing their ultimate entrapment in Eva’s maw. The two minor characters take jabs at Miguel’s promiscuity, incorporating Heintz’s young daughter into the jokes. This scene reveals that Miguel is a womanizer struggling to pick a woman to settle down with while Heintz is a dedicated family man.
Miguel’s seduction at the hands of Eva was not surprising. The young playboy establishes at the outset of the film that he is easily enchanted by the passions of multiple women, and he is often enraptured by the brief glimpses of Eva prevalent in the early exploration of the space anomaly. When Eva gets the opportunity to shower the impressionable cosmonaut with love and adoration, he slips into the role of Carlo without resistance.In his last on-screen moment, Miguel departs into a posh dinner party populated by illusory sycophants as Heintz, ever the more privy to Eva’s ploy, calls out to his younger companion to no avail. Miguel is defeated by the desire for passionate romance that led him to court multiple women.
Heintz’s destruction is more jolting, and the end to his story provides the most powerful emotional punch of the film. Heintz is a much stronger character than Miguel, less subject to the influence of the film’s antagonist because he is grounded in his ties to family. Yet the magnetic rose exploits that strength, crippling him by turning his family against him. In a tragic turn of events, Heintz relives the death of his young daughter (unless this death is an illusion conjured by Eva). The rose then offers Heintz the opportunity to live out the family life he wants in a simulated reality, a reality in which his daughter is alive and well. Heintz, seeking as Eva once did to submerge himself in a happier realm, succumbs to this temptation. Soon, though, Heintz’s resolve returns, and he chooses to accept the reality of his own world and defy the dream realm concocted by Eva.
Although the temptations used to lure Heintz and Miguel into the magnetic rose differ, they stem from a single idea. Eva sought to escape the harsh reality she found herself in by building a better world composed of pleasant memories and hopeful futures. For a century she slumbered, luring unwitting astronauts into her trap by offering whatever they desire most. Miguel chooses to forget the grit of the real world and dive into simulated happiness. Heintz chooses to defy the myth before his eyes and accept the reality that is crumbling away from under him.
While both Miguel and Heinz both fall victim to the same trap, their reactions and subsequent fate are very different. From the very beginning, their characters are presented as foils, with Heinz being very grounded and responsible and Miguel being much more carefree. This drastic difference in personalities definitely plays a role in the way they react to Eva’s trap, an escape from reality that provided the illusion of a “perfect” life. For the simple Miguel, a beautiful girl was all he ever wanted. Heinz just wanted to be with his family. However while Miguel was easily pulled into the fantasy world (and never seemed to realize or resist it), Heinz was much more resilient, as he broke free of the illusions multiple times even though he was temporarily “seduced” at one point. Heinz ultimately chooses to face his own reality, even if that meant facing the death of his daughter, Emily. Miguel seems to be content with assuming the identity of Carlos and spending eternity with Eva.
I personally get the impression that Heinz was supposed to be “right” in his decision, mainly because he is portrayed as the “right” character, with generally having better qualities than Miguel. Heinz fought so hard to survive and live on in reality, but looking at their individual outcomes, I am curious why my initial thought is to cheer on Heinz and pity Miguel. Miguel was never unhappy while in the illusions, and genuinely seemed to enjoy himself. Should he received pity for that not being “real”? Heinz, on the other hand, seemed to put himself in more emotional pain the harder he fought the illusions. He never seemed to ever end up happy, even when he finally escaped. He could’ve led a whole life happily spending time with his daughter, rather than chose a world where she was no longer with him. Just on that basis, Miguel seemed to end up with an enjoyable fate, unlike Heinz who chose the unhappier path.
The exposition quickly reveals Miguel as the eccentric womanizer and Heinz as the disciplined straight man, and although the two ultimately succumb to very different temptations, the trap into which they were each initially caught were designed in nearly identical ways. In the beginning, Miguel and Heinz were both slowly reminded of their greatest desires. Miguel would be tempted by the beautiful singer Eva, initially catching glimpses of her in paintings and a brief hologram. As the story progressed, Miguel would become increasingly invested in illusions that became increasingly captivating, tempting Miguel to take on the role of Eva’s lost lover, Carlo, and to become the eternal, perfect image of a Carlo that was forever enraptured by Eva. With each illusion, Miguel would become more and more distanced from Heinz, both physically and mentally, representing his drift away from reality and into the embrace of his fantasies. However, Miguel did not succumb to the illusions until he was finally kissed by Eva, and the illusions had finally granted him his fantasy.
Heinz, on the other hand, was haunted by reminders of his daughter’s tragic death, tempting Heinz with an escape from the bitter reality of his own life. Whereas Miguel had been tempted by carrots, Heinz was beaten with sticks, with the tragic memories of his daughter’s death. Like with Miguel, the AI initially offered only brief reminders, a doll falling and breaking, an illusion of Heinz’s wife and daughter happily eating dinner with him. However, when Heinz was finally confronted with a choice between remaining in reality and living with the grief of his daughter’s death or escaping into his memory of a happy life at home with his daughter and wife, for a moment, Heinz succumbs to his love for his daughter and the promise of a life with her still in it. However, a hologram of his daughter falls from the roof and into his lap and shocks him back into reality. For a moment, Heinz desperately flails, his hands only passing through the illusion of his daughter’s dead body – but once he recognizes the illusion as being his reality, he is able to grasp her body and hold it in her arms, representing his acceptance of her death and his escape from his fantasies.
From the start, Miguel was portrayed as a someone who is attracted to beauty and pleasure. His womanizer qualities highlight his lack of self-control and ease to succumb to his own desires which becomes the weaknesses that Eva targets later on. It seems that Miguel struggles to make deeper connections in his search for affection and love. From the second he entered, Miguel was blinded by the grandiose nature of the whole place. At the first glance at Eva painting on the wall, Miguel immediately becomes captivated by her beauty. When Miguel catches a glimpse out the window of a woman walking among the fields, he doesn’t question how a field could exist in space and runs straight out into the hologram. This foreshadows his susceptibility and ease to fall into Eva’s trap. Miguel ends up succumbing to his desire for love and slowing role of Eva’s lover Carlos.
What ensnares Heinz were his memories of his daughter Emily. Eva creates an illusion of where Heinz is with his family at the dining table. What snaps him out of the illusion were the flowers which were constantly changing. He shoots but it’s interesting to me that the frozen figure of his daughter remains intact when he leaves. Heinz is continually tempted throughout the film with the idea to stay within a false reality with Emily. He ultimately escapes from Eva’s trap and accepts the reality of the death of his daughter however remains floating in space.
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