A Scene Analysis: The Interrogation of Rey

I’ve never done an analysis of only one scene, but this scene, the interrogation scene (from Star Wars: The Force Awakens) is two years old and I still have questions. I think it’s worth the analysis. A little tangent, but if you haven’t checked out the YouTube channel Cinefix then you’re missing out. It’s a channel dedicated to film analysis and education. It’s fantastic and in one of their videos “5 More Brilliant Moments in Film” the narrator teaches us a really good way to analyze a scene. He says:

“Our favorite way to figure out what’s really happening in a scene is to go backwards. It’s simple. Start at a moment you understand and step back moment by moment, beat by beat, and use what you know will happen to deduce what’s happening then, based on the assumption that the characters, like real human beings, are subject to an internally consistent logic of emotions that operates on cause and effect.”

Let’s start with a list of what happens in the scene and simultaneously use Cinefix’s method:

• Rey wakes up, discovers she’s bound to an upright chair, quickly glances around, and spots Kylo kneeling a couple of paces away, silently watching her sleep.

So Rey spots Kylo kneeling on the ground and my first question is why is he doing this? If he wanted to intimidate her he would stand and loom over her, which is arguably the best thing to do when you’re interrogating someone. However, he’s in an almost submissive position. Why? Well if we look later on he says “you’re my guest,” which means he wants to do the opposite of intimidate her. He wants to make her feel comfortable, like a guest. Why?

• Rey asks, “Where am I?”
• Kylo lets out a breath and responds, “You’re my guest.”

My next question is: why is Kylo telling Rey that she’s his guest. Two ideas come to mind. One, he’s using this as a technique to have her feel comfortable so she might slip up. Or number two, he genuinely thinks of her as his guest. Now Kylo, force bless him, isn’t much of a strategist so is he really going to pull a convoluted plan like that? Not to mention that he uses intimidation with Poe. So we know that this “ease theory” is somewhat unlikely and not a tactic he’s used before. Does this mean Kylo wants to put Rey at ease and thinks of her as his guest?

• Rey asks, “Where are the others?”
• Kylo responds, “You mean the murderers, traders, and thieves you call friends?”
• Cuts to Rey who has a slightly dismayed yet calm facial expression.
• Kylo continues, “You’ll be relived to know I have no idea.”

Why does Kylo not only decide to revel this information and tell the truth, (which also shows that he’s not naturally strategic as he doesn’t appear to contemplate the benefits of lying to her. Or I guess telling the truth could benefit his motive of calming Rey.) but also throws in a phrase like “you’ll be relived to hear?” We know by now that conventional interrogation tactics are not being used and Kylo, for some reason, is trying to put her at ease. Telling the truth seems consistent with his new-found yet seemingly contradictory motive.

• Kylo continues in a softer voice, “You still want to kill me?”
• Rey responds, “That’s what happens when you’re being hunted by a creature in a mask.”
• Kylo takes off his mask and stares at her for a couple of seconds.
• Cuts to Rey who looks surprised and confused, then she looks down.

Ok, so many questions. Why does Kylo even ask her why she wants to kill him? (she’s on the opposite side of the war as him. It’s somewhat obviousus Kylo) and why does he even take off the mask? The mask is intimidating so he once again takes it off to… stop intimidating her? Interesting. I mean Kylo is theoretically responding to Rey’s previous comment. Her comment implies that she simplistically views him as a “creature in a mask.” It would then make sense for Kylo to takes off the mask to show her he’s not a creature. His line about her “still wanting to kill him” also implies that he wants to know if she still, well you know, wants to kill him. Or (laughs at Kylo) has changed her mind from his “at ease” antics that he’s been pulling to try to convince her otherwise. Does Kylo want her to view him as a person and not a monster, and to feel at ease in his presence? (Laughs even more.) 

• Kylo sets down his mask and comes within 3 or 4 feet of her, a neutral look on his face.
• Cuts to Rey who looks away quickly and appears to be uncomfortable as she quickly glances back at him.

Why is Rey shocked/uncomfortable? Well I think she probably expected a “creature” under the mask and Kylo not only appears to have no reason to wear the mask, but he’s an ordinary guy who is way younger and hotter then she expected. And this is when Rey’s expectations about the “Monster in the Mask” are subverted.

• Kylo says, “Tell me about the droid.”
• Rey responds, “He’s a BB unit with a selenium drive and a thermal-hypscan (Kylo looks down) vindicator…”
• Kylo interrupts her and looks up, “It’s carrying a section of a navigation chart. (Kylo turns to the side) We have the rest recovered from the archives of the empire, (looks back at Rey) but we need the last piece and somehow you convinced the droid to show it to you. (cuts to Rey looking downward, dismayed. She looks back up) You, a scavenger (Kylo smiles.)”

This gave me whiplash. I mean one second Kylo and Rey are having this weird conversation about why she wants to kill him and “Is he a monster in a mask?” All of a sudden it’s back to business. Find the map to Skywalker. Kylo does this again later. He seems to fluctuate between “let’s talk about me and the girl” and “the map to Skywalker.” Kylo seems to have two conflicting motives. Put the girl at ease and almost learn about her and appease his master and get the map. From the very beginning of the movie Kylo is way too interested in Rey. He reacts very strangely to Mitaka mentioning there was a “girl” involved in Finn’s escape and he says “the girl I’ve heard so much about,” when they meet on Takodana which is both untrue and random. He tries to both obtain Rey and obey his master, but he ultimately lets Snoke down when he doesn’t just go after the literal droid (which makes way more sense then looking into some girl’s mind to second-hand see a map.) It seems like Kylo is trying to avoid choosing between his “personal interests” as Hux said and, “orders from Leader Snoke.”

• Kylo continues, “You know I can take whatever I want.”
• Cuts to Rey who looks shocked/confused. Kylo’s hand reaches up to about a inch from her face and she turns away, close to tears.
• Kylo’s head comes into the view of the shot and he says in a softer voice, “You’re so lonely, so afraid to leave… (Rey starts to cry)”
• Shot changes to a sideways view of Kylo’s face. He looks slightly sympathetic and uncomfortable. He continues, “at night desperate to sleep (he smiles a little) you imagine an ocean. I see it. I see the island…”
• He tilts his head to the side and clenches his jaw. He was previously looking slightly downward and he looks up to her eye level. He continues, “and Han Solo (shakes his head slightly and his voice speeds up and increases in volume) you feel like he’s the father you never had (looks away.) He would have disappointed you.”

Kylo why are you talking about Rey’s dreams and how alone she feels? Like how is this helping you obtain the map in any way? We could make the argument that when he says “You know I can take whatever I want” that he then “takes whatever he wants” to show Rey his power (to intimidate her.) This seems uncharacteristic of Kylo (or at least what we’ve deduced about his motives so far) so what is actually happening? I think, at first, he does do it as a thinly veiled way of saying “mua ha ha I shall show you my power scavenger maybe to impress you a little bit,” but he seems curious about her and he not only seemingly gets distracted, but he smiles? I don’t know guys. If he’s not trying to intimidate her why does he do this?

• Rey clenches her jaw, “Get out of my head.”
• He quickly movies away his hand outstretched.

Quick thought, but this also seems to show us that Kylo isn’t really trying to intimidate her. If he was using the theoretical method from above (looking into Rey’s mind to show her how powerful he is or something) pulling away when she asks him to makes no sense.

• The shot is slowly moving up his arm and ends on his face. He says, “I know you’ve seen the map, it’s in there, and now you’ll give it to me.”
• They struggle with the force.
• Kylo says, “Don’t be afraid. I feel it too.”
• Rey responds while slightly shaking her head, “I’m not giving you anything.”
• He replies and smiles a little, “We’ll see.”

Ok what the hell is going on here. What does he mean “Don’t be afraid I feel it to.” First of all he reassures her. Not a typical interrogation tactic bud. He could be “good cop bad coping” her but come on guys Kylo isn’t that tactical. This guy has seemingly no plans or complicated schemes for trying to obtain information. With Poe he goes in grabs what he wants and gets out. Why would he use this complicated method on a scavenger of all people? If he knew Poe was a trained resistance fighter he would be a prime subject for complicated interrogation because he might have training in “not letting info slip” with both physical and conversational interrogation. Rey is literally just a scavenger. Why in the galaxy would he go to all this trouble and make up this stupid method just for her? So he really is just trying to comfort her? What?

New paragraph because Kylo is a strange and complicated dude who either has some master plan or is acting purely on emotion and hoping he’ll get by and this causes his actions to appear without clear motives. So what does he feel that Rey apparently also feels? He’s a list of my best guesses:

1. He’s saying that he also feels pain while he’s looking into her mind (cuz apparently it hurts.) Is this just more of Kylo reassuring Rey then? Weird.
2. He’s talking about the force in general. This seems kinda random though.
3. The Force Bond perhaps. If Snoke created the bond then that’s impossible though because Snoke has never heard of Rey and would have no motive to create a force bond between them at this point in time. The whole point was that once Snoke realized that Rey was “equal in the light” to Kylo he created it, but that happened during TLJ. So did Snoke lie about the Force Bond? Was it actually created by Kylo/Rey when they peered into each other’s minds? Did the force create it?
4. Guys I think it’s the Force Bond (ooh Snoke you liar)

• They struggle with the force while maintaining eye contact and Kylo goes from looking confident to confused to concerned.
• Rey says, “You, you’re afraid…”
• Cuts to Kylo looking concerned and almost scared.
• Rey continues, “That you will never be as strong as Darth Vader.”
• Kylo disconnects them. He pants and looks scared and confused. He whispers, “No” in disbelief.
• Rey pants, looking relived and awestruck.

Ok, overall what did we learn from this?

1. Kylo seems to have two warring motives: “please Snoke” and “get the girl to a place where she doesn’t want to kill me on sight so I can train her and I might also think she’s pretty and like her just a tad because we’re both lonely and sad and we relate so much aahhhh.”
2. These two motives or his “personal interests” vs. “obey leader Snoke” seem to cause some conflict (if we’re putting it mildly.)
3. Snoke probably didn’t create the Force Bond and is a rotten liar
4. Kylo isn’t all that tactical. Boy needs to stop spilling the First Order’s intel (we have so much info in our archives like wow also we don’t have a clue where your friends are at all) and he’s fraternizing with the enemy. I know she’s the first girl you’ve talked to in like… well ever, but pull it together man.

Kylo get a grip (this goes for everything he’s done so far)