I must disagree with many of the other comments here. Personally, I really liked the way the story/movie ended. The story has a mythic quality to it that is reminiscent of Native American folktales: merciless, inevitable, and grounded.
Certainly, if people were hoping for a happy-ever-after movie, they would be disappointed. But the casual brutality of the way Saiva kills the dog at the beginning should have been a clue for viewers.
In the end, each of the characters ends up living out their destiny, even if it has been postponed for a while: Saiva becomes the solitary, evil woman she was predicted to be by the shaman, Anya dies as she would have had Saiva not saved her, and Loki freezes to death, as he would have if Saiva had not found him. In the end, Saiva has undone all the ways in which she attempted to escape fate, and the others have followed.
It's a tale of destinies postponed, but finally met. For this reason, I found the story very mythic, almost like a Greek tragedy.
Certainly, if people were hoping for a happy-ever-after movie, they would be disappointed. But the casual brutality of the way Saiva kills the dog at the beginning should have been a clue for viewers.
In the end, each of the characters ends up living out their destiny, even if it has been postponed for a while: Saiva becomes the solitary, evil woman she was predicted to be by the shaman, Anya dies as she would have had Saiva not saved her, and Loki freezes to death, as he would have if Saiva had not found him. In the end, Saiva has undone all the ways in which she attempted to escape fate, and the others have followed.
It's a tale of destinies postponed, but finally met. For this reason, I found the story very mythic, almost like a Greek tragedy.