1. Overview of the plot
in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, the country of fairy tales, the talented painter Aina and his wife Gerda, who is also a painter, are like glue. Gerda's paintings did not attract as much attention as her husband's, and she was often disappointed and helpless, but she did not give up. By chance, Gerda asked her husband to disguise herself as a man to "save the scene". After the model who made a temporary appointment came, she jokingly called Aina "Lily" (daffodil). Next, out of mischief, the couple conspired to make Aina women's clothing attend the artist party. The young and charming Lily won the attention of many men, and even developed a relationship with a suitor. The sudden change caught the couple by surprise. Aina begins to discover the other side of herself, and Gerda also notices the unusual changes in her husband, but out of deep love, Gerda would rather sacrifice her love, hoping to help her husband find his true self, However, the creator does not allow human beings to violate themselves at will. In the real scenery on her husband's scroll, Gerda let the silk scarf drift away with the wind: "Let her go", but, can it really be so relieved?
2. Theme concept
1. Which kind of love is more precious
Wife Gerda's love for her husband, from the lingering on the stage, to the next case, and the later tolerance and acceptance, even encourages and helps Aina to know herself and find herself. If you see the confusion of identity and become obsessed with Aina's gender switch, it is better to look at Gerda's generosity and gentleness, and pay purely for his personal sorrows and joys. On the surface, Gerda achieved success by painting "Lily", but the worldly evaluation is that she lost her husband and gained sisters. A woman with normal sexual orientation faces more psychological obstacles and difficulties than imagined when facing the former bedside person to become her own homosexual. Aina is talented and his paintings are of a higher standard, but he prefers to live in his own world, including the affairs of husband and wife, most of which are taken by the woman. From the psychological gender cognition, it can be explained that Aina was born with the shyness and reservedness of women, but as the hostess of the family, why can't Gerda enjoy her husband's active tenderness? Especially after knowing that her husband has come out of the closet and cheated, he can still treat him with respect, which cannot be explained by "courage" alone. It is human nature to show compassion between husbands and wives. Most women can’t stand the infidelity of their other half, whether it’s mental or physical. Like Gerda, they have to accept her husband’s transition and take on the infidelity she will face in the past and in the future. , the tolerance of the heart and the flash of human nature are all worth savoring.
2. Identity switching
There are multiple identity switching in the film: the career achievements of the husband and wife are reversed; the family roles are misplaced. Aina is more like a little girl who has not grown up and is not deeply involved in the world, while Gerda is strong and brave to bear it all alone . The former man becomes the woman, the former husband's achievement becomes the wife's achievement. Aina's switch from male to female means to re-adapt to the world with different faces, postures and psychology, while Gerda also has to accept her lover from the role of wife to sister. Whether the partner around him is a husband, a sister or a brand new person is the most central question raised by the film. Rather than saying that the acting skills of the little freckles are overwhelming, it is better to say that the story itself sets up an irreversible and unavoidable sharp conflict, and it is a chronic transformation that can only be accepted with warmth and cannot be confronted and resolved.
3. Lens language
The scene at the beginning, echoing the scene at the end, is the scene on the canvas of the protagonist Aina. This scene is the place that he and his partner Hans visited when he was a boy. The slow river, the reflections of dead trees in the water, the surrounding plants are lush and green, and above the dry riverbed, there are overcast clouds, but there is only a bright light from the clouds above my head. As the clouds move, the pale sun gradually becomes clearer, the panorama of the camera is drawn, the mountains and rivers alternate, the sunlight pours down from the thick clouds, and the title of the film flashes. But it also hints at the overall emotional tone of the film, the gloomy panorama and the characters who are about to face the mundane environment have an ingenious mutual metaphor.
These empty shots are not only the material for the later protagonists' paintings, but also the intuitive representation of the characters' spiritual world.
The streets where the couple walked after the exhibition also appeared in "Midnight in Paris". The environment here has a faint contrast with the situation that this marriage is about to experience: the two will face the difficult situation without assistance together, even though There is some light, but after all, it is a narrow alley at night. Copenhagen in 1926, after the subtitles, a fish was disemboweled, which was related to the two operations that Aina would later undergo. One has to accept one that removes the original male organ and then creates a completely new female reproductive organ. The waterside city is connected to fishing hawkers, and the picture of killing fish is followed by the breakfast served by Gerda, a montage of the principle of coherence of meaning.
Judging from the content of the couple's paintings, the husband is the landscape and the wife is the figure. There is a clear divergence between the two different objects and the focus of each other's attention. Aina cares about the world in which she lives, her psychological experience, while Gerda pays attention to the face of a person and the emotions revealed by it. "It's hard for a man to get used to being stared at by a woman, but women get used to it a lot. It makes people feel uncomfortable when a man has to submit to the gaze of a woman." The lines that Gerda said casually when he painted, explained to a certain extent Why Aina prefers to be a woman. Because his wife loves him so much, she has been watching him.
The place where the husband and wife live is a studio. In such a studio, the two use their different talents to express their different understandings of life. The overall tone of the room is dark, including the two's clothes, which are also dark, and it was not until Aina changed to women's clothes that there were some bright colors. Veiler landscape is what Aina is best at, and it is also what he likes for the industry, which happens to be something that his wife does not have. The art dealer relayed Aina's evaluation of his wife: It is not that he lacks ability, but that he has not found a suitable object for him. This sentence can be understood as an intertextual structure. It is not that Aina has not thought, but that he has not found his true self. Just like when he helped his wife put on stockings, Aina, who was still a boy, didn't even know which side was the front. The flip of the socks meant the flip of the gender and the flip of the relationship between the two. In the past, Aina was more successful, but later Wife is better. Those are a pair of poisonous socks. After Aina wears them, he can't take them off. He has already opened up his awareness of his female identity. This is a one-way street. Once you step on it, you can never go back. Now, like stockings, they are soft and silky when they are put on, but they are a dead end. They look beautiful and sexy, but when they are taken off, how many people can appreciate the slack and folds?
Aina originally refused to wear women's clothes. When she saw her calf in stockings under her skirt, the crescendo music gradually became clearer like the budding identity cognition in the character's subconscious. mistake. This kind of misunderstanding of oneself, after the real model Hannah arrived, jokingly called "Lily", the so-called false is true when it is true, and from then on a boy becomes a girl. Lily has the meaning of lily. From the outsider's point of view, a man's makeup can be seen as a playful joke, while a woman's wearing men's clothes adds a bit of sassiness. From this perspective, in terms of identity, men are born with a weakening tendency.
After the lingering, Gerda couldn't sleep, sitting on the window sill and painting her husband on the bed. In the early morning that followed, the city of Copenhagen was overcast with clouds, and the reflections of buildings in the water swayed less clearly in the waves. A night of lingering between husband and wife, coupled with the warm artistic creation, should be a very beautiful thing, and the early morning of the empty lens faintly implies the story that follows, the tone is not so bright and beautiful, the buildings in the water are like Aina's Gender is just as confusing and ambiguous.
4. Character Analysis
1. Aina's Gender Identity
Originally an excellent young painter, because of his easy makeup, the gender awareness deep in his heart was triggered, and he felt that he was a woman. It can be seen from taking the initiative to change into his wife's nightgown. When he was a model for his wife, he could feel his entanglement about his gender in the eyes looking down at himself wearing stockings and women's shoes. The first change of makeup happened at the request of the wife, and then it became the initiative. After the two had sex, Aina fell asleep, and when she opened her eyes, his wife Gerda was painting him. If Aina was a painter at first, he was accustomed to depicting scenes, but after the transition of his gender consciousness, he was more willing to show his body as a painted object like a woman. At first he was a painter, and then he was a model. In the subsequent stories, Aina took the initiative to choose women's clothes to show people many times, indicating that he has become "she" in his heart, and the original Aina has become the later Lily.
But what is certain is that in the first half of the story, before there is no doctor to confirm the gender, Aina can switch gender, sometimes a man, sometimes a woman; at least when Lily and a man kiss even further, the male consciousness drives He resisted. At that time, he could be said to be both male and female, whether to be a man or a woman was entirely up to him to decide. And when his gender confusion was confirmed by the doctor, he would rather choose to be a woman and complete the gender switch from male to female through two operations. The doctor told him that the operation was irreversible and that there was no precedent, and he didn't hesitate, and even couldn't wait to start it sooner. The question is, after the male genitalia was actually removed, Aina had disappeared, and whether Lily had created it, the male protagonist at that time had become neither male nor female. On the one hand, there is a tangle in my heart, and on the other hand, I feel sorry for my wife.
2. Gerda's Bewilderment
As a wife, she is full of affection for her husband. At first, because of the unsatisfactory career, I occasionally became a little emotional, but it did not affect the harmonious life of the couple. When she helped her husband Yi Zhuang become a woman after attending an artist party with a little playfulness, and found out that her husband's gender had changed, Gerda not only did not refuse to reprimand, but was more considerate and caring for her husband, she completely accepted the changed other half, no matter what. Is the other party a man or a woman, or does he have other sexual partners?
The husband and wife demonstrate the woman's gait in the alley, which is similar to the previous portrait, but the question is, did Aina spontaneously become a woman, or did she realize her true self-affirmation under the instigation of her wife? The first two times I changed makeup, one was to pretend to be a model for Gerda, and the other was to accompany my wife to an artist party that she didn’t want to get involved in. In terms of motivation, although Aina had a kitchen sex game with Hans when she was a teenager, it did not prove that she always had the idea of becoming a woman. In the days before adulthood, almost every child has at one time or another dressed in the opposite sex. Of course, Aina in the story has always preferred to stay at home like a lady all day, while his wife is running around to seek a ladder for her career. It is not so much that the husband is willing to become a woman, but the malicious intentions can be understood as the wife occasionally continues to paint Lily's famous Xiao Jiujiu.
At that time, Aina's scratching and gestures were almost all done with the encouragement and cooperation of his wife. A man needs to be affirmed. Even if he does not do well, he also needs praise from trustees. Rather than saying that Lily was born, it was the husband and wife who created this "child" together. From reluctant acceptance, to half-assistance, to willingly agreeing, and taking the initiative to try, Lily was awakened step by step, not spontaneously, a character that existed from the beginning.
So for Gerda, she may not know whether she should choose to continue to be a foil for her husband's career, or to enjoy the love a woman deserves. This confusion is, in nature, as ambiguous as Aina's gender confusion. Plato said: "The original people are both sexes. Since God split people into two, all the halves are wandering in the world looking for the other half. Love is what we long for the lost half of ourselves." The insights in "The Dialogue", as a subconscious reading of the husband and wife, have a built-in depth.
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