Text/Jiang Xiao瑁
2014-04-11
"Female Addict" self-funded filming has carried the "curiosity" and "expectations" of many people since the film title, regardless of whether it is simply induced by the title of the film, It is still mixed with the usual crazy "worries" about the director Lars von Trier. From the perspective of sensory stimulation, the film seems to live up to expectations. Whether it's the first bold love scene or the abuse of the second horse whip sound, it directly affects the audience's senses; and this directness is also very successful. The earth penetrated the screen-the pain in the heroine Joe’s heart was directly released into the audience through the torture experienced by the body, so we realized the unbearable things in her life in this state similar to "empathy" weight.
But "Female Addict" is not only about the senses and love; under the superficial dry fire, it is the longing for "love" and the loneliness that cannot be filled after losing "love". Lars von Trier is just telling this ancient proposition in his own rebellious way to go to the world. Only this time, "Lonely" was put on the vigorous coat of "sex addiction", and this coat was also given a feminine form of existence. The marginalized group of female addicts bears more social shackles than male addicts, because they are not only flogged by the whole society because of their addiction, but also subject to additional moral judgments because of the society’s double judging standards for the behavior of men and women. As the conversation between Joe and Seligman revealed, when men abandon their families because of their desires, society seems to be more inclined to find excuses for them to justify them, but women will only be severely condemned.
Lars von Trier’s films seem to be sympathetic to women. The women in his pens and cameras are often placed in breathless depression and imprisonment, regardless of whether the imprisonment stems from the injustice of the external environment ("Dancer in the Dark", "Dog Town"), The inner self-control ("Female Addict"), or the supernatural induction ("Depression"). Therefore, the female characters he created are always extremely complicated in heart, and his brushwork is also extremely delicate, so delicate that they often cross boundaries and are cruel. At the same time, Lars von Trier seems to be extremely disappointed with men and the patriarchal society they reflect; his usual veto of "good" in his films seems to be a chic on the banner of the anti-patriarchal society. sign. This signature model also appeared in "Female Addicts"-after the end of Joe's story, Seligman's true appearance is the epitome of human annihilation, and a gunshot in the dark is Lars von Trier's revenge on this society. .
"Female Addicts" is divided into two parts, and there is a big difference between the style and the way of telling the two parts. The biggest feature of the first part is that the process of Joe revealing his life is actually the process of Lars von Trier exposing his creative ideas. Even in many scenes, he seems to be using Joe’s mouth to explain to the audience why the story is presented. Out of this fragmented structure. Each chapter is triggered by a furnishing in the room, so that the seemingly indifferent experience and experience are connected with Joe's sexual addiction. These experiences or chapters sometimes lack the necessary connections, but this is not important, because we are enough to piece together the appearance of Joe's life through these pieces. The second part has really entered the theme of the story. Losing "love" is far more painful than losing "love". There is a loop in each of the upper and lower parts. In the first screen time and space, Joe’s sexual experience starts and ends with Jerome, the love of her life, which can be regarded as a cycle of individual life; and in the second part, the character jumps out of the dead circle of individual life cycle , Established a cycle of fate between the lives of the two generations of Joe and P; the same posture, the same number, and the same person wrote the strange circle that the two generations have gone through and will enter. This is how fate is imprisoned. Everyone who wants to break free.
In the first cycle of Joe's individual life, two key male characters play the melody of "love" in a mess. These two people are Joe's father and her beloved Jerome. Joe has been very close to his father since he was a child, and his father is very tolerant of his daughter. When he found out that his daughter was reading the names of the reproductive organs in medical books when he was very young, he just smiled funny and didn't make any moral judgments on her daughter. He often took his daughter to see the tree in the garden, or the soul of the tree, and encouraged his daughter to look for the tree of his own soul. Unexpectedly, this father who thought his soul lived in the tall oak tree would be so vulnerable before his life ended, suffering from insanity. It is precisely because of this benevolent father that Joe never gave up searching for his soul in his life, and finally chose to accept his own shortcomings and be proud of himself. Another person who is very tolerant of Joe is Jerome. He gave birth to a son with Joe and encouraged her to meet these needs in her own way after recognizing Joe's needs. But any tolerance is limited-when Jerome found out that Joe left his son alone at home in the middle of the night to go out for a happy life, everything was over.
From this moment on, the "love" in Joe's life began to be missing, and the film began to point to its larger theme-loneliness. Loneliness is not just being treated as a heresy in the normal social order, but also in the so-called social mutual assistance, and modifying oneself beyond recognition in order to integrate into the mainstream world, as advocated by the mutual assistance group that Joe was forced to join. Like that. However, it is often not the external pressure that brings people back to their original form, but the soft call from their heart, or even the call of genes. The mirror in the mutual aid group does not reflect Joe's present and future appearance, but her most original face-the girl who has been extremely sensitive to her body since she was very young. The fear of loneliness forces people to become homogeneous, but keeping differences does not mean that loneliness can be dispelled. The prosperous "career" Joe will still be aroused when facing his old lover Jerome, an emotion he does not like. This emotion that cannot be destroyed no matter what kind of sexual experience becomes a barrier between Jerome and his gun. The last layer of protection shield. Being lonely means that I would rather burn myself in the fire, but also live a good life watching the source of loneliness.
It wasn't sex that destroyed Joe's addiction; she accepted everything about herself and determined to be that precious one in a million. The addiction that she can hardly give up in the end is the love of life Jerome-the only emotional center close to order in this chaotic world. But as mentioned earlier, Lars von Trier won't let the story freeze at this beautiful moment. He must shed his despair and contempt for this world at the end, and let Seligman, a well-dressed beast, take off his coat. And Joe, in a sense, may have continued the fate of Selma, a dancer in the dark. Life is endless, and the net of fate is endless.
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