I like this translation. Although it lacks the meaning of the flower's name in French, it makes people think of "daydream" and "white day prostitution" at the same time, which is the core of this film. Daydream, an absurd and promiscuous beauty daydream.Draw the curtains at the brightest hour of the afternoon and have the darkest dreams.
The elegant and dignified lady, driven by an unspeakable desire to give her body (a woman in a Gucci coat has nothing to sell), eventually attracts the villain's concubine and shoots her loyal husband. Does this smell a little like Pan Jinlian and Ximen Qing conspiring to poison Wu Dalang? The difference is that Wu Dalang died quickly and completely, being burned to ashes without a trace.
That's why people say that this story is a fantasy of beauty from beginning to end, a masochistic rhapsodic produced by the spiritual alienation of an empty and lonely bourgeois woman. She imagined herself being beaten by a horse whip, stained with mud everywhere, bound and bound, picked and plundered. And she herself gradually felt happy about it. It is not surprising to condemn or understand this kind of pleasure. It is strange that people forget another kind of human pleasure-the pleasure of men.
Is there a deep male desire hidden behind the seemingly nonsensical female fantasies? If every woman has the urge to be raped in her heart, is it impossible for every man to suppress the desire to rape women? Perhaps the latter is more direct and common.
The film is interspersed with three of Severi's daydreams, abused in different ways, but in each dream she is tightly bound by ropes. Women are still unable to control themselves in their wildest dreams. She was whipped and raped by Pierre's coachman, splashed with mud by Pierre for his friends to watch, and finally became the trophy of a man's gladiatorial battle-what an ancient woman's mission. Whose fantasy is this here? Of course, Severi dreams of erotic stimulation that is completely different from everyday life, but it can be said that it is the deep desire of men to control women's bodies.
In a stable and smooth daily life, Pierre is affectionate toward his wife every day, but in fact, he can't control her at all. In the most basic husband and wife life, the husband repeatedly ran into the wall, and his annoyance was obvious, but he was helpless in front of the pure and stable wife. Women in white clothes are so gentle and decent, making men feel ashamed and helpless.
When Severi went to the brothel, the noble and pure vase was smashed, and the gender status in the play began to reverse completely. The most lewd and vile men can play her in bed, and she and the other two prostitutes let their clients choose and comment. On the surface, it seems that Severi is becoming more and more active and enthusiastic when picking up guests, but this just shows the continuous loss of her subjectivity. It is not stated in the film whether Severi really fell in love with Marcel, and perhaps Severi herself is equally unclear. At the moment of being "Beauty in the Day", she has no right to choose a lover at all, just as she has no right to choose whom to have sex with. The appearance of Pierre's friend at the brothel became a landmark event, and Severi fell into the trap, completely losing the possibility of free behavior. She satisfied the desires of men of all tastes when she was "Beauty in the Day", and now she is forced to end this special "afternoon tea" early and return to the doctor's family in horror.
If Pierre was seriously hurt, and his wife lived in self-blame and guilt, then this story was all about women's terrible and uncontrollable desires. However, the beautiful picture at the end implies that the whole story is not real, and that prostitution and abuse are just Severi's fantasy. When this fantasy ends, she is still pure and flawless, but she may love her husband more. When she sees the possible consequences of indulgence, she will take a different path in reality. Desires are vented in fantasy, but reality does not collapse. She may no longer refuse her husband's request to sleep in the same bed; she may have the best vacation with her husband; she may soon welcome their first child... And all of this is not exactly what the doctor's husband has always wanted.
If everything is just a woman's fantasy, then no matter in fantasy or after fantasy, in day or night, prostitutes and noblewomen essentially satisfy the desires that men have not stated but never gave up.
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