Psychological depression and the opposition between beauty and ugliness behind sickness and deformity

Damage

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• "Zi-Zi--" the electric drill, cut, and took off the mask.
• Oh, I haven't taken it off for so long, it seems to be stuck together. It doesn't matter, let's pry it open together.
• There is no imagined intertwined, column-shaped, covered with stagnation and pain that is not obvious to the outside world.
• Buttoned up, a crack that seems to open well, who knows?
• Lost, depressed, pursued, questioning beauty or ugliness, in the end it is a sigh.

• I recently watched four films, "The Lover in Fire" (1992), "A Tree of Pears and Begonias" (1997), as well as "The Lover" (1992), "The Death of Romance" (2016). Anna, Lolita, Jane, Xiaoliu, all of them are lazy and broken, wrapped in pain and helpless, like children chasing a life-saving straw, found a box, opened, found a box, opened, deformed A morbid love affair is accompanied by the pursuit of warmth and the predicament of life.
• Just like in the painting, the eyes of the person before taking off the mask are firm and condensed, while the eyebrows of the person taking off are drooping, absent-minded and confused. Searching for meaning in lust, and finally getting lost in lust, or perhaps, never finding a way.

• The similarity of the subject matter
• "A Tree of Pears and Begonias" is the incoherent love between a stepfather and a stepdaughter. Lolita appeared with a slender and delicate beauty, wearing a white dress, lying barefoot on the lawn, lazily shaking her feet, pouring water The nozzle of the water slowly turned, and she and the book were comfortably wet, and the translucent clothes were tightly attached to her body, revealing the girl's curves. She smiled at Han Ba, who decided to stay.
• Feet rubbed gently, close-ups of her feet appear over and over again, from seduction to defection, she is innocent on the surface and secretly provoking Hanba's lust, she needs love, she is almost thirsty, regardless of the object.
• From the uncontrollable love of a child in the early stage to the functional desire in the later stage, she finally reappeared, a simple room, married as a wife, pregnant with six jia, pale and bloated, lost her spiritual energy, with decadent laziness and the vicissitudes of life .
• "The Lover" is a prostitution-like self-esteem contest between Jane, a white girl from a poor family who envy her classmates to get money from prostitution, and Tony, a rich Chinese young man who is idle in French colony Vietnam, seeking love and love.
• In "Lover on Fire", Anna's brother committed suicide because of their deformed love and jealousy of Anna's close contacts with other members of the opposite sex. Anna and Martin are engaged, but they are passionately infatuated with Martin's father, Steve. Her life begins with her demise, constantly escaping, seeking, and shattering. No matter how many boxes she sees, she will open it willfully. No matter how many people nourish her, she will be exhausted, repeating the tragedy over and over again. On the night her brother died, she ran into the arms of the boy who indirectly caused the tragedy with her, "begging him to fuck her over and over again"; years later, when Martin committed suicide by jumping off the building for her affair with her father, she ran into the boy again. In that person's arms, seeking healing.
• In "Romantic Death History", the big boss remarries Xiaoliu, but she is unwilling to be lonely. During filming, she is happy with the actor, flirts with her husband's subordinates, and finally the matter is revealed, the big boss can't bear to kill her, for the sake of face , sent her away from Shanghai, and gave her a lot of cash to support a good life in the future. On the way to send Xiao Liu away, Watanabe kills her companion, rapes her, and takes her back to the basement in Shanghai to be imprisoned as a sex slave.
• The themes selected in the three works are all pathological behaviors that cannot be accepted by normal society. This is the first level of similarity in themes. When the director dealt with the subject matter of this work, he did not use a method of rendering a dark atmosphere and showing an anti-human psychology that was different from ordinary people. On the contrary, they all start from the protagonist's point of view and explain the protagonist's psychology for readers: Anna is to make up for the trauma of her brother's death, like a crashed plane with gravity and pulling all the aircraft it encounters; Jane feels distressed that her mother is in the government and He lost the capital and hope of life under coaxing, hated his big brother for drug addiction and domineering, and hated his mother's preference for big brother among two sons and a daughter; Han Ba ​​lost his first love girlfriend when he was young, and he has a special relationship with underage girls since then. Emotions... In general, the morbid and deformed behavior and emotions of the protagonist can be understood and even accepted by the audience. Although it takes ugliness as the theme, it can turn ugliness into beauty. What is highlighted in the deformity is the desire for love, which is the second layer.
• Sex is not just a simple socially unacceptable behavioral relationship, it involves two individuals who are clearly in dislocation: father-in-law and daughter-in-law, father and daughter, poor and discriminatory white families with rich families but no society Chinese status. Their relationship was put on opposite sides. Tony invited Jane's family to dinner. Jane said, "In front of the family, he is not my lover." The French family who get paid can also openly dislike the yellow race because of their skin, and provoke Tony on the dance floor. This commonality makes the themes of the two films different from the indiscriminate love of incest against all members of society. The opposition of individual characters provides a carrier for the opposition between beauty and ugliness, which is also the basis for the discussion below.

• 3. The clear opposition between beauty and ugliness
• With the help of special themes, he tries to express the pursuit of beautiful things, but the director is not satisfied with only creating a character that represents beauty, but also creates a party who represents ugliness, and explores the pursuit of beauty in extreme cases. The opposition between beauty and ugliness is an important tone of the two works. Aging itself is ugly, youthful vitality is beauty. Jane's eldest brother said, "Would you like to have a fight, maybe one of me can fight you two." Tony responded: "You can fight me four, please see how weak I am." With a kind of restraint and grace , without losing self-esteem, his tolerance and principles are beauty; and he has a deep reverence and yearning for the money of Tony, who is a big spender, and even went to the school to apply for Jane Ye's home, but was stabbed by the scarcity of money, It's ugly to show psychological superiority in front of Tony.
• It is worth noting that although the opposing relationship between beauty and ugliness is highlighted, beauty and ugliness are not two aspects that are isolated from each other and have no communication. Instead, the two sides are intertwined, creating a close bond in the conflict. After the condescending dinner of the French family, Tony sheds tears, knowing that even if he has money, he is still insignificant in the eyes of the other party. Back at the place where they had sex, Tony slapped Jane, tore off her panties, and used sex to vent her dissatisfaction. The claustrophobic space in the dark room puts the sharp contradiction between beauty and ugliness in one room. In such a narrow space, there is almost no buffer zone between money and love, white people and yellow people, and the humble status of Chinese people. Coexisted with the wealth of money, the sublime status of the French and the embarrassment of life, released in sex.
• In this confrontation between beauty and ugliness, we can see that the ugly side often shows irrepressible inferiority in front of the beautiful side. Correspondingly, the party representing beauty seems to naturally accept the fact that they are in a higher status, and tends to treat the party representing ugliness with contempt, ignorance or ignorance.
• Jane asked Tony after the first time, "Is it true that my mother said that in the colony a person who is not a virgin can't be married?" "It's true, like you and I already have sex, so I can't Marry you." "Because I'm Chinese." His psychological superiority reached its peak after possessing this white girl, and condescendingly declared, "I can't marry you because you're not a virgin." In the current value system, A non-virgin is ugly, a virgin is beautiful, and he is a critic.
• Jane devoured it and replied, "Great, I don't like Chinese anyway." At this moment, the evaluation system changed again: Chinese people are ugly, white people are beautiful.
• Material poverty, spiritual famine, awakening and numbness of self-esteem, and the pursuit and cover-up of true love, this clear sense of opposition between beauty and ugliness is rooted in the hearts of the characters in the three works, in order to express the powerless redemption and confrontation between beauty and ugliness. The pursuit of beauty laid the foundation.

• 4. The fragility and strength of beauty in the face of ugliness
• Further analysis of the side representing beauty under the contrasting pattern of beauty and ugliness, we can see that the symbols representing beauty have obvious similarities. Beauty is related to the beauty of the female form and the vitality of youth. Especially in "A Tree of Pears and Begonias", the camera uses Han Ba's eyes to observe the carcass of a sleeping woman beside him, which is not erotic, but allows readers to feel the pure beauty of the female body. This characteristic leads to the fact that beauty is constantly threatened by ugliness and has the power to appease and redeem ugliness before representing the aspect of ugliness.
• Women are in the position of being the victim of an overwhelmingly weaker power. In "The Lover of Fire", in the intense and rough sex scenes, Anna was deprived of the strength to resist in her actions, and her naked state also symbolized that women were completely exposed to the eyes of those around them and could not take defense. For the relationship between a father and a daughter in the same room as "One Tree Pear Blossoms and Begonias", it is easier to take away a woman's virginity when she is sleeping. Just as the writer Kawabata Yasunari described Sleeping Beauty as a "female slave who was made drowsy" and a "living toy", that is, emphasizing the disadvantaged position of women.
• After the first love, Tony poured water with a cup to wash away the virgin blood for Jane. In Kawabata Yasunari's work, Eguchi realized from a lover when he was young that "a man's lips can make almost any part of a woman bleed." The weak parts of the body can be used as tools to hurt women; and in the inn, Eguchi left "several traces of blood on the girl's chest" on the fourth night in the inn. There are scratch marks. Men can easily cause harm to women's bodies, and women's bodies are shaped as symbols of beauty in the text, so this is the embodiment of beauty's fragility.
• Similarly, in personal freedom, women are also in a relatively weak position. In the face of Yinping's stalking, women cannot escape. Watanabe imprisoned Xiao Liu in the basement, wearing Japanese clothes, and eating and having sex every day. Even if women resist, they are often powerless. When Watanabe was burying the body, Xiao Liu pointed his gun at his head, but Watanabe knew her innocence and weakness, and continued digging without caring, and Xiao Liu did not attack the man who raped her. This all reflects the fragile nature of beauty in the face of ugliness.
• However, although beauty is fragile, it also has growth potential. On the one hand, it is not difficult to notice that the story intentionally places the ugly side in a higher social status, and deprives the ugly side of all the advantages in social status in the face of beauty. Watanabe thought he knew this cowardly woman. But in 1945, Xiao Liu shot and killed Watanabe, much to his surprise, she ended up shooting, this cowardly beauty changed because of this naked and terrible war, and she decided to do what she didn't do before. The contrast in status is eliminated by the side representing beauty, which reflects the growth of beauty.
• On the other hand, the beauty in the works has an obvious influence and redemption effect on the ugliness. The redemption of beauty against ugliness is the common tone of the two works. In Lover of Fire, Steve was moved or shocked by Anna's young beauty. He only felt alive around a sleepy girl, but he had no sexual desire for his wife, and around Anna he could use her youthful energy to trace the happy traces of his never-returned life, to escape from the ugly The joy of old age and imminent death made him rather give up his soon-to-be senator goal and experience the sky and the ground.
• "There are also people who fall into lust in order to forget the evil they have done in their life", killing Anna, who is both a lover and an older brother. In the incestuous love, she realizes her free repentance, indulges and prostitutes herself, and can forgive and comfort herself. Like the night her brother died, she begged another man to fuck her hard. In the indulgence, she recalls the regrets and even the sins of the past, and makes the most sincere repentance. In the process, the soul is redeemed and sublimated. Steve is "the whisper of an angel's love", which makes up for her fear and emptiness. The director shapes the characteristics of beauty into coexistence of strength and fragility, and the fragility of beauty highlights the redemptive effect of beauty on ugliness. At the same time, this characteristic of beauty determines the complex psychology that the ugly side shows towards beauty, that is, the coexistence of desire to destroy beauty and restraint.

• 5. The destructive desire and restraint of ugliness on beauty
• In the works, in the face of the beauty displayed by the charm of women, the ugly side shows a very natural desire to destroy, but what is more noteworthy is the restraint of the ugly to this desire to destroy.
• "The Lover" When Tony brought Jane home, Jane said, "I don't know, I've never been in the house with anyone." Tony said, "I...I'm afraid. I'm afraid that I will fall in love with you. We Let's go and come here next time." Jane replied, "I hope you don't fall in love with me. What you do to other women, I want you to do to me." "That's what you want. Is it?" "Yes." In hesitation, Tony approached her, hesitating to say anything, Jane said, "I don't know, I don't want you to talk, just do it as you normally do." Desire for beauty And its restraint is reflected in this play.
• And Lolita's carcass in "A Tree of Pears and Begonias" represents the ultimate beauty in the work. This beauty not only comes from her own youthful vitality, but also has something to do with the state of sleep she often presents. The communication between Han Ba ​​and Lolita at the moment can be described as the pinnacle of male sexual fantasy. The object of the fantasy is right in front of him, but he will not go to him with will. In the end, he is actually intoxicated by this desire to make reality and fantasy agree. in an attempt. Therefore, the state where the other party is asleep can be described as an ideal state. The other party does not know his existence, and his sexual desire can stop at pure sexual desire. The state of slumber itself is part of what constitutes beauty.
• Facing her, apart from carefully observing her body, Han Ba ​​hesitated whether she would be awakened, which is a reflection of his subconscious desire to destroy beauty. Sleeping participation constitutes the ultimate beauty, which disturbs him and arouses his desire to destroy.
• Han Ba ​​believes that although he is old, he still has the roughness of a man who can awaken a girl. When he decides to put his idea into practice, the destructive desire from ugliness develops to its peak, and the restraint of destructive desire is precisely the destruction. The pinnacle of desire is manifested. The intertwining of the two is not only a response to the above-mentioned dual characteristics of beauty's strength and fragility, but also makes the image of ugliness more three-dimensional and complex, setting the tone for the pursuit of beauty by ugliness.
• Ugly's desire to destroy beauty can be found in many works of art. Freud's death instinct theory holds that it is driven by the urge in human nature to destroy order and return to a pre-life state; or that it embodies the desire for possession of beauty, which turns into a desire for destruction when possession cannot be achieved; It is the inferiority of ugliness that arises in the face of beauty. For example, the old Han Ba ​​saw the vitality of life and the ugliness of aging in Lolita. This inferiority gave birth to Han Ba's desire to destroy and the urgency to imprison her. No matter what interpretation is adopted, this desire for destruction is the embodiment of human instinct, and the restraint of the desire for destruction is the embodiment of reason. The intervention of reason can be regarded as the result of the influence and redemption of beauty on ugliness. The destructive desire and restraint of ugliness on beauty are intertwined, and ultimately the restraint of destructive desire prevails, which is the response of ugliness to the fragile and powerful dual characteristics of beauty. The complex characteristics of beauty and ugliness finally constitute the opposite pattern of beauty and ugliness in the works.
• Kawabata Yasunari wrote in "The Lake", "Is it the ugliness of the flesh that weeps because of the longing for beauty? Ugly feet chasing beauty, is it the divine will of the kingdom of heaven?"
• In the work, this root is deeply rooted in the heart of the character. For Anna, the roots go back to a childhood love for her brother. The brother and sister relationship is ethically intolerant but close, and they hope that the two will never be separated; but then the brother's suicide died, "disappeared in the world beyond her reach", which led Anna to repeatedly search for deformities in the following life. Love and maintain each other's love for yourself to gain a sense of security and presence. Han Ba's pleading and restraint on Lolita is attributed to the desire to "don't want to lose her", and this search for beauty is closely related to his youth's experience of losing his first love. In "The Death of Romance", Watanabe's violence against Xiao Liu, the woman who originally belonged to his boss, can arouse a sense of life. What he is looking for in Xiao Liu is authority, life and vitality. In "The Lover", Middleton's emphasis on Jane's virginity and her longing for youth are all looking for the qualities she once had in women. This kind of pursuit cannot be easily realized, and often ends in fruitless. The director did not prevent the two sides from contacting the beautiful and the ugly. The ugly pursuit of the beauty did not really shorten the distance between the two. Anna, Jane, Lolita, Xiao Liu, no One is not to flee or go away. Although beauty has a redemptive effect on ugliness, it has not completed the transformation from ugliness to beauty. Even the most youthful women cannot escape the threat of aging. Men hope to escape the shadow of aging through girls, Reclaiming youthful vitality is doomed to be futile.
• The pursuit of beauty by ugliness is not a challenge to the opposition between beauty and ugliness. On the contrary, the pursuit of beauty often strengthens the opposition between beauty and ugliness. The helpless sigh of the pursuit of beauty but no fruit is the embodiment of the tragedy of the work. Those who are stagnant under the mask cannot always be unraveled in pursuit.

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