Not long ago, the suicide of Lin Yihan, a young Taiwanese writer, brought a sensitive, secretive and heavy topic - underage sexual assault, into the public eye again.
In his novel "Fang Siqi's Paradise of First Love", Lin Yihan wrote a flowery girl who was full of beautiful fantasies about love and the world at first based on his own personal experience. The story of how life is broken bit by bit.
And the beginning of the American film "Letterhead Story" is still prominently marked "adapted from the personal experience of Jennifer Fox".
Such a confession always makes people, from the very beginning, greet a story with fresh life with a more solemn and trembling mood.
The narrative method of the film is very subjective. The entire film perspective is almost entirely based on the heroine's personal memory and consciousness development. The way of interspersing the memory fragments with real life narrates, and also uses surreal techniques to make the young heroine and adult. The heroine talks across time and space, and finally presents the entire story in its entirety.
At the beginning of the film, some details of the adult heroine's character traits are explained: the interview scene reveals the heroine's occupational category; the scene of making love with her current boyfriend is very proactive, which is also a reason for her to deliberately stimulate a female college student in her lectures. Describing her first sexual experience, the heroine's complex expression full of surprise lays the groundwork - at that time she realized that in addition to the mental and physical damage, she also lost the perfect fantasy of sex and the first experience of sex. It's beautiful, which causes her to be forever missing in this regard; and the unopened gift box from her boyfriend on the table - there are things that the heroine cares more about in her life than materialism and romance.
One main line, two moods; one character, two ages.
Thirteen-year-old Jennifer recorded this story with a good mood from the very beginning. She grew up in a traditional family when she was young. Seeing her mother's mediocre marriage life, she was reluctant to embark on the same life by herself. , want to break the shackles of parents, have different experiences, in order to make themselves "special". Because of this, Jennifer knows how to communicate with adults better than other children.
While learning to ride, she is drawn to two adults who share a special friendship, Jane, a beautiful married woman, and Nell, a divorced man, both of whom are instructors for her riding. , and this forty-year-old Nell is the man who later used Jennifer's pursuit of special psychology and ignorant innocence to seduce him by teaching.
The mother's nervousness, the English teacher's rational comments, and her boyfriend's fierce reaction were all trying to make Jennifer realize that the childhood experience was not a special love, but a real sexual assault. All of this made the adult Jennifer finally want to explore. She looked for many people in various ways, looking for Nell, perhaps to have a final end to the relationship many years ago. But all this never made the thirteen-year-old Jennifer shake her hopes and fantasies about that experience, which belonged to her thirteen-year-old self, and she stubbornly didn't want to deny it. Indeed, even if it is defined as sexual assault, it is not the fault of a thirteen-year-old girl.
Jane and Bill shared their feelings with Jennifer, confessed that they were in a relationship, and wrote to Jennifer to express their deep understanding of her, which was completely trusted by Jennifer, who was ignorant and full of desire for autonomy. They built an ideal world for little Jennifer, so free and easy, she was deeply fascinated by the thirteen-year-old, so unguarded that Bill later expressed his love to her and made physical assaults Behavior, she is also submissive, and she doesn't even know how to refuse, thinking that it is a special love full of freedom, and immersed in it.
In fact, since the first time she stayed at Bill's house, Jennifer's dialogue with herself across time and space has already begun. As an adult, she has begun to see the truth of the facts from a long time away, and it seems that she is trying to convince the thirteen-year-old herself. , but the stubborn little Jennifer who yearns for autonomy refuses to give in.
However, the body is honest. Every time Bill violates the body, little Jennifer is very disgusting. Finally, when Nell and Jane proposed a four-person plan, little Jennifer heard her heart clearly during her illness. Bravely made the call and ended what had been so long.
How should all this be summed up? The mother finally said to Jennifer that she felt sorry for not protecting her daughter. Because of her father's words, her initial suspicion was dispelled, and little Jennifer, driven by growth, had nothing wrong with her yearning for freedom and love, but Encountered the wrong guide.
As for Jane, this special role exists, and Jennifer finally questioned her across time and space. She was waiting for her to save her, but it could only be her, why didn't she come. Jane sat calmly as always, holding a cigarette, her eyes wandering and despairing, she said, and no one came to save me.
We have watched movies about child sexual abuse in the past, South Korea's "Sowon" and Denmark's "Hunting", which were all adapted from real stories, and they all expressed the society's attitude towards such incidents in a large-scale narrative way. manner. The special feature of "Letterhead Story", I think, is probably its accurate and straightforward depiction of human nature and psychology based on reality. It does not have so much social attention, and some are just the heroine's self-confrontation across time and space , it doesn't describe the heroine's life under the shadow of being sexually assaulted. Instead, after many years, when the heroine re-examines this experience, she realizes little by little what she is missing. Such a belated injury made it even more heavy and breathless.
The topic of sexual assault on the Internet is full of responses. We are surprised that this kind of phenomenon is so common, and most people do not want or have the opportunity to receive enough attention and protection. They can only rely on their inner strength in the long river of time. Killing the pain is a long and difficult process. "Letterhead Story" fits such a perspective and psychology, and it is so real that it is terrifying.
The better part is at the end of the story, the stubborn girl who stays in fantasy sits with Jennifer, who has finally ended up in adulthood, like a sign that the long self-confrontation has finally achieved inner reconciliation, and no one will try to defeat anyone anymore, that The stubborn girl just let her stay there, there is no need for denial or affirmation, in any case, that is who she used to be. Childhood experiences are part of growing up and part of life. And now, he has finally been freed.
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