Has the mystery of feminist theory and female orgasm been popularized?
Did you share the bed with your favorite person to discuss her messy sex life?
This is the coolest growth experience I have ever seen, and it is also the life portrayal of the 15-year-old Jamie in "The Woman of the Twentieth Century". This film was nominated for the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Although it is a pity that it failed to win the award, it is a pity that Annette Bening did not even make the best actress. But for Oscar, who has always had an international vision and deep humanistic care, this movie is obviously too small and has no central idea, but this does not prevent it from becoming one of my favorite movies in early 2017.
Mike Mills was born in Berkeley, California in 1966, before he became a film director. He directed music videos for Air, Blond Redhead, Beastie Boys and Yoko Ono. He also produced for brands such as Kate Spade, March Jacobs, Gap, Addidas and Nike. Through short films and commercials. In addition, Mills is also a graphic designer, designing patterns, illustrations and record covers, and founded his own fashion brand Humans in Japan.
In 1999, Mills' mother died of brain cancer. Six months after her death, Mills' father Paul came out at the age of 75 after the 44-year marriage ended, declaring that he was an out-and-out gay man. Five years later, Paul died of liver cancer.
Mills took his life experience into the second feature feature film, Beginners. With this film, Christopher Plummer, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, plays the father of the actor Oliver. A 44-year marriage, The art historian who finally released himself (gay orientation) after the death of his wife showed off his love with his little boyfriend in the last five years of his life and dedicated his retirement life to gay rights. Oliver, played by Ewan McGregor, has more or less the director's own shadow: a melancholy graphic designer whose daily work is hand-painted T-shirt patterns and record covers. Soon after his father passed away, Oliver still flashed back the moments he had before his death. He was immersed in grief, but attracted by French actresses with intimacy barriers, and began a love that healed each other's ups and downs.
Mills is a director who likes to tell his own stories, and his film shots are always aimed at the family. The virgin feature film "Thumbersuckers" (Thumbersuckers) focuses on the confusion and anxiety of adolescence, adapted from Walter Cohen's novel of the same name. "Beginner" uses a large flashback to recall the old life of mother and father in childhood memories.
In this latest screenwriter and director "20th Century Women" (20th Century Women), the experience of getting along with mothers is incorporated into it. Compared with the jerkyness of "The Thumb Sucker" and the autobiographical nature of "Beginner", "Woman of the Twentieth Century" is more mature and complete, and more layered.
Like his previous independent films, Mills did not spend a lot of effort in "telling stories," drawing away from the intricate character history and slideshow-like picture montages. The story line of "Woman in the Twentieth Century" is actually very simple: adolescence. Jamie and her single mother Dorothea began to estrange, and Dorothea hoped that the two young women around her could help her raise Jamie together. After a period of time, Chaos, the mother and son finally reached a short-term harmony.
The director has stripped away the tradition of traditional narrative, there is no plot arrangement that inherits and turns, there is no drama conflict that buried the pain of growth, and the film did not reach a sensational climax in the reconciliation of mother and son. He constantly disrupts the development of the main line plot, casually traces the past and present of the main characters in a reminiscence tone, and often inserts a large number of picture montages in the narrative to arouse the audience's awareness of the background of the times.
Even the perspective of the self-narrator is constantly switching between several major roles. From the fifteen-year-old boy Jamie, Jamie’s mother Dorothea, tenant Abby, neighbor Julie, and then to the male tenant William under the same roof, he put a lot of descriptions on these characters, using objects and stories. , Situation, concept, history, these main characters are filled with lovely details and grand backgrounds. The director is committed to making all the characters-especially the three female characters named after the film-present a charming and charming Full "texture" luster. Those emotional plots did not win with sensationalism, but with the nuances that transcended the truth.
Dorothea was born in the era of the Great Depression. Smoking was still a fashion when she grew up and was not considered harmful to her health. This also became an excuse for her to keep smoking. At the beginning of the movie, Dorothea realized that the car on fire in the parking lot was her ex-husband’s Ford Galaxy, and recalled many past events when Jamie was born. She only gave birth to Jamie when she was forty years old, and soon after divorcing her husband, she raised her son alone. The old and dilapidated Ford caught fire. Instead, she calmed down and invited the firefighters to come to her birthday party at home. She often invites others to have dinner at home, including the black brother at the entrance of the nightclub. This is her way of constantly attracting "family members". She likes the sense of a salon surrounded by a group of people in her home, and she also likes to lean against the door after the party is over. Say goodbye to them one by one. Then the world is left with her and Jamie, relying on each other. She and Jamie’s habit of recording stocks every morning comes from her and her left-handed ex-husband. She had been with many boyfriends and seemed to want to find a father for Jamie, but she didn't marry again until she met Jim in 1983. The marriage between the two remained until she died of lung cancer in 1999.
Abby was born in 1955. She has short red hair like David Bowie. She loves rock music and nightlife. She is rebellious like she wanted to leave Santa Barbara as soon as possible when she was young to fight against the local peaceful and peaceful lifestyle. She fell in love with photography in New York, and she also fell in love with the art school teachers. She had an abortion for her love, but found out that she had cervical cancer, a sequelae caused by Abby's mother taking medicine for pregnancy. Friends' fear of cancer forced Abby to return to Santa Barbara, but cervical cancer also prevented Abby's mother from facing her. Abby started a new life in the same city, this starting point began at Dorothea's house. She worked as a photojournalist in a newspaper to maintain her life, began treatment and rehabilitation of cervical cancer, began to try to make love with William, the only adult male in the house, and began to teach Jamie how to flirt with older women. Predicted that she would not be able to become pregnant, she finally got married and had two children.
Julie was born in 1962, she said she was a self-destructive person. Julie's mother was a psychologist and forced her to join a youth psychotherapy group. Julie's indulgence lies in her indiscretion towards her boyfriend and intemperance towards sex. She smokes marijuana, stays out at night, has sex with different boys, and never considers safety measures. She likes to sneak into Jamie's house and sleep next to Jamie to confide her depravity and frustration to him. She is well aware of Jamie's obsession with her, but does not want to have sex with him at all. She just feels relaxed and relieved by Jamie who likes her and tolerates her. Julie finally left Santa Barbara, lost contact with Dorothea's family, and severed contact with her mother. She went to Paris after graduating from New York University.
People who don't like this movie may be confused by the film's unorganized nature, its narrative is not systematic, and it does not have a consistent theme. It not only tells how Jamie reconciled with his mother in the confused exploration stage, but also records several important figures who appeared in his life in 1979, and at the same time it is wrapped in the torrent of history. The time span of the movie is even more confusing. Those quiet whispering whispers, is it recorded in 1979? Or retelling the past in the late 1970s in 1999? Or will Jamie, who gave birth to more children, tell the story of his grandmother to the children?
Not all movies have to seek to express core themes and concepts blindly. Mills has no ambitions in this regard, but opens a window of memory in a gentle way, leading to the emotions and desires of 1979. The film does not sort out, summarize and summarize the arguments. Its concept is always hidden in the details, in the dialogue full of wit and speculation. As a film that pays tribute to women, "Woman of the Twentieth Century" did not go too far on the path of feminism. The concept of gender and gender is tolerant and advanced.
Dorothea is worried that the lack of her father's role will affect Jamie, so she hopes that Abby and Julie can help him make up for the incomplete life. This seemingly paradoxical logic does not seem to bring any bad effects to Jamie. Abby and Julie's "raising" is not only to complement Jamie's missing male education, but also to teach Jamie how to be a good person. Although he was mocked as a gay by his classmates who flaunted his masculinity, he did grow in a direction that is more willing to listen, tolerate, and understand.
He accompanied Abby to the gynecological follow-up treatment, waited for the pregnancy test results with Julie, fought with male classmates because of clitoral stimulation, and listened to Abby and Julie talking about menstruation at the table.
There is no tension between the sexes, and there is no clear-cut gender proposition. Whether it is Jamie or William, they are like listeners and explorers of the female world, and those female characters are the guides. Just like Julie imitating men smoking and having sex, Abby told him that he should not refute other men’s bragging about sex. Their retelling of masculinity and parody of performances constituted a ridicule and dispelling of gender construction. In fact, it hides the feminist view that “gender is a feminist discourse constructed by society, a creation of society and symbols” (Li Yinhe), and gender at this time transcends the world of gender and identity.
The performance of sex in the movie is also so calm. Julie talked unscrupulously about her first sexual experience at the party-she randomly selected a person from the party and hurriedly completed the ceremony in the car. The descriptions that are neither beautiful nor dirty make "sex" an object to be talked about publicly. When Abby wanted to go to bed with William, she would show him photos of her personal symbols: underwear, underwear, contraceptives, and Sontag's "On Photography", and then candidly express her desires. William patiently and tenderly performed role-plays in accordance with Abby's fantasy script. This sex scene is neither revealing nor glamorous. There is no subject or object of sexual desire, and there is no subordination relationship between oppression and oppression. The desires of the two sexes reach a balance to some extent.
Mikes Mills said in an interview: "I use this movie to pay tribute to the women who raised me: my mother, sisters, the girls I loved, the girls I looked up to at school or in the punk scene. They are complicated. , Interesting and powerful, both committed to making themselves more real, free and happy, and always learning how to get along with the world in the process of constantly exploring freedom."
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