Roman Polanski’s life is just like two sides of the moon: one is an art master, he has made a number of critically acclaimed movies, and has won a lot of various film awards. Glory and dazzling; on the other side is a bumpy road of life. When I was a child, I escaped from a Nazi concentration camp. My mother was lost at the hands of the Nazis. During the rising period of his middle-aged career, his wife, relatives and friends who were about to give birth were killed by gangsters. In the late 1970s, he was wanted by the United States for having sex with an underage girl in Jack Nicholson’s house. He fled to Europe for more than 30 years. In September 2009, he was arrested by the Swiss police for this old case. After being released on bail for a large sum of US dollars, the 77-year-old film master this year is still under house arrest. According to the latest news reports, he is likely to be extradited to the United States for trial. This side is the dark side of the moon. , It can be said that disasters are endless, troubles and darkness are endless.
"Bitter Moon" is a work of Roman Polanski's escape to Europe. It was released in 1992 and was completed at the peak of the director's artistic life. Confucius said, "You know the destiny at fifty, and the ear is smooth at sixty." Polanski was 59 years old when he filmed this film. According to common sense, at the age of sixty years, many of the hypocrisy and pretense in life have been put down, and there is a mature view of everything in life in his heart. The movie "Bitter Moon" can also be regarded as the director's summary of marriage and love. Just as the moon has both bright and dark sides, love has its sweet and intoxicating side, as well as its dark and cruel side. The yin and yang sides of this erotic desire are real and reflected in this movie.
The film is adapted from a novel by a little-known British erotic writer. Film and novel are two different art categories, but third-rate novels can often become first-class movies. There are people who love this movie, and people who hate it. In my opinion, whether you accept it or not, this movie is indeed a masterpiece that deeply portrays the truth of human nature. The encounter and love of the heroes and heroines can be described as the truth of love; the hatred and mutual torture in the later period can be described as the truth of desire.
At the beginning of the story, Oscar, an American who wanted to be a writer, came to Paris and met the beautiful girl Mimi on the bus. Since then, she has fallen into unrequited love and is struggling to find the beauty of that girl. At the same time, the movie also explained Oscar's nature as a playboy,-in the process of searching, there is no shortage of women around him. And his meeting with Mimi again was in the restaurant where he and a woman ate out. At this time, he was a diner and Mimi was a waiter in the restaurant. The customer is God, and Oscar will always be Mimi's God for Mimi's future life. This role is positioned throughout the film.
Oscar has loved Mimi. From an unintentional meeting, to a conscious search, to the initial cohabitation life, the movie portrays the sweetness of love. This period of time can be said to be the "honeymoon period" of their love. The so-called honeymoon is timed by the month, which is sweet but so short. Once the honeymoon was over, Mimi, who once loved as a treasure, gradually disgusted Oscar. Before Mimi lived with Oscar, the young girl's ambition was to dance, and her first conflict with Oscar was also a dance. The dance between Mimi and the black guy in the nightclub is not only Mimi’s revenge for Oscar and her roommate for being too intimate, but also a provocation to Oscar’s role as God. She wants to get equal status with Oscar. Oscar is hers. Only, she also wants Oscar to be the only one. Her provocation failed, Oscar abandoned her and went home alone to watch his "Once Upon a Time in America". In the end, she had no choice but to follow and beg for Oscar's forgiveness. From the moment Mimi lay on Oscar's feet and wept bitterly, Oscar's position of God was firmly established. From this moment on, the once sweet love began to deteriorate.
And Mimi, from the moment Oscar gave him the bus ticket, until she finally died under Oscar's gun, she always loved Oscar. From simple love, to love mixed with jealousy, to love that accepts his mockery and insults, to love mixed with hatred, to love that firmly dominates Oscar's play between the palms, The decisive love until the bullet waiting for Oscar is all love. This kind of love, direct, clear, and unrelenting, is both miserable and tragic.
Oscar said to Mimi, I abandon you in exchange for all the women. This is Oscar's most true confession, and it is also where the fundamental contradiction between the two people lies. As far as Oscar is concerned, what he wants is not the only partner, nor a stable marriage. On the road of hunting for beauty, he will never satisfy. Yes, he used to love Mimi, and the two had a short honeymoon, but all of this is over. He has got her body, and now she has become the one for him to get more of other women's bodies. The biggest obstacle. Once he watched her drinking milk in a bottle and poured the milk on her beautiful breasts, he rushed forward and sucked greedily. At that time, he thought she was a queen, she was so beautiful and so cute. Now, when he watched her drinking milk with a bottle, he thought she was so vulgar and disgusting. New love degenerates into old love, freshness becomes boredom. The things he had obtained were no longer worth cherishing. He had regarded her as a thorn in his eyes, as a worn-out rag, and he just wanted to drive her away. As far as Mimi is concerned, this man is her entire world. She can tolerate him doing anything, can tolerate him fooling around with other women, as long as this man allows her to stay with her, as long as this man is with her. Oscar only takes a moment, but Mimi wants eternity. These two people with completely different outlooks on love and life values are so screwed together.
Yes, men want more, women want one. This is the source of all pain.
In modern love and marriage ethics, mutual loyalty is listed as the first element. It is said that this is one of the products of human civilization, and one of the functions of civilization is to suppress human nature. In the eyes of Master Freud, all human creations are resistance and sublimation to this repression. Human beings have experienced matrilineal society and patriarchal society, but human nature has not changed much. Men are bothersome and women are infatuated. From a physiological point of view, some people point out that the reason why men are bothered is because they can produce hundreds of millions of sperm every day, and the reason why women tend to pursue stable relationships is because mature women can only produce one egg every month. Sperm is abundant and cheap and can be thrown at will. Eggs are few and precious and must be carefully considered before paying. Moreover, after a night of infatuation, a man can dress neatly and wave his hands free and easy, while a woman has to bear the possible long consequences of nurturing for several years of pregnancy in October. This is an irreconcilable fundamental contradiction between men and women. This contradiction is also the contradiction between Oscar and Mimi.
Therefore, the touching love circulating in this world always ends in one party being killed by an irresistible force. "British Patient", "Titanic", "Butterfly Lovers", "Romeo and Juliet" and so on. Because when the ecstasy of the "honeymoon" ebbs, and when everything inevitably slides into the mud of worldly life, how great and fierce love will fade and even disappear. And what we want is the transcendence of love, and we can't bear the end of love to the world.
How to keep love fresh? It is said that the first essence is that the two parties in love should try their best to maintain spiritual resonance and communication, that is to say, after the initial fascination with each other's body subsides, there is still a fortress where they can retreat together. After all, the spirit is relatively eternal compared to the appearance that fades away easily. If men and women in the world can have the spiritual resonance of Li Yinhe and Wang Xiaobo, or Sanmao and Hexi, the fragile love can be firmly maintained. Let's take a look at Oscar and Mimi. In their initial "honeymoon period", their greatest pleasure was to play role-playing games and engage in SM. There is a lot of physical communication, while spiritual communication is almost nothing. Two people with completely different life experiences and tastes just want to find a common topic, and it is probably impossible to find it. This also confirms the ancient truth, that love formed purely by physical relationship is extremely unstable with men, because it is a man's nature to like the new and dislike the old.
When the "honeymoon" becomes the "bitter moon", when hatred replaces love, Oscar treats Mimi more and more ruthlessly, and finally takes pains to drive her out of her life. Here at Oscar, he got his wish and lived the happy life of Xunhuawen Liu, and his love with Mimi was completely dead. And Mimi returned to Oscar after two years. At this time, the two people who once loved each other were like two unshakable enemies. These two people are no longer the two people of yesterday. One is paralyzed and loses sexual ability, and the other is no longer able to bear children because of a miscarriage for this man. In other words, when the resentful couple meet again, one is a man who does not lift up, and the other is a woman who is infertile.
And this incapacitated man, and this incapacitated woman, got married again and lived together again. At this time, Mimi began to find her past glory, she stood in the position of the queen again, and began to deliberately retaliate against the man. For a lecherous man, incapacity should be the greatest punishment God has given him. Mimi felt that this was not enough. She would punish him more severely and humiliate him. Flirting with people in front of him, throwing him at home, who has lost his ability to take care of himself, let him pee on the floor and pee in his crotch. Aren’t you upset that I danced with that black man? I’m going to let him dance for you now, show you his incompetent man his fit body, and have a big deal with him in front of you. What Oscar planted yesterday begins to bear fruit today.
When this kind of revenge trick is tired of playing, on Oscar's birthday, Mimi gave him a birthday gift with a pistol filled with bullets. Mimi should understand that this gun can be shot at Oscar or at herself. Although Mimi didn't say anything when delivering the gun, her meaning was obvious: Oscar, aren't you particularly proud? Are you not the God in my life? If you are really a man, you will commit suicide or kill me. From the moment the gun was sent out, Mimi had a desire to die.
Oscar did not kill, nor did he commit suicide. He and Mimi arrived on a luxury cruise ship and began their journey to the east. The East refers to India. For a long time, many fashionable people who are disgusted by Western modern civilization have looked for spiritual fulcrum in the East. For example, the Beatles and other rock stars have sought spiritual power from Indian mystical philosophy. Oscar and Mimi, after being bored in the hell created by each other, began to rush to India. They either want to go to the East to get a new life, or want to go to the East but survive, anyway, they caught up with this cruise. On the cruise ship, Mimi is still playing her dangerous sex games. While she molested the men on the ship, she kept irritating Oscar. Mimi knows her own beauty well, and understands the allure of her flesh to lewd men. She danced to the music alone in the bar on the ship. This dance was a decoy with great lethality, and the horny person took the bait. And Nigel, who is from the UK on vacation to India and in the same boat in marriage trouble, is the best quality fish. Nigel and his wife Fiona are not only listeners and participants of Oscar and Mimi's story, but also a contrast between Oscar and Mimi's erotic story.
Nigel is also a man and another Oscar. Infatuated women are heartbroken, and men all over the world are bothered. Nigel was also deeply attracted by Mimi's body. He was thinking about how to get this woman. Although he was listening to Oscar telling the story of his crime and punishment, he was always thinking about how to sleep with Mimi. . In this listening process, Nigel is also creating his own story. He deceived his wife Fiona, and he was deeply pleased by this story. Finally, at the ball on New Year's Eve, he danced with Mimi and confided his desire to Mimi.
From the dialogue, Mimi has caught some "fish" for Oscar to tell them her real life, and only Nigel insists on listening to this dark story completely. He also retelled the story to his wife Fiona, and deceived his wife that he was only sympathetic to the unfortunate couple, and he was responsible for listening to the story. And Fiona knows Nigel's tricks well, and she understands that her husband is a wife who sleeps with others. At the beginning of the story, Oscar had already seen Nigel clearly. Oscar asked if Nigel wanted to sleep with his wife, but Nigel was vague and did not dare to answer directly. Towards the end of the story, Oscar made it clear that Nigel could have sex with Mimi, but at the end of the story, Nigel did not get this opportunity. At the New Year's Eve dance, when Nigel was already close to success, his wife Fiona suddenly came out. Fiona replaced her husband who had retired awkwardly, and completed the final dance with Mimi.
Several of Mimi's scenes are all related to dance. The dance in the movie has its own meaning. The first dance between Mimi and the black youth mentioned in the previous article was the dance of revenge and division. It symbolized that the love between Mimi and Oscar began to have forces other than love. The dance that Mimi performed for Oscar in the candlelight is a dance of desire and submission. It symbolizes that the relationship between Oscar and Mimi is that desire is greater than love, and that Mimi's relationship to Oscar is a surrender relationship. Mimi's first solo dance on the cruise ship was the dance of seduction, which symbolized the desire of men for the female body. The dance of Mimi and Nigel is a dance of chaos and failure. During the dance, Nigel is uncertain and wandering. There are all kinds of people around him. It symbolizes Nigel’s hypocrisy. And cowardly, always disturbed by foreign objects. And the dance of Mimi and Fiona is a perfect dance. The two women are sympathetic to each other, and all the messy people make room for them and applaud them. After the dance, the two women returned to the room and got together. And this scene symbolizes their disappointment and determination to men,-look, we can make ourselves cool without these damn men.
The story of Mimi and Oscar finally came to its end in the early morning of the first day of the new year. Oscar shot Mimi, and then swallowed a gun to commit suicide. This pair of grudges died together. As for Nigel and Fiona, the director's prescription at the end is: raise a child, and only children can continue the boring marriage. Yes, the highest goal of love is not marriage, and the ultimate goal of marriage is not the next generation. With children, love and marriage will have a satisfactory answer. But can raising a child cure all diseases? I still have deep doubts about this shock therapy.
Looking at the four people in the story, Oscar is the most cruel and selfish, but honest enough. He made no secret of his love for different women, and expressed his heartfelt feelings to Mimi Tan. Yes, he is the most sincere man. This kind of naked man who ignores the ethics of the world and only runs along with his most primitive call can save him no matter what. If he is not paralyzed, he will probably be a playboy for a lifetime. This man has a bad side and a charming side. However, whether for love or marriage, such a man who has no sense of responsibility will only be a disaster for a woman who pursues a long-term relationship. Mimi, it is the best portrayal of the disaster caused by this kind of man. Mimi is the most innocent and most pitiful person in the movie who is insulted and damaged by the love of love. Her whole life tragedy started from the moment Oscar ran across her thigh with a bus ticket in the car. She was despised. Being trampled and abandoned, as well as her lifelong infertility, are all caused by Oscar. However, she is so obsessed with Oscars, she loves Oscars more than everything, in fact, she may not have realized that the deeper she tortured the paralyzed Oscars, the deeper she loved Oscars, so she did not abandon the Oscars in the end. Until Oscar killed her.
Nigel is a representative of modern marriage. After the passion became dull and trivial instead of romance, he couldn't help but was looking for an outlet for a dull marriage. He was mediocre and mediocre, and if it weren't for his slightly outstanding appearance, it would be difficult to find him in the crowd. Yes, he is also a man who desires to obtain countless different female bodies, but he is cowardly and weak, hypocritical, and it is estimated that he will never be as feminine as Oscar. Compared to Oscar, he has a more sense of responsibility towards his wife, and he seems to have a little more sympathy or compassion than Oscar. Although he has been biting by a derailed little beast countless times, he probably won't implement it seriously unless he encounters a woman like Mimi who really impresses him. As for Nigel’s wife Fiona, that is the role of a yellow-faced woman, a role that is hurt by her husband in marriage, but this is not a soft role. She also has her own opinions. When the territory was violated, she also jumped out to defend her own interests. Such people are often the loyal guardians of modern marriage. I just don't know how to do it. I went to maintain it, but I went with the woman who might rob her of her love.
The movie is like this, it is very real, it meets both the artistic needs and the logic of reality, so it is a good movie. At least, such a movie will make people examine love and marriage, and make people reflect on themselves, especially men. The story is over, such contradictions and conflicts will never stop, unless in the very distant future, with the development of science and technology, with the mutation of human nature, this modern understanding of marriage, love, and family ethics based on Christian civilization, this This kind of story will not repeat itself.
There is a saying that Polanski had committed adultery with the girl under 13 years old, but later the girl didn’t know how to repent. It was estimated that Polanski tried to knock Polanski’s bamboo pole and failed, so she was finally sued. After the arrest, the whole case was complicated and became a powerful weapon for a group of people to retaliate against Polanski. Only then did Bo fled to Europe. Having said that, even if it is consensual, Polanski is indeed too unkind in this matter. So many young and tender girls are waiting to get on your bed, why bother with a child? The master and the devil are sometimes the two sides of a coin, just as a good husband and an old pervert may be unified in the same person.
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