What we can be sure of is that Paulina will have a post-traumatic reaction to the quartet of "Reaper and the Maiden". When she hears this melody, she needs to hold her husband's hand to support herself. What kind of traumatic experience has she experienced?
According to Paulina’s story, in the fight against dictatorship, she was arrested by the secret police and tortured in order to cover her boyfriend Gerardo. Dr. Miranda was hired by the secret police to take care of her injuries and then sexually abuse her. . These sadisms are accompanied by the melody of "Reaper and the Girl". Dr. Miranda insisted that he was not in China at the time.
They are the prosecution and defense in this trial. Unfortunately, the prosecution is also a judge and a powerful person. The three parties that should have existed in the trial were reduced to two parties. Gerardo has been in a weak and neutral state most of the time, sometimes sympathizing with Miranda and sometimes protecting Paulina. The law he symbolizes is also so weak in many real situations, especially in the absence of evidence. The purpose of the trial is for Miranda to confess to the abuse of Paulina. Paulina also wanted to retaliate, but did not implement it. Although she said: "I want to rape him, but I can't." This is not the reason why she did not take revenge. The real reason is that when she was released from prison with physical and mental damage, she found that Gerardo was in bed with her lover. This incident brought her even more serious trauma.
Paulina is as persistent as Qiu Ju, hoping and only hoping to get the confession of the sinner back then. So what is the significance of this acknowledgment to her? Qiu Ju's persistence is because she "projects her self-worth onto the'dead place' of their man", and Gerardo's love is also where Paulina's self-worth lies. She lives incognito on the peninsula, and few people know her existence. We can hardly imagine the content of her daily life. How can she be defined? The only clue is attachment to Gerardo. For so many years, she has been concealing the specific circumstances of her abuse from her husband, because she thinks that once those things are said, they will always lie between them, and this kind of unclear relationship between love and attachment will also become Danger. And if there is nowhere to put the pain of the year, that is, the so-called wrongdoer has the owner, then it will be more unbearable to find Gerardo's betrayal later. This is why Paulina will judge Miranda both coldly and fanatically.
The trial ended with Miranda's confession, Paulina got the confirmation she wanted to get, and it was also strengthened by Gerardo's love. Generally speaking, if the suspect himself confessed to the crime, then there are no extra branches. However, in addition to this, we have another angle to understand the trial process. At the concert, Miranda and Paulina looked at each other, then turned their heads and smiled at the child, very kind and calm. Paulina's eyes were a bit resentful, and Gerardo looked a bit jealous. If such a cruel trial really happened before, how should this kind of eye contact be understood? So we might as well imagine if this trial is just a fantasy, a sexual fantasy in the restless mind of a gentleman and lady sitting in a concert hall, how reasonable it is.
In this story, Paulina was an abuser at first, was tempted, raped, and humiliated, and then became an abuser in the later trial. The torture she imposed on Miranda can be said to be a metamorphosis of rape, with violence and punishment. There is also sexual stimulation. So it can be said that this story is actually a sadomasochistic fantasy of Paulina. Especially this fantasy story is also mixed with some similar but more decorative elements, such as youth, student revolution, sacrifice... All of these have been included in the title of Schubert's quartet— -Grim Reaper and Maiden, Destructive Drive and Libido.
However, sadomasochistic fantasies are basically related to libido rather than destructive drive. Sadomasochistic fantasy pursues pleasure, not destruction. This explains exactly why Paulina didn't kill Miranda. The root cause of sadistic tendencies is easy to see in normal people. Sadism is equivalent to the offensive factor in sexual instinct, but it becomes an independent exaggeration factor, occupying a major position. (Freud, source to be tested) The masochistic tendency is not a direct manifestation of sexual instinct, but the masochistic tendency turns to oneself. Sexual fantasies include both purely sadistic fantasies and purely masochistic fantasies. However, in human desires, there are often both sadistic and masochistic desires, but in fantasies, the perpetrator and the recipient can be divided to form different fantasy processes. In the story performed in this movie, there is not only the split between sadism and masochism, but also the exchange of roles. Not everyone can be so imaginative.
In sadomasochistic fantasy, guilt plays an important role. Freud said: "In the masochistic fantasy, you can find an obvious content, that is, a sense of guilt. The person assumes that he has committed a certain crime (the nature of the crime is uncertain) and must endure pain and torture. Process to atone for sins.” Freud also said: “As far as I know, guilt is an indispensable factor in the transformation of sadistic tendencies into masochistic tendencies.” (Source to be tested) However, in the film It just happened to perform a reverse process. Paulina was a transformation from the abuser to the abuser. This change made me have to imagine that she might project this guilt outward to someone. This reverse change has taken place. This can explain why Miranda confessed to torture, because Paulina completed the masochistic fantasy and satisfied the desire for atonement. At this time, she can release her more powerful and survival side. She needs someone to accept her burden. Feeling guilty, and forming sadistic pleasure, she chose Miranda. This sadistic pleasure is equivalent to the pleasure of an attack. Based on some details leaked in her fantasy, we might as well imagine that Paulina may be attacking her husband because she suspects that her husband has had an affair. But at the same time Paulina dare not attack her husband directly, even in fantasy. The reason may be that her husband has projected some symbols of great significance to her, such as justice (her husband is a lawyer), power (being chairman of the committee), dependency relationship, and so on. Destroying such an important image is something she can't bear, so Miranda is the unlucky ghost.
Of course we can also imagine other interpretations. In order to produce more other novel or convincing explanations, we may take the trouble to re-extract the movie to verify the details. That's because the process of watching the movie and the above two explanations still may not fully satisfy our sadistic desires in our minds. We need to swallow this movie, crush it, digest it, excrete it, and then play it again, so that we can release our excess libido. The truth is here.
(All quotations involving Freud are from Li Yinhe's Sadomasochistic Subculture. The original source is yet to be tested.)
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