When preparing to report to Sundance, "Letterhead Stories" probably didn't expect it to come in such a timely fashion. At the beginning of 2018, this film based on the creator’s true experience and retrospective of his sexual assault when he was 13 years old was premiered in Park City. The Hollywood producer Weinstein was accused of the "MeToo (Me Too)" movement. Happened, more than three months have passed.
Well-known filmmakers such as Luc Besson, Morgan Freeman, and Kim Kidd were exposed to relevant public opinion, all of which happened later. On this issue, it seems that China, which has just been vocalized after a few months of watching the fire across the bank, was the focus of attention at that time. Kindergarten and "Carnival" are slowly ebbing with the arrival of the new year. This is Lin Yihan from "Fang Siqi's First Love Paradise". Less than a year has passed since the last writing.
A work of art that just hits a social hot spot is not necessarily lucky, especially when it is based on the unfortunate fact that the person was victimized. If it is the contemporary waterfall-like information life that makes people distracted and forgetful, the luck or achievement of "Letterhead Stories" lies in its courage and self-consciousness. It is not just an accusation, but a search for the truth, a restoration of the scene, and an honest analysis of the self. They are much more difficult than the accusations made by blurting out.
"Letterhead Story" is the first feature film of female director Jennifer Fox. She was born in 1959. Prior to that, her main professional identity was a film and television documentary director and producer. The heroine in the drama uses the director's real name and profession. This is an autobiographical movie.
The story happened when the heroine was 48 years old. Her mother sorted out old things and found the composition she wrote when she was 13 years old: "I would like to tell you this story in a beautiful way. I have met two very special people, two A person who is deeply addicted to me..."
Jennifer and his mother traced back the clues in the text and began to recall. During that period, young Jennifer participated in an equestrian training camp during the summer vacation and met equestrian coach Ms. G and track and field coach Mr. Bill. Later, for a period of time, Jennifer would go to two "charming" adults every Friday to avoid tired schools and families, thinking that she had found a paradise.
In this beautiful paradise, charming adults coaxed the ignorant and ignorant Jennifer into bed. Bill smiled softly and said, "Can I see you? Would you like to take off your shirt?" Young Jennifer thought to himself, "I trust him very much, and I never thought about where he would lead me to. It wasn't until Bill wanted to form a "team" to play the "four-player game" in the name of "beyond marriage, ignoring all rules and promises," that Jennifer felt physically resisted and never stayed for the appointment.
"I already know that associations, symbols, and metaphors are the most dangerous things in the world." "Fang Siqi's Paradise of First Love" wrote. Use sunny and healthy body exercise, use poetry and warm the stove, use the peach blossom field away from the hustle and bustle, use the sense of belonging to escape from daily life, all the rhetoric beautify the evil deeds.
The abuser beautifies his evil deeds, and hypnotically convinces the young Jennifer that he is in a love relationship. In Jennifer's memories, the racecourse was sunny, and Ms. G and Mr. Bill always had elegant smiles on their faces.
Whether out of ignorance, loneliness or shame, the alienated family and school relationships make Jennifer helpless, or their indifference makes her rather not asking for help. The teacher asked how you came up with such a story, and little Jennifer replied "I made it up." Parents can never take care of themselves, the grandmother caught a glimpse of the adult's unscrupulous behavior, but did not tell the guardian, only let Jennifer even more frightened in the family. She even began to rejoice that she had an experience different from others, "I am unique, not a child without sense of existence, and I got an A for my composition."
The key issue is not the occurrence of the sexual assault, but the causality before and after the incident: why it happened, why it was condoned, what made people silent, and what made the 13-year-old experience, it will not be revealed and understood until 35 years later .
In an interview with IndieWire, the director said: "I hope that people not only discuss the film and the stories that the film tells, but also pay attention to the connection between the film and their lives. It is just an example, but I think it also connects many traumas. Event. Whether it’s the experience of you or your relatives or friends, or how you can tell the story to yourself when you heal the wound."
How to tell a traumatic story to yourself? "Letterhead Stories" is particularly outstanding. It may be due to the origin of the creator in a documentary. The film is very sensitive to differences in subtle elements such as the person, location, and time of the discourse. Similar to the rhetoric of evil deeds, subjective memories can also deceive oneself.
The adult Jennifer first recalled that she was a girl, until she flipped through the album, she found a younger image of herself, and the actor in the memory was also replaced by a smaller actor. Other characters present in the environment of the racecourse are grown-ups who gradually joined her memories through constant searching, making herself "I am not the only one". Several times, in the movie, the adult Jennifer had a dialogue and argument with the client more than 30 years ago, including the young one himself, and only then did the things that were once considered reasonable or even romantic be removed a little bit.
"In addition to the theme of sexual assault, I think the theme of the movie is also narrative. If we want to be rescued, how to retell the story to ourselves." said Laura Dunn, an adult Jennifer actor. "In one of the movies, I said angrily:'I'm not a victim!' It's easy to say that I won't be assaulted, but if the perpetrators continue to humiliate us, nothing will change."
Jennifer’s confusion is like those on the Internet about the victimized women’s remarks about “I don’t want to seduce a man if you wear it like this”, “This woman is not happy about herself”, “It’s shameless to be so shameless at a young age” and so on. They are exactly the same rhetoric used by sexual offenders to beautify their evil deeds, and they are pressures exerted by a greater shadow of power. How should she state the crime in which she was willing to participate? The young Jennifer once passively and ignorantly accepted the settings of others, chose to cooperate with silence and seal the memory. It wasn't until 35 years later that she realized that it was fundamentally wrong, and it was a perjury justified by beautification.
Unlike "The Furnace" expressing misery directly and "hunting" does not mean that a deer is a horse, the "Letterhead Stories" from the perspective of a female author has both the criticism of the former and the omniscience of the latter. Across time, it is not limited to the occurrence of events, because they are still happening at any time, and paying more attention to the attitude towards oneself is a psychological trek, reflection from a different standpoint. The film pointed the finger at the negligence of family, school, and society in the process of growing up. The huge conspiracy machine simultaneously spoke of the victim’s willingness-until he figured it out and had the courage to explain: the voluntary at that time was just because there was no other choice. Only then can you stand up and expose the seemingly charming lies of the perpetrators.
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