"Confession" and "The Life of the Disgusted Matsuko" are more famous than "Desire", and they are also the origin of most people and Tetsuya Nakajima. Therefore, "Desire" is inevitably compared with the above two films, and the most criticized part is the fragmented language and editing. The time line is chaotic, the characters who appear suddenly without warning, and the inner monologue of repeated broken thoughts are all considered to interfere with the audience.
But cut down the complicated and simple, put aside the flashing red and blue teenage drug party, splashing blood and nervous laughter... Find the core bones of the story, "Desire" clearly presents the extreme consequences of the exclusivity of a patriarchal context. The father-controlled family, the male-controlled Metropolitan Police Department, and the high-ranking sexual assault groups are all sparing no effort to exploit dissidents, use and destroy women and even men who are "not my race".
Constructed devil girl
The main plot of the film is the disappearance of the heroine Kanako Fujishima. Her bipolar father, in the process of searching for his daughter, pulls out everything in her depravity and corruption. One thing that must be noted is that Kanako Fujishima, the "source of all evil", has never appeared as her own identity in the whole film. The image of the devil girl is completely constructed from the memories of other characters. up. Some people say that the characters in this film are too flat, but the flatness may have another meaning.
In her father's memory, she was a well-behaved daughter who gradually began to challenge authority. Showa Fujishima (Hiroshi Yakusho) can be said to be a super-condensation of patriarchy in this film. Violent, brutal, possessive and controlling, he was the embodiment of hegemonic masculinity throughout the search. In the face of women and girls, violence and power are used time and time again to obtain information. From the "father" of the family to the "patriarchy" of the society. As he deepened his understanding of Kanako, he gradually fell into a power crisis and further deepened his desire to control Kanako. At this time, his fantasies and desires have been trapped by the object he wants to control. Kanako has become a devil in his mind, and the devil's life and death still need her father to decide.
At the same time, Kanako is the incarnation of angels and demons in the eyes of the boy who is obsessed with her. She picked him up from the hell of bullying, "この世にたった一人美しい生きき"; she threw him into hell again, making him want to destroy her beauty with his own hands. The two typical desire fantasies of Virgin Mary and whore have been confirmed in Kanako alone. In the eyes of the psychiatrist, she was still an irresistible temptation. As a member of a sexually exploitative group, doctors occupy economic power and social status. Faced with a young body that is actively facing decay, while criticizing the lack of moral sense of young girls, they ignore the moral bottom line of adults and continue to use their dominant position. Unbridled exploitation (Kanako, and other girls).
In this almost male testimony, we are not so much witnessing the fall of Kanako as we are watching the demons created by the patriarchal system. Kanako's role as a human being has been reduced to objects and left to be shaped by anyone. And her depravity seems to have no basis, it was set directly. If her evil deeds are directly regarded as a kind of revenge against the patriarchal society, then the goal of her revenge is too unclear. The story demonizes her into the Other and directly opposes everyone else, but female revenge is quintessentially a fake feminism. True defiance cannot be achieved through extreme inversions of power relations. The result of seizing power is only to end up in the same power system. Rather, the demonized female image reflects a deeper misogyny, an anxiety about women who possess power enough to pose a threat to men's privileged position.
In this film, by creating the "source of all evil" Kanako Fujishima, the hostility and hatred of all the characters in the story have been successfully transferred from the patriarchal system to this fantasy object, but the contradictions are becoming more and more obvious. The characters born out of misogyny eventually turned back on the patriarchy itself.
the unavoidable boy
The so-called "non-me race" does not specifically refer to women who are the opposite of men. What happened to the unnamed teenager in the film is something that is easily overlooked. The dominant hegemonic masculinity in a patriarchal society does not only weaken women from a male standpoint, but also tries or forcibly assimilates the same men if they do not conform to it. Juvenile is far from the masculine temperament in the mainstream concept: Shimizu Xunya’s image is weak and morbid, the character of the boy has a very low sense of presence in school, suffers from same-sex bullying, and participates in sports not for sweat and hormones, but for the pursuit of sweat and hormones. I hope Kanako watches him from the sidelines.
In the male world, teenagers are also marginal figures, not recognized by the core "those people". And through Kanako's fantasy object, he was eventually assimilated into a very aggressive type of person by his own race through sexual violence. The patriarchy has successfully completed an assimilation and completed the spiritual surrender through the "rooting" in action.
What exactly is "渇き"
The film is called "Longing", but after the fragmented story is over, we may remember to ask rhetorically: Who, what is longing for?
Showa Fujishima, the doctor, the rich man surnamed Zhang and his privileged accomplices yearn for the paternal privilege that is expanding like the genitals; while Kanako, Juvenile, Ogata... those bare-handed boys and girls have gone to two extremes: violence Fight back, or, conversely, give up resistance.
At the end of the film, Fujishima Showa was wielding a shovel in the snow almost frantically, saying that he had to dig out Kanako with his own hands and then send her to hell with his own hands. His power crisis is still unresolved, a huge sexual assault group still exists, and teenagers and girls are still besieged on all sides. The movie itself can't give a solution, but Tetsuya Nakajima, like Sonoko's upper body operation, used the most unbearable way to directly confront the extreme exclusivity of the patriarchal system in front of the audience.
"Those who are not of our race will have different hearts", so they are corrected, exploited, and destroyed. The dark side of the patriarchal world is clearly revealed.
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