Gina Rowlands has shown the world how radiant she is in front of the camera from the beginning of this film. Every inch of skin and every pore is constantly exuding the breath of acting skills. John Cassavetes' signature facial close-up blends perfectly with Rowlands' performance, and they complement each other. The nervous, sensitive, fragile, and anxious middle-aged woman has also become Rowlands' signature. The subsequent "Premier Night" and "Love Torrent" continued these character traits. The film does not have a clear story line. What props up the narrative is the details of the actors' performances and lives, as well as Cassavetes' powerful camera control. Through the perfect combination of the camera and the performance, the extreme, crazy, morbid, lonely and helpless emotions are unreservedly rendered to the audience. This is Cassavetes' unique trick. Since "Face", Cassavetes has made people aware of this peculiar and unique image charm. In this film, Cassavetes focuses on the interior of the family, tearing off the veil of civility and hypocrisy in family life. This is a rather deconstructive film. He puts madness and reason under the same roof. In a confrontation, the madness is alone, and the rationality is in groups. What an unfair confrontation, it makes people feel on pins and needles. What's even more ridiculous is that the irrationality that reason inadvertently emerges, such as violence, power, etc., seems to be no different from madness.
As a worker, my husband and his colleagues work in a dirty environment all day long, covered in mud, with vulgar language and no image. After they finish work, they will go to the bar to drink and relax together, chat and vent their dissatisfaction in life. As a housewife, the wife lives in a clean and tidy home all day long, dresses neatly, listens to elegant operas, has no friends, has nowhere to vent, and cares for her husband and children. Husband and wife are like people from two worlds. This is the most intuitive feeling the film starts to give people, and it is also the foundation of the character's emotional direction. Because the husband couldn't go home after working overtime, the three children were picked up by the mother-in-law again. The lonely wife came to the bar alone to get drunk and had a one-night stand with a man who seemed to be gentle. This delicate and gentle man is very different from her husband, but they can only be a one-night stand. When she woke up the next day, her wife was frantically looking for a child and a husband. Her life was filled with family. The so-called responsibility and label of a woman to the family made her spirit imprisoned. To be an unqualified wife in a patriarchal world. Facing the visit of her husband's colleagues, the wife's excessive enthusiasm embarrassed everyone at the table. She was yelled at by her husband, but she just wanted to make everyone happy. But her "abnormal" state and awkward enthusiasm run counter to her original intentions. She told the children to go to school quickly, but her husband kept the children and taught them how to whistle. The wife has always been in a subordinate position, and she has always lived a life of pleasing others. Her husband would always ask her "Are you okay?" Even if she looks normal, the abnormal label is still around, reminding her that she is a "crazy". Foucault said that reason is born when madness is recognized. The husband constantly reminds his wife that he is a lunatic, in order to establish his rational image. This kind of subconscious behavior and cognition is the product of modern rationality. The wife is fighting the lifeless rational world in her own way. She has a strong ego, but this ego also makes her a victim of the rational world.
Facing the visiting children's classmates and father, her strange enthusiasm was also unbearable for the classmate's father, and the husband rudely slapped her in the face after seeing her in the same room with a man, and got into a ball with the classmate's father. While the husband is giving his wife patience, the sudden violence is a kind of vent under long-term repression. Isn't this another kind of madness. When the wife is sent to the mental hospital, the savage and rude husband takes the three children to the beach for a vacation, which is a satire of the so-called normal. When the daughter faced the domineering and savage father who forced them to go to the beach, she tried to get rid of her father's control and ran to her father's colleague, but was rudely dragged back by her father, and the daughter wiped her tears and had no choice. When the wife came back from the mental hospital, the husband invited a group of friends and colleagues to come to the house to welcome his wife. This inconsiderate behavior was eventually aborted at the suggestion of the mother-in-law, who "drive away" the guests, leaving only the family. The husband who has always played a rational role is actually equally unreasonable... The wife who has returned home is very reserved and nervous in front of her family. Her husband pulled her aside and told her not to be restrained, to be herself. She kept talking about the experience of being treated with electric shocks in a mental hospital. She asked her father if she could stand up for herself. She longed for his father to truly understand her situation and heart, but her submissive father let her down. She was the only one standing in the whole house. Opposite of reason, regarded as rebellious extremists. She stood on the sofa and went crazy again, and her husband slapped her to the ground, shouting to kill her, to kill the child. Madness and violence have been thoroughly stimulated, and there is no longer any normality at this time. After the madness, it returns to calm, the wife returns to the image of a good wife and mother, the game is over, she cannot escape the imprisonment, she still has work to do, the two clean up the mess at home, but when the wife asks the husband if he loves him, the husband does not answer. These are two people who are destined to hurt each other, two completely opposite people, and the functional marriage born under the modern instrumental rationality, like labor alienation, creates huge gaps and contradictions between people, and erodes every the personality of the participant. Marriage, like work, divides jobs and classes, and those with a strong ego and a galloping will are either gloomy or insane.
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