When referring to a person, if I start with "him", then it is natural to know the gender of this person. In many of the films of Irish director Neil Jordan, it is impossible to simply use "he" or "she" to define a person's gender. This situation is like the "Orlando" written by Virginia Woolf, from the Elizabethan era to 1928, spanning four hundred years, from the initial aristocratic teenager to the noble lady of the upper class, and the turning point of changing Yin and Yang is only lethargy. One night, seven days later, he woke up from his deep sleep, naked, and confronted the reader, "We have no choice but to admit: he is a woman." The author seems very satisfied with this transformation, as she then writes impatiently: "For the first time, no one has ever looked so ecstatic. His form combines the strength of a man with the charm of a woman." You will see that Orlando, who has memories of both genders, is not a monster, but has become more mysterious and charming after understanding the mysteries of both genders. "The Crying Game" (The Crying Game 1992), which made Neil Jordan famous in Hollywood, described the love story between Fergus, an IRA member, and Dale, an intersex man. Perhaps in today's Hollywood, which is looking for freshness, this kind of subject matter is not surprising, but in the United States more than ten years ago, this bold idea detonated an exclamation at the premiere press conference. The scene where the voluptuous Dale undresses to reveal his body is still considered by many to be one of the most shocking scenes in film history. According to some fans, the movie was shown six times a week in an ordinary small town in the United States, and everyone who saw it would tacitly keep silent about it, just like no one would open Christmas gifts in advance. "How can my friends not say a word about this?!" a female audience member shouted at the end of the film, in fact, the script was based on a common crime story that everyone loved "A Soldier's Wife" ', but it's just a man who visits the dead soldier's wife because of guilt. During filming, Neil changed the role of his wife to an intersex person, and incorporated politics into the film, completely breaking the original balance and making an ordinary story full of conflict and fascinating.
From the director's famous work "Mona Lisa" (Mona Lisa 1986), it is not difficult to see that his body is surging with the blood of challenging secular concepts. His "Mona Lisa", who smiles to hide his broken heart, is a prostitute whom Bob Hawkins' George likes to respectfully refer to as "Lady." He was looking for love in her and she couldn't respond more to him. She was like the Mona Lisa hiding behind the frame, and in the end she could only smile at him from a distance. These marginal figures in the eyes of the world in Neil Jordan's lens have a simpler and purer ideal: "love". Dale once said, as long as you are good to me, love me and do not leave me, I am willing to follow you all my life. Like Simon (whore) in "Mona Lisa", he (she) will aim at all obstacles in defense of love. They asked for only so little, but they had to fight for it with all their lives. In terms of appearance and identity (same black, same curly hair, same heartbroken roaming the city boundaries), Dale is a more deviant Simon, he or she is unbridled in beauty and deaf to the noisy cries of the world , live only for love. As the lyrics sing: "When a man falls in love with a woman, he doesn't bother about anything, he changes the world for the treasure he finds".
More than ten years later, "Breakfast on Pluto" (Breakfast on Pluto 2005) is more delicate and full on the basis of the continuation of the previous two marginal characters, adding more themes such as family affection, self-identity, growth and so on in addition to love. . Patrick Macbeth's original book of the same name gave the director a richer historical background and room for imagination. Drag queen Patrick Mimi Brandon has become the "heroine" who does her part, and confides her rough and turbulent life experience under the humorous and playful appearance.
She likes French accents, and she loves all the pompous and pretty clothes: purple feather shawls, orange knit tops, Dior leggings, ruffled skirts, fake suede flares, eyeshadows, perfumes of all kinds , body lotion, mascara, she's all about Material Girl gear, and she definitely knows what's best. In her introduction to her life, she is also full of British and Irish pop hits in the 1960s and 1970s, movie stars of all sizes, including Marlon Brando and Ingrid Bergman. There are also international movie stars, such as Efrem Zimbalist Junior, who have been rarely mentioned, but have been very popular for 20 or 30 years. Mimi usually refers to herself as "senior call girl", "street blocking girl", "Road Lace Avenger", "Flower Fairy", "Dark Terminator", etc. It's very fancy and sounds good. It's also tempting, not all names Mimi can call! Don't think she'll make herself gaudy, in fact she's always pretty. The annoyed Mimi never hides her mood, like a mad kitten hunched over and scratching, but that's all. Those bloody revenge pictures were put into her dreams and sent to Mars.
Whenever the turbulence of reality makes people unable to cope, she will weave a bizarre story by herself, stuff them all into the story, and re-line up and interpret it according to the worldview of Papa Mimi. Holding the hand of American movie star Vic Damon, she walked through the crisis-ridden streets of London with the blond Lindsay Deborah-esque singing and smiles, coping with the anger and revenge of abandonment that could arise at any time, and There is loneliness that sweeps over. By "mimicry, evil, and cheeky, she negotiates with a world of landmines" in search of an end that she can call "home."
2. Go to Pluto for breakfast
(1) My mother, our home
Nietzsche once said on gender and love: "Every man gets an image of a woman from his mother: he will decide from this, generally Is it admiration for women, contempt for women, or it doesn't matter to them at all."
Although Patrick Mimi Brandon begins by pointing out his father Father Bennard's sturdy robe, "like a neurologist in disguise, his son is overly obsessed with cross-dressing. Take part of the responsibility." But the lack of a mother in his life and the mean face of his adoptive mother, Beard, made him have extremely contradictory views on the concept of women. Mimi has always liked to collect pictures of her mother Ellie Birkin from fantasy, as if it was a beautiful life she had lost before she could see it. She hadn't seen a photo of her mother or any other token, and she was gone, leaving only a name and a legendary beauty like the movie star Mitzi Gaynor. Mimi's most beautiful and best imaginations are related to mothers - mothers belong to the quiet evening, the fragrance of baked cakes, the blue flowers embroidered on the tablecloth, the smiles in summer songs, the smoke from the cooking under the amber light. She ran to crowded London alone in search of her mother, and when she saw every woman who looked like Mickey Cano, she would go after her with a pale face. In a small bar, in a subway station, in an empty church, hundreds of times, she mistook others for her mother, hoping that the woman would turn around and say to herself, "Mimi, yes. Dear Mia! Come home with me." For this, she would rather die than find her "only and only Ellie Birkin". Desperate to find her mother, she even lived for some time with her son-less landlady, Louise, who pretended to be her dead son, Louise's caressing her mother. She sucked the mother's love that didn't belong to her eagerly, and shouted loudly in her heart that no one could replace her mother, even if she abandoned her newly born Mimi and put it in Brandon's house like a piece of garbage. on the steps.
As for Mrs. Beard, Mimi was always disdainful, just like the nickname she took. The bearded guest had no love for her at all, especially after knowing her "special hobby", he cursed and slapped her. Later, when she found out that Beard had deducted the alimony that Father Bennard had given her, Mimi ran over to yell without any hesitation. When she came, she would always comfort each other a little uneasy, just like every time she quarrelled. She didn't want to hurt anyone, she just wanted to vent her anger and dissatisfaction.
I think this can also explain why Mimi dresses herself up as a woman, but she often laughs at herself, wishing she could spit at herself. One is a perfect mother in fantasy, and the other is a terrible adoptive mother in reality. How can we not let Miss Mimi break up from time to time?
Although her mother is not by her side, Mimi very much hopes to be a mother once and give birth to ten children, and she doesn't care with whom. Mimi has a unique explanation for this shocking thought, she is for her children all over the world to put down everything and rush to bed when she is dying, when she is suffering from illness, "No matter the bad weather, Busy withdrawing deposits, arguing with the boss, just to come to accompany her." So, Mimi can take what we all call love with a smile and leave contentedly. It can be said that there are very few people like her who often dream of her early death in order to get love. That kind of life-and-death parting brought her ecstatic joy while falling in love. Because she saw the small picture of flowers on the fireplace, which said in French: Our home.
Mimi sketched the appearance of home in her heart again and again, although she could not realize this very ordinary and crazy idea in the end. She didn't have time to be sad about the days of being alone, and she still cherished the wish that roses could bloom on her face before she died, because she had love and found a home in her heart.
(2) Mimi's Revenge The
movie made some changes to Mimi's character, removing the lingering revenge mentality in her character because of being abandoned. In Patrick's original novel, this negativity is poured over Father Bennard's head by Mimi. She wrote in her mind, with the most dramatic hyperbole, how Father Bennard, the lecher, ended her ascetic life, allowing the unworldly Ellie Birkin to conceive a baby with a belly the size of a balloon. She blamed all the mistakes on her father's selfishness and irresponsibility, and it was her father who sent away her beautiful mother in order to preserve his reputation. Therefore, from the day Mimi knew the truth, the practice of throwing similar letters in his father's mailbox almost never stopped.
In the days when she was misunderstood as a member of an Irish terrorist organization, Mimi lay on her prison bed and planned a revenge: returning to the fetid town of Tyrling, burning down Father Bennard's church, Picked his eyes and cursed the man loudly.
Mimi's grudge against her father runs so deep also because she has always held out hope for reconciliation with him, while Father Bennard is unresponsive to his domineering and revenge letters. No wonder she screamed in the dream of revenge: "My virtue should be your daughter, otherwise when you pass by on the road, how can you not notice this beautiful man in lace serge?" The mother was forced to run away In a foreign country, but his father was by his side but ignored him. This was something that made Mimi furious just thinking about it. In fact, Mimi also knew that she was dressed so flamboyantly, and it was difficult for her father, who was a priest, to have afternoon tea with him calmly. She didn't expect such a happy ending, she just wanted him to say "Hello, Patrick" when he met him on the side of the road. In the end, he couldn't do it either. Every time he saw Mimi, he took a detour, which was more exaggerated than avoiding the plague.
In the movie, the kind director gave Mimi a relatively happy ending. Not only did she meet her mother (though she still couldn't recognize each other), she was also accepted by her father and welcomed into her home. There was indeed a fire, but it was set by someone else. It can be regarded as a small dream of a heartbroken reader.
(3) The men
Mimi This is the most exciting topic for Mimi. Her biggest dream is to meet that lover who makes her heart flutter, and Venus flutters. Seeing him is like returning home and finding love. For Mimi, being loved is the most wonderful thing. Although it is really not worth writing about the secret love of Oujiu Finn, but he has become Mimi's hero, fighting with others in the bar for her. Mimi's reaction was really intoxicating, trembling and dizzy, "Because she knows someone loves her deeply!"
All Mimi's love history, but to make a very long list. Emen Faircroft was her first love, a good man who was hygienic and polite, and never hesitated to spend money on Mimi as long as he could be satisfied. As for selling weapons to the IRA, that's another story, he was blown to pieces, which made Mimi sad for a long time. There is also that tragic affair, the seemingly elegant and charming "Mr. Silk Rope", with elegant taste and extraordinary clothes, but almost killed Mimi, and for a few days after that, she thought she was in Pluto for breakfast. , completely unable to return to Earth to live a normal life. And there is Uncle Boz, the magician, with a bit of madness and delusion in his eyes, dressing himself as delirious as a yellow daffodil. Dr. Terrence, who had always supported her in writing her own life, also disappeared without a trace on an ordinary day. It might sound frustrating, but Papa Mimi eventually felt that finding love in others was not as simple as having love in her own heart. Those who have seen her, loved her, infatuated with her, hated her have become part of her life, and Mimi belongs to each of them.
3. The Emerald Isle War
The entire story of Patrice Mimi Brandon was thrown into the turbulent history of Ireland by the author. Mimi has been entangled in her complicated life and doesn't pay much attention to politics, but she has been involved in political events again and again. As he said himself: "The whole thing has been occupied by his own revolution, and there is no time to care about those trivial things." Although those so-called "trivial things" are disturbing every time they appear, but without this background, It's really hard for Mimi to get on a rocket and fly into space.
In 1690, William III, who represented Protestantism in Northern Ireland, and James II, who represented Catholicism, fought against each other, and the famous Battle of Pawnee began in this way. To this day, Catholics and Protestants living in Ireland are hostile to each other. In 1919, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was established to fight back against the British army and seek independence. They have created many sectarian massacres, bombings and assassinations, and have been criticized for their cruel methods. Although they fought for the independence of Ireland, their approach was despised by many Irish people.
Director Neil Jordan was born in Ireland, and the memory of the country is full of pedestrian streets and a dead atmosphere. The secluded residence he moved to when he was a child has always filled him with fear. He admitted frankly that the horror elements in his writings all came from the unease of this childhood. From "The Crying Game", we can see the director's attitude towards the Irish Republican Army: they think that the robbery is the boss, they have killed many innocent people, and they also call themselves justice. One of the members, Fergus, saw the cold-bloodedness of his companions, found his conscience, and left the organization. This character was redeemed because he changed himself, fighting for the people who should really be protected. In "Breakfast at Pluto," he also slammed the IRA for what he did. Mimi's childhood friend, Owen, joined the Republican Army because of his ideals, but he was shot like an animal by his sidekick. Mimi's other friend, who suffered from dementia, lost his life in a terrorist bomb attack. Mimi, who has been ignoring politics, is completely angry, fuck his bird war, it's time to get serious, so he threw away the firearms sold by his lover Emen Faircroft in a rage into the sea. This is simply Neil Jordan borrowing Mimi's hand to vent his dissatisfaction with the IRA. In the novel, Mimi does not directly express her anger towards the war like in the movie, but has always held a mocking attitude, "It was all done by politicians! Let them do it themselves!" When she was caught and interrogated At the same time, she even put on a crazy talk and said loudly: "Mimi! You are the most frightening terrorist in London!"
In the film, with the passage of time, color is added to Mimi's body little by little, and also added to the picture. That strange power also began to excite the audience little by little. Mimi met those men in hesitation, and everyone opened a door to the world for him. Mimi firmly believes that one day she will be free from this darkness and can visit the stars and travel to Mars. Neil Jordan uses the confession of true love as a red thread that leads the story: "If you love someone, don't hesitate." This is his commentary on Mimi's life and the theme he has always believed in: true love. Whether it's Mimi who was the last lonely person in Patrick Macbeth's writings, or Mimi who felt the true feelings in Neil Jordan's mirror, they all use extraordinary courage, witty characters and unfettered imagination to make The tormented Emerald Isle (another name for Ireland) was pocketed, and another fantastical land was depicted.
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