This film is reminiscent of "Autumn Sonata" at the beginning, and at the climax, the mother-daughter relationship in this film is directly similar to "Autumn Sonata". However, it is by no means imitation.
It is also a film that shows the love between mother and daughter. Almodovar is more tolerant than Bergman. Even if she devotes herself to acting and has no time to take care of her daily life, the star mother in the film still loves her daughter Rebecca deeply, even if Rebecca kills someone.
Rebecca killed her mother's two lovers: one was when the man who became her stepfather hindered her mother's artistic career, so she was indirectly killed by her dressing; The lover gets married, but the mother comes back, and she shoots her husband because of the embarrassment of the relationship between the three and the intensification of some sideline incidents.
It seems that everything happens for a reason, but in the final analysis, it is the child's desire for monopoly. Rebecca's obsession is: to win the mother, to win the mother.
Since she was born, she has a mother who belongs mostly to the public, and only a small part belongs to her own mother. This small part has to be shared with her mother's lovers. She follows them, just a funny little thing . She looks up to her mother, tries to imitate her, and cherishes the same things they have—like the earrings she bought when she was a child on a trip with her.
Everything her mother had, Rebecca wanted to have, including the man her mother once had. This can probably be attributed to the fact that the mother's overly strong social status prevents Rebecca from occupying her mother for a certain period of time like children in ordinary families, and develops a close parent-child relationship, that is, the parenting of the secure attachment model. become.
If the old attachment pattern of the lacking type has not been effectively broken, then bringing it into the growth process often produces a gluttonous gyration in the emotional aspect—the extreme desire to establish a new relationship that meets the emotional needs, all the investment (including consumption of the other party), but All taken to fill the bottomless pit of the past. Then sadness and despair ensued, the wound opened wider and wider, and the desire became stronger and stronger, and finally evolved into anger that destroyed everything, resulting in the loss of the relationship. Is everything over?
However. When love ends, when it is gone forever, just like the theme song sung by Luz Casal in the film: Soon you will find that life is difficult because there is no me by your side. Every night in the dead of night, you will think of that sweet day...you will suddenly understand that you have lost your precious love, beloved lover. ——You can’t be sure when you have it, and you can only verify what you once had at the cost of loss. This kind of grief that hurts into the bone will only accumulate more and more in regrets and repetitions again and again, dragging the devastated life into endless sinking go down.
Drinking poison to quench thirst in passion until committing irreversible sins, or restraining into stagnant water after stormy seas, these themes are handled in different ways by different directors. Bergman's approach, who is good at portraying avoidant personalities, is to point to the end: there are feelings, but life continues, maybe the relationship between the characters will change in the future, or maybe they will still go their separate ways - what will happen in the future, who knows Woolen cloth?
Almodovar was obviously much more agitated. He was not satisfied with revealing the problem, but was eager to deal with it. His story is even more ups and downs, going to extremes: sex, murder, confusing identities... As long as it serves his theme, he dares to bring out anything, even casually crossing the line of ethics and morality - I feel, He didn't intend to challenge, he just lifted his hand lightly and let it go.
Interestingly, it is this "release" that acts as a redemption. A man who has switched between multiple identities (shemale, drug addict, judge) falls in love with Rebecca, who committed murder, and is willing to integrate his identities in front of her to step into the future together; a dying mother wants her daughter to pick up again Happiness, at the risk of breaking the canon by lying to bear the crime.
Almodovar believed in love, and because he admitted the pain of love, he was extra tolerant towards love. He doesn't want to denounce something, pursue something, so it may not seem so profound. But I like how he generously gives the hero a chance to rebuild his life, even if it's a little calculated and unscrupulous.
The final scene is a small basement where the mother and Rebecca once lived together, and after they became famous, the mother bought it. Here, in order to wait for her mother who didn't come home all night, little Rebecca listened to the sound of high heels outside the small window over and over again and couldn't sleep. High heels, this bright, hard symbol of desire shapes and smashes love into pieces.
The mother and daughter finally reconciled, the daughter put down her hatred and expressed her deep love to her mother, and finally felt the deep love that her mother never cut off but was always blocked by helplessness. In this film, I felt Almodovar's respect and compassion for women's inner drive. As a woman's identity, to achieve her desires in terms of social achievements and personal emotions at the same time, the contradiction and dilemma are no less than Pain during childbirth. But wouldn't women be better off if they accepted their divisiveness? Just as a new individual is born from a mother's body, in addition to physicality, it should also possess strengths beyond the definition of the male world at the spiritual level. But what is that? I haven't figured it out yet. Well, at this point, I like Almodovar and hate Bergman.
Now, when Rebecca pushed open the basement window, the high heels moving above her head did not feel oppressive, but a return of warm memories. The love that I could never expect came back with the sound of Da Da, and my mother's life came to an end. Rebecca lay on her mother's body, as if reunited. But this is already a prepared loss, a continuation of love and the beginning of the future.
In fact, loss will always become inevitable. What we need to understand is that since we are sure of what we have, we should learn how to love, and even be prepared to be hurt. Therefore, Almodovar played with the taboos in a dazzling manner, and in the end he was the Healing Emperor!
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An old article written ten years ago, if I hadn't re-read this article, I would have forgotten to watch this film.
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