The second one is definitely not as good as the first one. Although it is the first and second parts of the same story, the reference point of the cut does have a narrative reason in addition to time. The first part is the predicament, and the second part is the redemption. The plight part is wonderful, but the redemption part falls into the rut. I feel very uncomfortable, and I just want to ask: Why did it fall into the rut?
This kind of redemption fails at the beginning, but the point of failure is not the content of the characters themselves or anything else, but the conscious guidance of the author behind the story. I really don't like this kind of operation, the way to externalize the internal struggle and contradiction. Some people may think that this is a kind of sublimation or awakening of inner consciousness, a self-recognition, a conscious resistance. But not in my opinion. Even if this is a departure from the truth, I will even be a little angry. This complacent, narcissistic feeling would strike me as humiliating to the viewer.
Maybe Joe will break up with Jerome, have sex with black people, hope SM wakes up, and develop a lesbian-like relationship with his adopted child. These are all possible, but never in this way. Joe's narration in the first part is sufficiently complete to establish the whole character, and the second part gradually deviates from the character established in the first part from the middle. It seems that the photographer did not deeply understand Joe's pain, and self-righteously arranged for Joe a symbol of redemption.
This kind of pain of "I can't feel anything" can be resolved not with "expecting to see more light in the sunset", but with "the tree of the soul on the top of the mountain", and then it can be transformed into The plight of minority groups is due to the resistance to the mainstream of society. These are two completely different things. These are two completely different kinds of pain.
This approach is not a sublimation, but a very, very serious narrowing of the subject, a very serious retrogression. By the end of the first part, the themes are very malleable, very subtle. But since the second part and Jerome broke up, the theme has been running towards the narrow road without turning back.
Getting lost and being repressed are two different things. Hoping to see more light in the sunset does not mean that you are satisfied, but may be more upgraded, but there is no way to see more light, even if it will be upgraded. That's the heart of this addiction. The so-called pain does not come from what my friends and family around me think, nor does it come from whether I can accept myself. This is a secondary issue at all, and the pain at the heart of this addiction is nothing but nothing.
Therefore, if the second part puts the pen and ink on these secondary things, it is completely putting the cart before the horse, and it is a complete misunderstanding and self-intoxication for Joe. And it has absolutely nothing to do with minorities, and it has little to do with the place of sexuality in society.
Second, there is some unreality that comes from a reversal of psychological logic. How to say it, for example, it's like to solve a high school student's depression before the college entrance examination, and to bring the high school student's whole person's mind to the level of an 8-year-old elementary school student. Can this be called therapy? I don't think any normal person would think that this kind of thing of picking up sesame seeds and throwing watermelon is worth promoting. The psychological logic of this movie is just like this. Joe would never go through the mental state of the second book after the first one. It's as if a normal person would not have the mental level of a high school student first and then go back to an elementary school student. All the psychological conflicts that occur in the second part will inevitably precede the first.
This has nothing to do with the actual events that happened in the second part, it is purely about the perspective of the film narrator. The events of the second installment can undoubtedly happen, but Joe's psychology is definitely not what it is now in the second installment.
why? Why fall into a rut? How can a person tell the same pain without understanding it at all? Or why can a person give an irrelevant explanation without the slightest guilt after telling the same pain? What bothers me is that a fictional character can even be misunderstood by the person who created her.
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