After watching the movie twice, I came to the following conclusion: Paul was seduced and even sexually abused by his elders (probably priests) as a child, and left a Stockholm-style childhood trauma. This caused serious psychological distortions to him, which he imposed on others as adults.
BoJack Horseman mentions the theory of the freezing point: the freezing point is the moment when everyone stops growing. I think Paul's age-freezing point is stuck in childhood due to trauma. Therefore, he and Tong Zhen Jean were very happy together. They played like children and even learned to call animals. Jeanne also said, I feel like a child here!
We all know that the stronger the person on the surface, the more bluff they tend to be. Beneath his masculine appearance, Paul is actually a fragile little boy who has been exposed to sex prematurely, is obsessed with it and twisted, longing for love and incompetent. His last words before his death turned out to be: Mom!
Jeanne joked that Paul had been hurt by women, so let's make a bold guess here, maybe he was hurt by men too.
For Paul's childhood, the film has not very clear narrative. We know that he had a rough father and a stray mother, and the reason he wandered away from home in America was because there was nothing to miss but bad memories. But he did not elaborate on the specific events. So what exactly happened? In fact, the movie has already given very clear clues. Let me analyze it in chronological order.
Clue one:
When the mother-in-law first came to visit, she proposed to hold a religious funeral for her daughter. Paul suddenly became furious. The apparent reason was that his deceased wife was not religious, and that people who committed suicide in the teachings were tainted, but such anger made people think that he might have had a lot of trouble with religion in the past.
clue two:
Jeanne and Paul were bedridden and recalled when they were young. Jeanne talked about a pure childhood, but he always associated it with sex. This is actually an obvious cognitive distortion. In fact, his every sentence is a temptation, is looking for psychological balance. Maybe it's because of having experienced a violated childhood, so I think, and even hope that everyone has experienced similar misfortunes in their childhoods. Let's look at the lines below.
1.
Jeanne: "It's the most beautiful thing!"
Paul: "It is beautiful to be made into a tattletale, or forced to admire authority, or sell yourself for a piece of candy?"
- Such an unusual reaction to a beautiful childhood, perhaps every word is a portrayal of his real childhood.
2.
Paul: "You were probably in love with your teacher then."
Jeanne: "My teacher was a woman."
Paul: "Then she was a lesbian."
Jeanne: "How did you know?"
Paul: "That's classical."
--It is clear that Paul has extreme prejudice against elders in positions of authority, even including same-sex assault; it may also be a cognitive distortion, thinking that this is normal.
3.
Paul asked when Jeanne had her first orgasm. Jeanne replied that she had orgasmed while running, and Paul fell silent, avoiding the conversation. Maybe because his first orgasm came when he was violated?
After this conversation, he curled up in the corner and cried, as if he had returned to his inner child. He learned that not everyone grew up like him and that others had normal, healthy relationships and sexual initiation.
Note that in this scene Paul also says "all uniforms are bullshit". Maybe he's subconsciously thinking of the priest uniforms?
Clue three:
It is the famous butter lens.
Jeanne talked about family, but Paul said disdainfully:
"Family secrets?
That holy institution, meant to breed virtue in savages!"
Let us continue to see what is meant by the family that abuses virtue here.
While Paul violently violated Jeanne, he asked her to repeat the following sentences:
"Holy family,
Church of good citizens.
The children are tortured until they tell their first lie,
Where the will is broken by repression,
Where freedom is assassinated by egotism."
In fact, it has already been revealed here that the so-called family is the church family in the guise of hypocrisy. Considering the clergy child molestation scandals that have occurred in recent years, it is very likely that Paul suffered the same experience. In the liberation of sex came the curse of childhood.
Paul murmured at the climax, "You f*cking family." Whether f*ck is a verb or an adjective here is left to the audience to experience.
Four clues:
Jeanne ran to Paul in her wedding dress, Paul washed her body for the soaked Jeanne, and Jeanne poured out her love to Paul.
"But I've found that person! That person is you!"
Paul was silent for two seconds, letting Jeanne in behind him.
In fact, this is Paul's expression of being touched by Jeanne, completely trusting her, and completely opening his heart. Because it was his deepest secret, the source of his true pleasure.
This kind of pleasure was forcibly instilled in him when he was still young and didn't understand what sex was. After that, his ultimate pleasure couldn't escape this way.
Such pleasure is associated with filth and guilt. Therefore, he constantly burst out blasphemous words, which are his most romantic love words.
In clues 3 and 4, we can see Paul's excessive obsession with anal.
Clue five:
Paul chased the young man who bounced the ticket, beat him up and called him Faggot (homosexual) angrily. Maybe it was the most vicious curse word he thought?
To sum up, without further elaboration, the viewer should draw his own conclusions.
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