(The source of the film is the English subtitled version. Considering the two loss of context during the translation process, please forgive me for the deviation of the lines in the play; I have not read the original work, and I only judged many motives in the story based on the lens, and I misunderstood the place. Please forgive me too.)
Have you read Adorno's review of Schumann's Fantasia in C major? He talks about Schumann's hazy state. Not Schumann losing his mind, but before losing his mind. He knew he was going to lose his mind. It tormented him, but he persevered at the last moment. (That moment) realizing what it means to lose yourself before being completely let go...I can easily talk about mental haze.
In Erika's first official conversation with Walter, Erika talks about Schumann's "hazy state." If Schumann's pain in this state created beauty, and the shaky feeling made him appreciate this beauty, then Erika would definitely understand and recognize this hazy state. And unlike Schumann's motivation to create beauty, Erika's shaky nature is innate. A dysfunctional family and an overly controlling mother are the cliffs on which she clings to growth. She has two choices—either completely break away from such an unsound maternal love and fall to irrationality, or agree to rely on this unsound maternal love Always savor this shaky beauty. I have always believed that people's inability to decisively let go of the pain they can get rid of is an immoral addiction, and people must have discovered something in it that made themselves addicted. Erika's choice is the latter. She chooses to rely on the distorted mother's love. She must have found something in this mother's love that can make her addicted to it, that is, learning to control, learning how to suppress this condescending oppression as well. give others.
The mother's education is undoubtedly successful, Erika satirizes the male student who picks the magazine in front of the adult magazine. She satirized sex, satirized porn stars, as if sex was as dirty as she said it was, and sex was really guilty. This should be her spiritual critique of her own fleshly desires. What she can't agree with is herself from beginning to end. Skillfully slashing one's lower body in the bathroom is not only to create the illusion of being a woman, but also to punish sexual desire.
Yorgos Lanthimos's "The Lobster" in the singleist punishes those who secretly kiss with "blood kisses" - "All romantic or sexual acts between singles are prohibited. Such acts are punished." "He can't speak, he Kissed by blood" "What is a blood kiss?" "We cut his lips and the lips of another celibate with a knife and forced them to kiss." Regarding these two acts of slicing the wound with a blade, it seems to me There is the same, religious sense of punishment. The pain that really exists in the body is covered by the emptiness of desire that is dependent on the spirit. While disciplined at all times, it also confuses the relationship between the spirit and the body. Is it a physical desire or a spiritual desire? Is it the desire itself or the punishment after the desire? Under such confusion Erika has a puritanical ambivalence that cannot be completely converted to the faith, and this kind of ambivalence pulls her physical and spiritual rifts. The separation of spirit and body is destructive, the desire on the body is not recognized by the spirit, the superego denies the id, and the space of the ego is compressed. Pure antinomy is enough to bring people into despair.
Unlike Erika, Walter is a promising young man. He is warm, has a good family and looks, and he has never lived in the shadows. The Erika he pursues is his imaginary, aloof, cold, holy image like the Virgin. "I hope I don't seem too reckless to kiss these hands that play Bach." At this time, Walter's actions towards Erika were pilgrimage, kissing Erika's hands reverently like kissing a saint.
This pursuit began with a pious pilgrimage, and after the conversation, it gradually became coveted, and then a purposeful desire to conquer. It can be said that this has nothing to do with love, but more of a patriarchal possessiveness for female ownership. Whether it's a piano customized to the size of a man's average palm or a relationship where men have absolute right to speak, women always appear in the form of objects serving as subjects. The existence of the object serves the subject, and the subject should regard the object as the prey.
Puritan-style ascetic life made Erika unable to distinguish between love and possessiveness, just as she could not distinguish the so-called maternal love was actually possessive, she also mistakenly thought that Walter's possessiveness out of conquest was love, or that she mistakenly thought that she had. The ability to mentally control Walter, to have real dominance, control, in a relationship. However, once she stepped into this game, she stepped into the oppression of power.
There are four conversations about sexual development in the film.
The first scene was after Erika dumped broken glass in the student's pocket because she was jealous of her students and Walter talking and laughing, mocking Walter for "be her heroic protector", Walter's passionate kiss in the bathroom made her think she was herself With dominance, she tried to mentally oppress and control Walter, but she ignored the fact that Walter's "love" was not that great. But at this time, she still maintained the position of abuser and dominance.
In the second scene, the two faced each other at home, and Walter read out Erika's letter about her sexual fetish in person, and she was already overwhelmed by her emotions. She ignores that the difference in circumstances makes it impossible for Walter to understand Erika's morbid idiosyncrasies, and Walter thinks it's a game rather than love from beginning to end. Erika overestimated how much this relationship could be drained.
The third session was in the equipment room, and from then on, Erika completed the transformation from "goddess to tool of lust" in Walter's mind. He is rough and arrogant, and his patriarchal right to be a subject can despise Erika, who is lying on the ground and courting as an object.
In the fourth scene, Walter rapes Erika in a brutal way, Walter thinks that's what Erika wants, he beats Erika roughly, verbally humiliates Erika, and even threatens Erika at the end "If you don't tell anyone, I'd appreciate it. Anyway. , this is for your own good... You can't humiliate a man like this, it's impossible." Sex is taboo for women in a patriarchal society, and in the end Walter retreated, and Erika felt like a corpse that the power was trampling on her.
The film ends with Erika's self-mutilation, when she finds that life is still bleak, that patriarchy can still maintain "sunshine and decency" after trampling on her dignity and raping her, and she cannot shake such a system and gain control in any relationship. , he has always been a victim of power. Mental pain needs a concrete, real, physical pain as an outlet, the dagger that should be used for revenge is inserted into oneself, and then left, the world still has a deformed order and restores peace.
(At the end of writing, I found that I didn't know what I was writing at all.)
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