Perhaps the only difference between me and other people, is that I've always demanded more from the sunset. More spectacular colors, when the sun hit the horizon. That's perhaps my only sin.- Joe
Lars von Trier's works are often presented in the form of trilogy epics. Epidemic" (1988), "Europa" (1991); "Conscience Trilogy" (or "Golden Heart Trilogy") that established the status of film history: "Breaking the Waves" (1996), "Idioterne" (1998), "Dancer in the Dark" (2000)); the infamous "American Trilogy" (unfinished, or "Land of Opportunity Trilogy"): "The Night Variations Dogville" (2003), "Mandalay Manderlay" (2005). Discuss Europe's turmoil, dogma looking at people's conscience, and America's evil. In his directing career, he has seen countless storms and waves, and controversy is the topic and his biggest selling point.
Ruth's "Trilogy of Conscience" is the most favored work by film critics, because it is valuable to expose the truth and reveal the conscience through the evil deeds ignored by society. The fact is that in the "Trilogy of Conscience", Russ projects malice on a specific object. In contrast, the heroine's situation is more unbearable and more three-dimensional, and it has become a big hit at the awards ceremony.
However, after the change of the theme structure, maliciousness is no longer fixed on a specific party, and the role of the weak is ambiguous, which is also the biggest reason for the provocation of Lars' works. The most classic is "Dogville" starring Nicole Kiman. At the end of the movie, the heroine who was exploited by the whole village was condemned through the role of her father. If the "Trilogy of Conscience" still has a slightly antagonistic framework of good and evil, the "Trilogy of America" is the beginning of questioning good and evil, charity and racism. The United States was of course very unhappy. This series was the most criticized work by Russ. At the same time, Russ suffered from depression and the series was stopped.
From 2005 to 2009, for four full years, Russ stopped writing in the form of a trilogy; and then handed over the shock bomb of "Antichrist".
The malevolence is increasingly exposed and hard to measure, and I think that's what makes Lass's other work so frustrating.
Antichrist (2009), Melancholia (2011), Nymphomaniac (2013) are the return of the trilogy. This time, Lars was different from the past. The various citations and citations seemed to be unsystematic. It is a big project to connect various book bags together, and to be honest, the connection with the plot of the movie is too simple, and it is difficult to extend any ideas. chaos, perhaps the best review of the trilogy. Chaos, disorder, all the allusions can be cited, but cannot verify a truth. Like Ruth's own melancholia. Another point is that technology has advanced, and there is no limit to what Lass wants to do; nature animation and sex.
Nature is Satan's church.- In
my film review of "Anti-Christ", a woman took her son to a hut in the woods to write a feminist essay, but was disturbed by nature, making it impossible to write, which in turn produced "the slaughtered women in history. guilty" thoughts. She returned home and fell in love with a man, and her son fell to his death. In order to treat the woman, the man returned to the hut in the woods, but the woman was gradually swallowed up by nature, and the pain was reduced, but she was no longer a "rational" woman. Fox spoke up: Chaos Reigns.
"Anti-Christ Antichrist" is quite systematic, and the hanging book bag and the movie plot can also be compared. From the first episode, the role of nature has been very clear: nature rejects rational men and embraces crazy women. This is not feminism (otherwise, how can we accept the theory that women deserve death), but it can be said to be the predecessor of feminism- A primordial cult of motherhood, Chaos Reigns, where disorder reigns.
The earth is evil. There's no need to grieve for it. No one will miss it. - Justine
"Antichrist" is divided into three stages, "Melancholia" is also divided into three chapters: prelude, Justine's point of view, Claire's point of view. The film references a large number of pictorial allusions, and the cross-text is quite rich.
Justine (Kristen Dust) wears a white gauze in the prelude, like the poor outcast Ophelia in "Hamlet," alluding to wedding angst. The wedding dress has no meaning of blessing in the movie, and the symbolism is closer to the shroud. Bruegel's Hunters in the Snow. This is the first painting to appear in the film, which is slowly burned in the prelude.
The focus of Melancholia is still nature, and from the beginning, the groom and bride are stuck on a mountain road and are in a dilemma. The body was just a tad to fall into the valley. People can only obey the meaning of nature and slowly adjust the distance. Prospective newcomers are also very late.
The luxurious courtyard of Justine's home is very similar to that of Aaron Renay's "Last Year at Marienbad" (1961). The courtyard in Melancholia is vertically facing the sea. It's also a bit like Giorgio De Chirico's Melancholia, which coincidentally has the same name as the movie.
In the face of Yu Xing, who will collide with the earth for no reason, the heroine Justine basks naked in Yu Xing's bath on the rocks by the stream (echoing the advertisement she can't imagine the title of, three thin women are lying on the glass). Only the mad patient can calmly face the madness of nature, but the destruction of the world allows her to calm down. This also reflects Ruth's attitude towards his own depression. In a way, Melancholia is the director's private diary, the true confession of a melancholic. However, the book bag hanging in this film refers to a singularity that cannot be extended; for example, Justine's favorite horse is named Abraham, which is a biblical meme that is suspected of being grandstanding and provoking the sensitive nerves of Christians. Honestly it doesn't make sense.
The author thinks this is Lass's chaotic strategy, trying to create a cloud atlas of complicated and boundless quotations (cloud atlas), leaving the audience confused/attracted to a quotation, and then misinterpreting it. Of course, it's also possible that the author overestimated Russ's writing and directing strategy, and maybe his master was just trying to make a hodgepodge of things. What I want to say here is that using an ideological simplification of the trilogy after Lars von Trier’s melancholia (let’s call it the “Nature Trilogy”) will easily fall into the creator’s trap.
I'll stand up against all odds just like a deformed tree on the hill. - Joe
"Nymphomaniac" continues the axis of nature. Joe's doctor (rational) father took his daughter to the park in the name of vegetation, and the sound of the wind in the forest is calming. Dad told Joe that the most beautiful tree in the world was called the ash tree, and it had no flaws. All trees are jealous of it. In winter, all the leaves fall off, leaving only black buds on the ash tree, which is ridiculed by the trees. "The bare trunk is the soul of the tree." Joe was surprised that his father's soul tree was not as good as he imagined, "When you see it, you know it." Joe finally saw his own twisted and deformed soul tree on the mountain. .
Trees are one of the focus of the film. Russ tried to use the dialogue between the father and the daughter to teach, through the tree (the meaning of the soul), the main axis of the film. The father-daughter park walk route has been repeated countless times in the movie: Joe suspects that he is in love with Jerome, and walks repeatedly in the park route in annoyance; bizarre reunion with Jerome in the park; after losing sexual pleasure, pushing the child again Walk through the park again and again. When his father was seriously ill, a helpless Joe picked the leaves of the ash tree for his father and asked him to tell the story of the ash tree once. The park route/tree is an important scene/object in Joe's life, and his rational father did not regulate her to explore her own sexuality (when little Joe was looking through medical books, his father smiled and did not stop it; and when B was learning frogs in the bathroom, his father told his mother murmur: leave her alone.), but let Joe get close to (irrational) nature and rationalize nature through education/knowledge system. Therefore, compared to the first two parts, it is naturally much more amiable; it is no longer a terrible mother nature, but it is like Joe's life guidance. Even the first orgasm was a natural apocalypse when off-campus teaching reached the top of the mountain.
The tree in "Antichrist" gives a sense of horror, a giant tree with a large tree hole, which symbolizes the female womb.
Natural rationalization. The silent first time in Joe's life, 3+5, was interpreted by Seligman as the Fibonacci sequence. The Fibonacci sequence is derived from nature. The number of petals is 3, 5, 8; the number of sunflower seeds arranged in a clockwise and counterclockwise spiral is 34 and 55 or 55 and 89. These numbers may seem unrelated, but they are actually the values of the terms in the Fibonacci sequence. The Fibonacci sequence in nature has become the norm since the Renaissance, and has been extended to various fields such as the golden rectangle and music creation. It symbolizes harmony and is the most beautiful state. Seligman made a connection between the small club tones of Joe's hurricane period (b and f, devil's tones, banned in the Middle Ages), and Bach's Cantus firmus; it was also extended by Joe to his own sex trio, reaching the stability of the pinnacle of sex. state.
Before I talk about sex and love, let me return to the argument of natural rationality. Joe's flexible application of machinery (rearrangement of locomotives, car spark plugs), dealing with men's troubles with dice odds, properly arranging the schedule of men's sexual intercourse/own work hours, and even using a set of procedures to deal with debts This kind of mathematical, rational and logical attitude, the author deduces that the father's teaching of natural rationality is continued, and Joe, who is rational and logical, has mastered the control. Only in the face of the loss of sexual pleasure, his father's serious illness, and being Jerome's secretary does Joe's logic fail. As mentioned earlier, Joe suspected that he was in love with Jerome, and walked around the park route in annoyance, as if he wanted to use the familiar rational nature to eliminate his irrational state. The last reunion with Jerome, Joe ran away in fear, she ran to the mountain, and met her own soul tree. Joe said, Loneliness had been my constant companion. Perhaps it should be corrected to, nature had been my constant companion.
It's own melody, together in harmony.
Cantus firmus, not a new piece by the composer, but a reference to an old chant or Folk ballads are used as the main melody, and the composer extends the melody of other parts. Bach regrouped hymns and was a master of polyphony music. The most commonly used tones of Bach are the Fabernatch sequence. Joe continued this concept for his own organ school (The Little Organ School):
The first tone, base, a steady and reassuring rhythm, F, who always arrives an hour early, knows what Joe wants, and will always make her orgasm. F serves Joe, and Joe is in charge. The second chord is played with the left hand, G like a cheetah, elusive, with a raw erotic air, Joe is the prey, and the sex square of the two switches to the cheetah biting the deer's neck. Joe relinquishes physical dominance, but remains the master of the relationship. Joe went for a walk in the park in a sad mood and bumped into Jerome; Jerome stretched out his hand from above (cloud?) like a god, Joe thought of what B had said to her before: the secret ingredient to sex is love.
The main melody is played by the right hand, and the high scale Lively and energetic, could Jerome be the secret formula in sex? The polyphonic work is finished, but stops abruptly before the musical/physical climax. Harmony is not achieved. To make matters worse, Joe lost all sense of sexual pleasure and lost his orgasm.
Joe and B formed a small club to fight against love, but B was captured by love first, and the small club was dissolved. The question here should be, is Jerome true love? Joe is not pursuing true love from beginning to end (for me love is just lust with jealousy added. Quite disdain), she is pursuing sexual desire (Lust). Jerome will not be Joe's secret formula, the film denies B's statement to a considerable extent, and there is no love issue in the film. For Joe, her desire is a polyphony of multiple tones. What she needs is not a person or a range of voices, but a harmony of multiple scales. Only men of all kinds can fill the holes in her body. Jerome is like that stalker's recurring melody (as Jerome said in the office, God's plan?), and then it's full of bitterness.
Here's a little bit of Jerome's character. Joe describes Jerome by eating Rugelach. Rugelach, a croissant-like kosher snack filled with nuts, chocolate and raisins. Seligman believes that eating Rugelach with a cake fork is a bourgeois class attribute, and for Joe, eating with a cake fork is very feminine (so Joe also has gender stereotypes). Jerome's femininity may refer to the inability to satisfy Joe's letting go after the two live together (only cowardly hitting the wall with his hands), or it may be that he wants to get Joe in a weak/sand pig way when he is a secretary. However, in the long-term relationship between the two, Joe has always been the leader, and Joe's rational and logical thinking is far superior to this man. Personally, I think Joe became interested in Jerome for the first time when he saw a system on Jerome's chaotic desk and wanted to be Jerome's object. Doubting yourself in love with him because you want to understand his system is full of reason.
Joe lost his sexual pleasure even with Jerome's dominance. Looking at Joe's life experience at this time, isn't it also like the train fishing philosophy at the beginning? The first stage is easy, as long as you smile, you will be hooked; the second stage requires a little skill, shaking the fishing rod, and then dropping the fishing rod vertically, making the fish think that the insect is injured and killed; the last stage, the ultimate weapon, provokes the fish. The fish will instinctively bite the bait. SM Master K's method is to let Joe, who is always dominant, give up his familiar sexual dominance, let go of his self-esteem, and let go of his name. Joe said, get my life back. She is not without motherhood, but her life is to pursue a carefully calculated Lust, that is her life.
Make up a (extendable) book bag for a digression. The two goddesses that Joe saw when he got the "Apocalypse" at the age of eleven, one was The Whore of Babylon in the Apocalypse, a great harlot riding on a scarlet beast: "This woman is dressed in purple and scarlet, Ornamented with gold, precious stones, and pearls, and holding a golden cup in her hand, full of abominations and her filthy filth. On her forehead was written a mysterious name: 'Babylon the Great, the prostitutes and the abominations of the earth The mother of all things.' I saw this woman drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses of Jesus." The other was Messina, wife of Claudius, wife of Claudius, who was holding her son (father unknown, implying lasciviousness). After the kingdom, he went to a public brothel in Rome at midnight, like an ordinary prostitute to openly pick up customers. At midnight, the corresponding Joe left the child and went to the SM Shura field. Juvenal's experience is similar to Joe's erotic dissatisfaction: (Satire) 6:144-132: "Whoever the client may be, she can entertain him with the utmost kindness, but she Insist on asking every guest for a night's pay. When the brothel owner sent the other prostitutes home, she was the last prostitute left in the courtyard; She left the brothel looking distressed. Her energy was exhausted, but her heart was not satisfied; her cheeks were stained—the fireworks of the oil lamps had stained her; so she returned to the palace pillow with all the smell of the brothel. Beside."
The first picture is the child in "Antichrist". The second picture is a thrilling scene where Joe meets K late at night, the babysitter is not available, and the child is left at home alone (fortunately, he didn't fall off the building).
Only by mastering the body, a man can master the soul. The knot of resistance will be tighter, and the knot of obedience will be loosened. Joe finally got the apocalyptic orgasm of his off-campus teaching, second coming, the biblical second coming. This time, her schedule didn't work, and she lost custody of her son as a result. Joe was pretty sad about this, but told Siligman that she resented being so sentimental. I think Joe is still a conscientious mother, but she's too foreign to other emotions except Lust.
Joe's body was destroyed after that. She joined a sex addiction group because of work pressure, but saw her younger self in the group mirror. So she dropped out of the group, staying true to her period of sexual adventure. Changed a new job, joined a debt collection agency, used his human experience to read men (like a fisherman reading a river), and regained control. Joe cut off his sex life, but he could smother others. She meets a man who is just as repressed and marginalized as she is, and then she meets P.
The only time Joe cries over sex in the movie is from P's ordinary caressing her scarred body. I was quite moved by this part. Although the relationship between the two is also full of calculations, at that moment, P wanted to appease Joe's body that was colliding with desire. Russ is still Russ, and P finally betrayed Joe. Although the author is not surprised, it is still a pity; if another director handles this part, it may be a little more humane.
Is it feminist to take control of your sexuality? Joe started by saying that he was guilty and consciously used others to satisfy his own desires. Just because I saw the beauty of the sunset, I demanded and expected a more beautiful sunset, and I asked for it. Lust let to destruction around me everywhere I went. The sexual experience of life is full of meticulous design, and sex addiction is a disease. So she took pity on the pedophile man, because the two were also not understood by others. She was not proud, only lonely and guilty. This is a far cry from feminism. The director arranged for the virgin Siligman to excuse Joe's behavior and put Joe into the framework of feminism: You wanted more for life than just what it's good for you. You are a human being demanded your right, and more than that you are a woman demanding her right. This long paragraph is so beautiful. However, Joe was not motivated and decided to continue the adventure. Instead, he firmly said: In the future, she must use her stubbornness and male aggression to cut off her sexual desire, like a tree of her own soul, this is the only thing she can survive. Method. Not falling into Siligman's (film critic) feminist frame.
Siligman said it nicely, and ended up trying to rape Joe. Aren't critics who categorize the film as feminist also exploiting the thorny path of Joe's life? Isn't it also like banning the word nigger, on the surface political correctness, but showing its own hypocrisy?
Joe's conversation with Siligman, on the surface, praises and comforts her, but it doesn't allow Joe to escape the male prejudice frame. At the beginning, Joe baited Siligman to listen to her story, and in the end, Siligman seemed to become an angler, and successfully won Joe's trust with nice words. Russ wanted to mock all the fixed rhythms: the feminists' eagerness to take credit, the masculine beasts. Lass tends to be neither sympathetic nor critical when it comes to Joe's life experience. If you want to set the movie into the ideology of the tome, Russ will definitely ridicule it to the end.
View more about Nymphomaniac: Vol. II reviews
