Calling "Ordinary Woman" the end of the social narrative of minority films doesn't mean that there won't be films like "Dipin the Wanderer," "I Am Black," or even "120 BPM." More and more, the so-called "end" happens in sense and not in time.
The study of film history, or the study of film concept history does not necessarily take linear time as the only dimension, but can also reorganize it according to a given conceptual meaning as the dimension.
The following is not a review of "Ordinary Woman" or "Call Me By Your Name" or any film, but rather a formless comparative cinematography or a crude history of film ideas.
(1) From "Guardians of Jupiter" to Kieslowski - two modes of minority images
At the beginning of the 2017 film "Guardians of Jupiter" about another minority group (refugees), we see a group of refugees who cross the border, recalling how the protagonist Stern acquired superpowers, or this passage is How is it handled? It uses a dazzling camera rotation to dazzle the audience, which is equivalent to a hypnotic ritual. The film uses two juxtaposed words to imply the sanctity of the latter itself in the film - Stern gains the ability to float, and it is also here Acquired a social status - refugee.
The introduction of the magical reality element of "floating" in "Guardian of Jupiter" is not different from the typical minority film, but it is surprisingly in line with the classical model of minority film, that is, the opposition or confrontation of the minority-majority: the minority actively hopes It was absorbed by the majority, but the fact proved that this kind of appeal is impossible.
A more classic version of this story comes from literature prior to the now-popular "minority" context, namely Kafka's Before the Law, which presupposes the majority subject: "They and we do not The same", note: it is "they" in the political sense, or "the other", and our cognition comes from actions. Likewise, through actions, we will feel the time of the film.
Compared with "The Door of the Law", "Ordinary Woman" is more closely related to the first part of Kieslowski's "Blue, White and Red Trilogy": "Blue", and there is no need to mention the plot and "Ordinary Woman". The similarities, and more importantly: the color-emotions make up the image of "Blue", and by seeing a color everywhere (say blue in this one or white in the next, Chier will also be in one The "Catasis" (purification) effect of inserting the color-emotion of the next film into the film perceives the existence of the film's time, and the color-emotion belongs to the emotion-image.
In Ordinary Woman, the color-emotion is suppressed due to excessive restraint, but its source emotion-image still exists, and the action gives way to the flow of emotion. Thus, the motif once popular in European art films: strong women reappears in Ordinary Women.
The temptation to make up the action-image is never interrupted in Ordinary Woman, such as the hostile behavior from Orlando's original family (a social community), which even constitutes a "third act" in the narrative sense, but "Ordinary Woman". Women, however, heralds the end of the minority in the social narrative.
In a stylized panning shot, Marina walks on an empty street, forced to lean forward to support herself due to a headwind. The most classic moment of "Ordinary Woman" was born here. Yes, this sculptural shot is not sexy, but it is very metaphorical. Many people will interpret it as a minority group that fights against many resistances in society. Similarly, She can also be seen as the structure of the film itself, which gives an answer to the demands of the minority or the self in their eyes. What "Ordinary Woman" rejects is not a social entity, but a social narrative, or the temptation of a social narrative, a kind of The binary confrontation is ongoing, maintaining its own dynamic balance.
Under the push of social movements such as #Me too, a utopia is built on the screen, relying on its social narrative and action-image, but the builder of this utopia comes from the majority group, so its biggest problem lies in the minority group. Comprehension comes from the images of most groups in public spaces and their own fantasies in private spaces.
Social narrative is not an end, but a means. Minority groups urgently need a kind of "homogeneous heterogeneity". In Deleuze's philosophical writings, this kind of narrative can be called "escape line", which means Due to the powerlessness of dualism, the majority loses the right to "majority" the minority like Professor Higgins of My Fair Lady (this "majority" is now proven impossible, and the minority can no longer be sold like the 1960s. The Flower Girl is a perfect sample of majority), minority groups no longer attract attention because of their "heterogeneous" characteristics, and do not get the privileges that the majority groups do not exist in "Escape from the Dead" and "Guardian of Jupiter" , because the majority group itself is an assumption, and so is the minority group.
(2) Daniel and Marina, mirror ritual and self-sacrifice
The color-emotional moment of The Ordinary Woman was mentioned earlier and said to be suppressed for most of the time, but we should not overlook one of the most obvious color-emotional moments, but it must be clarified before describing this moment that " "Ordinary Woman" has two climaxes: one is an action climax: Marina climbs into the car of the Orlando family of origin and desperately seeks revenge, and the other climax is emotional: Marina comes to the men's bathroom and opens cabinet 301... . At the end, she follows Orlando's undead to the morgue, saying goodbye to him before cremation... Here, again, a color-emotional climax.
The two climaxes are a sandwich, with the climax of action in between the climax of emotion.
In the climax of "action" we see an active aggressive action born out of color - after the emotional climax, or as just discussed in "Guardians of Jupiter" with the camera rotation, "Ordinary Woman" color - The climax of the emotional gradient is also a sacred and ritual event for the film. The former acquires the code of socialization, while the latter implies an imbalance of resistance, a gradual slide towards a homogeneous social narrative, and a social code.
It all happens after a surreal moment: Marina sees herself in a smooth mirror carried by two workers, a crucial element in Lacan's psychological theory, through which mirrors interact with the Other Identification, the baby is born with the consciousness of "self" and "other", and the self-identification of Trans's non-native gender will also return to the infant stage before the "mirror stage theory".
Marina's transgender originates from her identification with her own female identity, so she will not refer to herself as a male Danie, but a female Marina after the transition. Therefore, "Ordinary Woman" will only be released after the plot unfolds later. Gradually identifying and reinforcing her transgender identity, a fact that seems to be deliberately concealed in its opening, in the devastating daily flow of Orlando and Marina, means that the director places the viewer in Marina's perception (or its under the "fantasy" displayed).
Of course, "Ordinary Woman" can also be regarded as a self-identification of a transgender identity. In some teen-themed films, it can be called a "growth ritual". At the end, Marina "actively" left the women's bathroom and walked through the men's bathroom. Among the many men, she no longer resisted, but "recognized" her former male identity: Marina is also Danie.
She chose the active "offensive" against the social entity, but the social entity actually won.
(3) "Call Me by Your Name" - A Heterogeneous Paradise?
We might as well call the behavior of "Ordinary Women" "self-sacrifice", which as a "disappearing subject" ended the social narrative of minority films, then in another film "Please Call Me by Your Name", "Line of Escape" goes deeper and a kind of utopia is constructed in the film.
In the narrative space of the sunny "Italy" of "Call Me By Your Name", neorealism and its religious tradition give way to purely aesthetic functions, the The advent of Roman sculpture (mostly male) takes us away to a certain extent, to the 1990s when it was juxtaposed with ancient Roman somaesthetics, an era that did not exist, but an artistic clustering.
In the ensuing 132 minutes, a complete emotional fluid dominates the film, which can be seen as an intimate enclosed space, with endless dance parties, dinners, and the purity of art, philosophy, film (Bunuel) Metaphysical debate, discussion, and metaphysical physical "communication".
Elio is free and has the potential to break all boundaries and taboos, even gender ones: he can flirt with the girl he loves because he has never claimed to be gay, strictly speaking. "Call Me By Your Name" is a minority, but it's not a gay film, maybe Bisexual.
Are they gay? But first: they are people, and secondly, they are lovers.
And what about the family of origin, the threatening authority in Ordinary Woman? At the end, after Oliver left, in Elio's dialogue with his father, the traditional and majestic image of father's power is gradually dispelled in "I am not such a parent", which truly completes the writing of the idealized living state and family of minority groups. Relationship, one of the purposes of the movie is to create dreams, and dreams will eventually wake up.
"Call Me by Your Name" is of course not the final form of the "minority" image, and Derek Jarman's abstract epic may not be either, but everything is for the sake of drifting away from the original narrative of the social public space. Everything is for a becoming-heterogeneous image of the other.
While Elio enjoys Oliver's body in the southern European sun, we should once again pay tribute to this self-sacrificing ordinary woman.
references:
Gilles Deleuze: Movement—Image, translated by Xie Qiang and Ma Yue, Changsha, Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House, 1st edition, January 2016
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari: Capitalism and Schizophrenia (Volume 2): A Thousand Plateaus, translated by Jiang Yuhui, Shanghai, Shanghai Bookstore Press, 1st edition, December 2010
Slavoj Žižek: "The Incident", translated by Wang Shi, Shanghai, Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, 1st edition, March 2016
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