Thank you for the review. The initial reviews were negative and I suspect this was the outcome of a political calculus--- NC17 movies always do badly. But I think that this movie is a masterpiece, and the world has grown. Now the reviewers are now battling bloggers and you and me and thousands of others, so it is easier for great work to be recognized.
I have to admit that while I liked Brokeback Mountain very much, I did not think it was anywhere near as profound as this film. After seeing this, I want to revisit Brokeback Mountain, and the Hulk, and so on, because I am sure that there is a lot in there that I missed.
This movie, to my mind, is the first to capture the essential disappointment of WWII, a disappointment which was felt by many who lived through the era, and which I learned about through my grandfather, who suffered as a slave laborer.
WWII, which we now see as a heroic struggle between good and evil, for the participants was most of the time a battle between evil and slightly lesser evil. The Nazis exterminated and tortured, and the allies bombed civilians. The japanese conducted medical experiments, and the Americans burned soldiers in caves alive. While the moral calculus that separates the acts (it is so clear to us today) was so remote for the participants that it might as well not exist. Mostly they saw monumental evils on all sides.
While right and wrong exist, the voice that separates the two at times like this is very weak, and requires an ear that's carefully attuned. There are no clear-cut objective markers, and there is plenty of propaganda from all sides. But the voice is there, and some people heard it. Their only choice was to support the atrocities of one side over the worse atrocities of the other.
This movie sets us up inside this (to us) clear moral situation, and begins to whittle away the moral clarity using the most personal of motivations--- sexual pleasure. The heroin is made to choose between serving the weak voice of justice and serving her own immediate desire, which speak with a loud voice.
Sexual desire is often strongly linked with domination and submission, and much of the politics of fascism derived its power from this link. This movie, and the period, does not shy from making the domination explicit, and making the link between fascism in politics and domination in the bedroom clear. The lust of the submissive is enhanced by the cruelty of the master, and his job as a torturer makes him all the more desirable.
The sexual activity binds the two characters in a personal bond which deafens the heroin's ears to the weak voice of justice. The voice recedes further and further until it is entirely silent.
The final scenes mercilessly forces us to witness the triumph of evil, a temporary triumph in historical terms, but a complete triumph from the point of view of all the film's participants. This is a most disturbing unsettling vision, and to my mind justifies the NC17, regardless of any sex. It strips the color and joy from the world to witness this brutal, inverted moral order, and it requires considerable maturity to recover.
But the movie lets a little bit of light through. The heroin spares her own life, knowing that she is likely to be tortured and killed, so she can show her solidarity with the friends that she betrayed. This means that she only betrays them in a momentary weakness, She does not give herself completely. But that moment of weakness is enough to ensure her death and that of her friends, and this moment of weakness must serve as a warning to others. I want to thank Eileen Chang and Ang Lee for sounding that warning so clearly in our time again, since we need it now too as much as then and perhaps more.
Thank you for the review. The initial reviews were negative and I suspect this was the outcome of a political calculus--- NC17 movies always do badly. But I think that this movie is a masterpiece, and the world has grown. Now the reviewers are now battling bloggers and you and me and thousands of others, so it is easier for great work to be recognized.
I have to admit that while I liked Brokeback Mountain very much, I did not think it was anywhere near as profound as this film. After seeing this, I want to revisit Brokeback Mountain, and the Hulk, and so on, because I am sure that there is a lot in there that I missed.
This movie, to my mind, is the first to capture the essential disappointment of WWII, a disappointment which was felt by many who lived through the era, and which I learned about through my grandfather, who suffered as a slave laborer.
WWII, which we now see as a heroic struggle between good and evil, for the participants was most of the time a battle between evil and slightly lesser evil. The Nazis exterminated and tortured, and the allies bombed civilians. The japanese conducted medical experiments, and the Americans burned soldiers in caves alive. While the moral calculus that separates the acts (it is so clear to us today) was so remote for the participants that it might as well not exist. Mostly they saw monumental evils on all sides.
While right and wrong exist, the voice that separates the two at times like this is very weak, and requires an ear that's carefully attuned. There are no clear-cut objective markers, and there is plenty of propaganda from all sides. But the voice is there, and some people heard it. Their only choice was to support the atrocities of one side over the worse atrocities of the other.
This movie sets us up inside this (to us) clear moral situation, and begins to whittle away the moral clarity using the most personal of motivations--- sexual pleasure. The heroin is made to choose between serving the weak voice of justice and serving her own immediate desire, which speak with a loud voice.
Sexual desire is often strongly linked with domination and submission, and much of the politics of fascism derived its power from this link. This movie, and the period, does not shy from making the domination explicit, and making the link between fascism in politics and domination in the bedroom clear. The lust of the submissive is enhanced by the cruelty of the master, and his job as a torturer makes him all the more desirable.
The sexual activity binds the two characters in a personal bond which deafens the heroin's ears to the weak voice of justice. The voice recedes further and further until it is entirely silent.
The final scenes mercilessly forces us to witness the triumph of evil, a temporary triumph in historical terms, but a complete triumph from the point of view of all the film's participants. This is a most disturbing unsettling vision, and to my mind justifies the NC17, regardless of any sex. It strips the color and joy from the world to witness this brutal, inverted moral order, and it requires considerable maturity to recover.
But the movie lets a little bit of light through. The heroin spares her own life, knowing that she is likely to be tortured and killed, so she can show her solidarity with the friends that she betrayed. This means that she only betrays them in a momentary weakness, She does not give herself completely. But that moment of weakness is enough to ensure her death and that of her friends, and this moment of weakness must serve as a warning to others. I want to thank Eileen Chang and Ang Lee for sounding that warning so clearly in our time again, since we need it now too as much as then and perhaps more.