還來不及好好照顧自己，
仍然像個小孩子。
人生太多的問題總是要自己解開。
太多太多的問題，
卻得不到你的呵護。
然後更多的問題，
因為愛不了。
為什麼你不懂我的心？
為什麼我也不要懂你的心？
大家都在傷心難過，
沒懂得好好去愛。
但我不想理會了。
I still can’t take care of myself,
Like a child.
So many problems I need to solve by my own.
Too many.
But all I want is your love and I don’t really have it.
And more problems come.
Because I simply don’t know how to love.
Why don’t you know my heart?
Why don’t I want to know yours?
Everyone is crying,
No one really loves like there’s no tomorrow.
I don’t want to deal with anything anymore though.
Coup de Grâce (1976) is another adaptation from a novel with the same title written by a French author, Marguerite Yourcenar (1903-1987). The director, Volker Schlöndorff, is well known for his work The Tin Drum (1979) which won him an Oscar. The movie has a complicated historical background for me as I have no knowledge of the history about the Baltic countries, so I’m not going to go through the movie from a historical view.
It surprised me when I saw reviews commenting the movie was super dull and people agreed with it. Coup de Grâce is a movie with great insights on life. It is interesting to see the fall of the Revals. The aristocratic Revals reminds me of the O’Haras in Gone with the Wind. Life was good but then the war came and now everything is destroyed. Sophie de Reval (played by Margarethe von Trotta) was a pure innocent girl; she was naïve and carefree. When her brother, Konrad de Reval (played by Rüdiger Kirschstein) returned from war with their childhood friend, Erich von Lhomond (played by Matthias Habich), Sophie is a stranger who Erich no longer knows. As Erich narrates, he seems to suggest that Sophie has become melancholic whereas Erich himself is the one who has become melancholic after the war. When Konrad and Erich were away, Sophie was raped but this does not keep Sophie away from love and sex. On the other hand, Erich is very repressed; he is scared of showing his true feelings. Perhaps after all, Sophie is not truly liberated. Something is missing after her being raped. She needs to fill the blank, so when she sees Erich again who she has known forever, she decides to love him.
Erich has wisdom of love. When Sophie is madly in love with Erich, she chooses to believe that all the women Erich has met are the “worst sort of women”. But Erich thinks they were the best. Sometimes women like to believe the reasons they make for themselves why the men they love do not love them back. It is a way comforting themselves which I find pathetic. Why do humans choose to live in fantasy? It isn’t only about love. When it comes to life, people choose to live in fantasies rather than reality. What is it that about life humans are so scared of? Are we all like Sophie, scared of being alive? There is no peace and love. She is living a life full of jealousy, disappointments, and death. But being dead seems to be easier. When Erich shoots her at the end of the movie, she looks braver than ever, knowing the pain of being alive will end in no time.
The spotlight of the movie is mainly on Erich. He is a character with complex personality. His bisexuality makes him even more interesting. Many male characters in books or movies seem to show either side of their sexuality but Erich shows both. It is obvious he is in love with Sophie and has special feelings for Konrad. It’s hard to tell whether he and Konrad are lovers but undoubtedly, Konrad is the main reason he stayed in the Revals. Nevertheless, there are times Erich breaks down and shows Sophie his affection for her. He gets angry at her flirtatious behaviors; he wants her to wait for him; he can’t seem to let her go. But just like any men in power, Erich kills the woman he loves. The idea of women dying for the men they love while men send the women they love to death seem to be quite right. I guess it is a sad truth for Sophie that she should have known better. But now she becomes the carefree girl she once was again; death releases her.
Sorry for the short review. Not a good one; I’m running out of time.
- 24.9.2011
The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.
“You are not at all like my rose,” he said. “As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world.”
And the roses were very much embarrassed.
“You are beautiful, but you are empty,” he went on. “One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you−−the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.”
And he went back to meet the fox.
“Goodbye,” he said.
“Goodbye,” said the fox. “And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”
“What is essential is invisible to the eye,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”
“It is the time I have wasted for my rose−−” said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.
“Men have forgotten this truth,” said the fox. “But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose…”
“I am responsible for my rose,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.
You’re married; you made up your mind. Funny how some men are not happy with what they have. The reason of fertility is bullshit. It only gives us another evident that the society was/is patriarchal, still dominated by men. The Mormons were crazy, obviously. Does it really seem to the Mormons that Joseph Smith being in polygyny because he received a revelation from “God”? Here is what I know: people always justify their wrong-doings with sacred reasons. You want more wives, ‘cause you want to try out more women. It’s just as simple as that. The sexual desire burns you like hell. Once you get the woman you want, she’s no longer what you desire for; it’s time for a new desire – a new woman. Although polygamy is banned in many countries, lots of men are still practicing polygyny. One obvious example is men having lovers. They sleep around with different women while their wives are waiting at home. What really makes it different is there is no marriage bond and the men are not letting the women they sleep with getting fertilized.
What is the point in getting married? Is that why you’re married – to hurt the person you love even more? Does marriage really mean anything? Perhaps words are just lies. Promises shouldn’t come easily but when they come, they don’t really mean anything. If vows are meant to be broken, why do we even bother…
你既然選擇結婚，那就表示你有心理準備。可笑的是，男人早有了這個心理準備，他還是要求更多。讓自己的後代遍佈大地這理由其實很白痴。這只不過是另一個證據，證明社會仍然是父權，由男人支配。摩門教徒以前是很支持一夫多妻制的。我不明白他們怎麼真的相信史密‧約瑟是得到神的啟示而推行一夫多妻制。這世上有很多人都為自己的錯誤行為狡辯。要這麼多個老婆無非是因為想要嚐盡天下的女人。那性慾把你逼瘋了，你就把要的女人給娶回來。娶到了，解決了你的性慾，你就不要她，要別的女人。多個國家早已禁止多配偶制，可是現今不少男人還在做相同的事。比如說，自己的老婆在家苦苦等候，男人卻到處跟不同的女人胡混。跟以前的一夫多妻制不同的是，雙方之間沒有婚姻約束，他們不會讓和他們胡混的女人懷有自己的小孩。
那，結婚到底為了什麼？難道就為了傷你愛的人更深嗎？婚姻的意義到底在哪？諾言都不是可信的。要是早知每個人都是要打破諾言，那就沒有人要承諾什麼了。
-13.September.2011
