Monday, November 16, 2009

男人!

我老爹發現我最近看 Anais Nin :「啊,你係地鐵睇,咪好寸?」

我:「車,D 人都唔知係乜啦。」

老爹摩挲兩掌:「呵呵,拿住本 Anais Nin 的女仔,我會好想......」

我:「係囉,吸引過拿住本 Proust 呀可?」

老爹(覺得我深得佢心):「梗係啦! Proust 係悶皇黎嘛!」

果然係一個男人......He probably doesn't know that Anais was a great fan of Proust's, and she once said, "...Myself is like the self of Proust, it's merely an instrument to connect life and the myth."

聽日問下 TM 先......



Monday, November 09, 2009

拒絕,拒絕,和拒絕

早前電影資料館辦「川喜多夫人紀念展」,提到川喜多夫人選片甚具眼光,1933年蜜月旅行時看中一部並不出名的 Mädchen in Uniform (《穿制服的女孩》,1931),川喜多長政當年仍未知道夫人眼光獨到,只是作為新婚禮物買給妻子,即是, tum 下老婆啦。結果這部片大受日本觀眾歡迎,並榮登1934年《電影旬報》最佳外語片。

單是片名已經叫人充滿暇想--不必猜了,正正是一部女同片:修女學校師生戀(不知長政是否察覺?)。《穿制服的女孩》也不是真的「不出名」,莫説它曾是納粹禁片, Anais Nin 就曾在 Henry and June 裡多次提及:

"She (June) compared me to the teacher in Mädchen in Uniform, and herself to the worshipful girl Manuela. The teacher had beautiful eyes, full of pity, but she was strong. Why does June want to think me strong and herself a passionate child beloved by the teacher?"

(M's remark: Apparently, June was being more manipulative and infiltrating than sincere by saying that to Anais)

Youtube 上找到的片段充滿眷戀、挑逗意味, very suggestive of a (erotic) affection ,從今日的尺度看依然大膽--不過今日的同志片,已經不需要拍得這麼吞吞吐吐、意在言外了。



1958年的重拍版同樣吸引,因為女學生不是別人,是青春無敵的,a little-birdy-like 羅美雪妮黛( Romy Schneider )!



「她無限地誘導、無限地拒絕......」
-三島由紀夫《春雪》

《穿制服的女孩》觸及雙重禁忌:同性戀與師生戀--雖然從影片看來,這樣的情況在當年應該極其普遍,甚至比現在更普遍。但影片最崇高(我不得不用「崇高」)的魅力來自病態的壓抑,伴隨壓抑而來的(潛意識之)罪惡快感;自虐式的拒絕之快感,及被拒絕之快感(維基上說本片是女同界的 cult 經典, cult 的原因應該在此)--在整部影片裡,女教師不停對女學生訓示、強調她的權威、然後又保持距離地表示關懷,而每當女學生進一步示愛,她即拒之於千里,訓之以「不可以,不可以」,由是重覆以重覆,自我放大「我們之間不可能」的壓力。假如女學生和女教師沒有這種被制度禁斷、被社會拒絕的徨惑,她們(尤其是女學生)的感情會否如此強烈,逼切,瀕近絕望?拒絕便是挑逗:女學生的不能跟女教師坦然親熱是快感,老師的無止境拒絕也是快感。她們的神魂交顫( ecstasy ),其實來自彼此間不停的拒絕,拒絕,和拒絕。



Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Anais Nin's Ambivalence

"I love her for what she has dared to be, for her hardness, her cruelty, her egoism, her perverseness, her demoniac destructiveness. She would crush me to ashes without hesitation. She is a personality created to the limit. I worship her courage to hurt, and I am willing to be sacrificed to it. She will add the sum of me to her. She will be June plus all that I contain."

......

The first thing June and Henry would do would be to initiate us into poverty, starvation, drabness just to share their sufferings. That is the weakest way of enjoying life: to let it whip you. By conquering misery we are creating a future independence of being such as they will never know.... darling, we will know a freedom they have never known. I'm a bit sick of this Russian wallowing in pain. Pain is something to master, not to wallow in."

- Anais Nin, Henry and June

It is only with Tim, and Tim's love, and my love for Tim, that I can appreciate this book (which reminds me so much of me a me in a phase that is already past) to the full extent - and also with sober detachment, be it Anais' destructive, if also poetic, obsession with June; or her soberness in seeing that as wrong and putrid.

And what is so precious about Henry and June is that June was never portrayed as a bitch, despite apparently being one. There is no bitterness, no hatred. June was depicted - romanticized, idolized and idealized with such passion, and she was indulged, spoilt and lavished with love. Which reveals that the true precense here is not June, it is Anais' truthfulness, genuineness, innocence and selflessness, and Anais as a person who is full of feelings, compassions and sentimentality.



The Queen of Whore

Further to my discussion on Wakao Ayako's screen image in 若尾文子的佛性與魔性 in the light of a Mishima Yukio quote, I have found yet another quotation by Anais Nin conveying a very similar concept, the concept of the "Queen of whore":

"The only woman who ever gave me the same pleasure was a woman who was incapable of falling in love, who gave herself like a whore, who despised the men she gave herself to. This woman had been a whore and was colder than a statue."

- Anais Nin, "The Queen", in Little Birds

(again I am really excited and thankful that I can appreciate Anais' perverse and frantic writings/obsessions with total detachment)