The film Lust, Caution and the original novel have always been controversial, because the theme and expression are avant-garde, and because there are different opinions about Zhang Ailing's life. The novel has only ten thousand words, but it has been revised for thirty years. The film adaptation adds a lot of details, but it is basically loyal to the original work and tells a failed honey trap. Female college students tried to seduce and assassinate the spy mr. yi, but she let him go at the last minute, which led to the failure of the plan and the killing of herself and her companions.
I like novels and movies very much, especially Wang Jiazhi played by Tang Wei, which is a classic film and television image. She is a failed revolutionary, a weak mortal who does not completely and firmly reflect the true human nature, and a woman who makes me feel pity.
Zhang Ailing said in her own article:
Wang Jiazhi is such a weak mortal. She is neither a superman nor a hero. She is just a beautiful, simple, lonely and sensitive woman, like a duckweed, wandering in a turbulent and loveless troubled world. The first love has been disillusioned before it begins; Friendship is like a fake performance; And affection is more like a barren ruin-my mother died, my father abandoned her and took my brother overseas. She was left alone in the war, and even the house left for her was embezzled by my aunt. She is alone, trying to belong to something, trying to catch something that can give her a stable life, but being wrongly paid, used, hurt and betrayed.
Generally speaking, Zhang Ailing's views on life and human nature are ruthless, which is related to her time and family background. The world she wrote is bleak and gloomy, and life is a grand masquerade. There are calculations and games between men and women. Whoever gets emotional first will lose, and the loser will be doomed. However, human nature always yearns for true feelings and warmth. In such a cold world, all calculations are still to test and excavate the true feelings hidden in human nature. Once a woman thinks that she has got the true feelings, she will be a moth to the fire and finally smashed to pieces.
After all, Ang Lee is more compassionate and warmer than Zhang Ailing. In this desolate and absurd world under his lens, Wang Jiazhi described more women's purity and beauty than in the original works. Tang Wei's interpretation captures the essence of this character-an emotionally distressing woman, a woman with feminine charm like water, introverted, passive, yielding, forbearing and gentle. She doesn't talk much, and her inner drama is all in her eyes and actions.
In the movie, Wang Jiazhi's background is set as that her parents had a bad relationship since childhood, her mother died and her father remarried, but the original did not explain the background, saying only that "since she was fifteen or sixteen years old, she has been busy resisting various offensives, and such a girl is not easy to fall in love, and her resistance is too strong". Girls who grow up in such a family are not easy to fall in love because they are too resistant, but because they are too sensitive. She is too lacking in love, so she always carefully observes words and senses, distrusts people around her, but will give everything for a little sincerity. She wanted to belong, but she was abandoned; She longed to be protected, but she was hurt; She has been giving, but no one cares about her interests and asks her what she wants.
Wang Jiazhi is a passive role, an excellent role player and performer. Everything is done well, but these are not her own decisions, and they are not what she wants. She wants the love and protection of a strong man, so that she can find stability in troubled times. This is the weakness of her humanity.
Mr. yi is an old hand in love. From the beginning, he knew that Wang Jiazhi was trying to play a trick on him, but he didn't expose her, because he also wanted to see what this simple and clumsy woman really wanted. To seduce a professional intelligence officer who has insight into people's hearts without revealing his identity, Wang Jiazhi can only play with his true colors and pretend to be true colors.
The main line of the film is assassination, but Ang Lee's main purpose is to explore human nature and show the undercurrent surging with mr. yi's inner world to the audience through superficial eroticism. Only by getting rid of all social role disguises, being honest with each other and playing games in the most primitive way of communication can we distinguish the true and false of people's hearts. They are fighting for their lives, not having sex. Ang Lee's handling of sex can be said to be very accurate, and these three sex scenes with mr. yi describe the process of this loveless woman being conquered by body and spirit.
The core of the three sex scenes are two sentences in the novel:
The focus of the first sex scene is "Power is an aphrodisiac". Yi showed his strength through violence and told her who was in charge in their relationship. Finally, a smile appeared on Wang Jiazhi's lips, because she knew she had passed. If a woman wants to break a strong man's heart, she needs to let him know that she is a weak man. She has neither the ability to attack nor the ability to resist. Obedience is the best weapon. But power is a two-way aphrodisiac. It is the aphrodisiac of Mr. Yi, who has a strong desire for control, and also the aphrodisiac of this insecure woman. She is strong in wood, and while she has a strong possessiveness, she also vaguely feels the sense of security of being protected.
The second sex scene focuses on the physical pleasure. In the hypocrisy of human nature and the nothingness of the world, only sexual pleasure is real and pure, and both of them want to grasp the truth of this moment for different purposes. Wang Jiazhi's emotional trend towards mr. yi has also undergone subtle changes. Fake play becomes difficult to distinguish between true and false because of the input of true feelings. At the beginning of the scene, Wang Jiazhi said, "I hate you." Finally, she said, "Give me an apartment." Mr. Yi's face relaxed because of a short smile, and he relaxed his vigilance, because he knew that this woman had begun to fall in love with him-he knew that women are usually duplicitous, and only when they love in their hearts can they say they hate, and then they want to belong to a man and be with him regardless of their birthright. After Wang Jiazhi gave up his body, dignity and subjectivity little by little, his emotional defense began to collapse.
The last sex was full of eschatological despair. Mr. yi is no longer a manipulative person. He completely let his guard down, and the gun was hanging within reach. He even asked Wang Jiazhi to cover his eyes with a pillow. The play ended with Wang Jiazhi lying in bed crying. She cried because she felt that this man was as lonely and fragile as she was, and their emotional comfort and blending made them feel * * *. Driven by inner and physical strength, involuntary emotions and resistance to absurd reality reached their peak.
It is with these emotional foreshadowing that on the day of carrying out the assassination plan, at the critical moment when they took the ring together, they suddenly relented and let mr. yi go, which seems to me to be not abrupt at all.
Zhang Ailing wrote in her book:
Looking at mr. yi with emotion, I only saw the tenderness and pity in his expression, and only heard a crashing loss.
In the movie, when trying to take off my ring and saying that I don't want to wear such expensive things in the street, Teacher Yi gently took her hand and said, You are with me. This woman, who has no sense of belonging and security, has only been protected and cared for by Mr. Yi all her life. She thinks that "this person really loves me" and that "going" is really her human nature.
After the blockade, Wang Jiazhi took out the poison given to her by the organization. At this time, there was a replay in the movie: Wang Jiazhi was standing alone on the stage, and her classmates were upstairs opposite, saying, "Wang Jiazhi, come up." This is a meaningful replay, reminding the audience that Wang Jiazhi was never a core member of this group, and explaining why she didn't take poison-she realized that she had always been an outsider, that she had never been accepted by that group, and that her life didn't belong to them. She has been obedient all her life. This time, she has to make a decision for herself, find her own subjectivity and find her own life.
The biggest change of the film to the original work is mr. yi's affection for it. Ang Lee added Japanese taverns to the adaptation, and the scene of singing "Genv" is an important scene to depict mr. yi's emotional changes. Ang Lee gave the wandering girl a little bit of love she wanted, a moment of warmth, and finally peace. In the original book, mr. yi has no real feelings for her, she is just his prey:
When Zhang Ailing wrote this passage, I'm afraid her heart was full of sadness. This state of mind and body being possessed by one person is filled with despair of death, which has nothing to do with love and hate, leaving only strong feelings.
Ang Lee once said in an interview:
Lust, Caution is a work that touches the subtlety of human nature, and it is inevitably controversial. However, the vitality of excellent works of art often lies not in morality or ideology, but in the depth and breadth of exploring and thinking about human nature.
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