又名: 女继承人 / The Heiresses(英) / Héritières / Les / The Inheritance
导演: 玛塔·梅萨罗什
编剧: Ildikó Kórody 扬·诺维茨基 玛塔·梅萨罗什 András Szeredás Miklós Vásárhelyi
主演: 伊莎贝尔·于佩尔 莉莉·莫罗利 扬·诺维茨基 Zita Perczel Sándor Szabó Zsolt Körtvélyessy Witold Holtz Éva Gyulányi Zoltán Jancsó Piotr Skrzynecki Kati Sír Károly Mécs 尤迪特·海尔纳迪 Zoltán Gera Ottó Szokolay
上映日期: 1980-11-13(匈牙利)
片长: 105分钟 IMDb: tt0081821 豆瓣评分:7.6 下载地址:迅雷下载
I have been reading Mary Ann Doane's book Femme Fatales: Feminism, Film Theory and Psychoanalysis, and many scenes in The Heiresses resonate with key ideas explored in her book, so I thought I'd write this review as an attempt to summarize those ideas, particularly Woman's (yes with a capital 'W') function as cinematic image, and the masquerade she deploys to arrive at this so-called function.
In Chapter One of Femme Fatales Doane desribes the woman "not only as the image of desire but as the desirous image—one which the devoted cinéphile can cherish and embrace. To 'have' the cinema is, in some sense, to 'have' the woman." One of the opening scenes of The Heiresses shows Akos, Szilvia's husband, mesmerized by a series of moving images: sporting events, Nazi ceremonies and finally close-ups of Szilvia's face. Akos takes pride in being an enthusiast of the cinema, and in capturing Szivilia's image tries to possess her too. However by luring him with her image, it would seem that Szilvia is the one who owns Akos. As a spoiled heiress who has everything, Szilvia is not afraid to show off her wealth and uses it to taunt her subjects. During a tour of their new house, Szilvia asks Akos: "Do you like it? I've bought it for you. Darling." To which Akos replies: "Thank you. Father." By addressing Szilvia's father and not her, Akos bypasses his masculine insecurities and unconsciously acknowledges that Szilvia is the one in charge here, the one who wields the phallus.
There is also a brief sequence in which Szilvia disguises as a man and tries to convince Irène to be her surrogate mother. Both Freud and Irrigaray have pointed out that the woman seems to be more bisexual than the man. Szilvia's intimacy with Irène and her eventual success in "buying" her echoes this theory and affirms her performance of masculinity. Szilvia's suggested bisexuality also posits her as an epitome of the woman who oscillates between lack and excess in psychoanylysis, yet she cannot be defined and abstracted into the Woman with a capital "W" because she is simultaneously hypersexual and sterile. Montrelay claims that in order to be symbolized it is necessary that the woman put herself at stake, for the female body "is an object in excess which must be 'lost'", and the maternal body offers exactly that desired loss. But the impossibility of becoming pregnant for Szilvia means that she has nothing to lose, nothing to deter her from emotional outbursts. She follows Akos and Irène persistently, cries whilst smiling, and appears to be masturbating naked lying by Irène's door. While the speculation that hysteria is a malaise of the womb is absurd, in the case of The Heiresses it offers an uncanny explanation to Szilvia's profound sadness. Szilvia's syptoms also parallels that of Justine in Lars Von Trier's Melancholia. Justine's melancholia is temporarily relieved as she bathes nude in the chilling starlight, then the camera shifts to a close-up of the star that shares the same name with Justine's malady, foreshadowing the total destruction Melancholia would later bring. The same collision of eros and thanatos is present in The Heiresses. The confirmation of Irène's pregnancy coincides cruelly with the death of Szilvia's father. He is buried in an apple orchard where afterwards Szilvia and Akos make love in a room full of apples, the very symbol of sin and desire.
The film progresses as Szilvia and Irène's images continue to morph into each other. When Irène first meets Akos, Szilvia asks Akos: "Does she resemble me?" and receives a negative answer. Indeed, physically the two women have almost nothing in common. However when Szilvia and Irène next attend a dance party together they already start to look alike, with the same hairstyle and dresses of a similar cut, and immediately after the party Irène elopes with Akos and is impregnated. The night that Irène moves in with Szilvia and Akos, the two women again dress in the same fashion, prompting Akos to comment: "Don't they look alike? They are both lovely." When Irène and Akos try to get away together only to be pursued by Szilvia, the camera captures the two women in the same frame, clad in the same white fur coat and hat, and the surrogacy becomes all the more unsettling. Irène has now replaced Szilvia, and she is no longer the foreboding phallic mother.
Irène passes as Szilvia on several occasions, in public she acts as Akos' wife, and she gives the Nazi officers Szilvia's papers to conceal her Jewish identity, though she ultimately fails. Yet Irène's masquerade is fundamentally differently from Szilvia's. If Szilvia challenges notions of feminine sexuality with her unpredictable actions, Irène reinforces patriarchy by specifying a norm of femininity. According to Joan Riviere, masquerade, in flaunting femininity, counters the possession of masculinity and makes femininity dependent upon masculinity for its very definition. A charming and enigmatic woman, Iréne is already conceived as the other in psychoanalysis, on top of that her Jewish origin also situates her as the racial other. It should also be noted here that Doane has theorized that the woman is fascinating precisely because she is also potentially threatening. As a Nazi captain, Akos knowingly keeps his Jew mistress perhaps for the very reason that she could jeopardize his political career as fascism rises. The arrival of Irène, accompanied by the passing of Szilvia's father, allows Akos to finally resume his paternal authority in the family, be the father he has always wanted to be.
Since sound is a critical component of The Heiresses as well, it would be helpful to bring into the picture Doane's idea that the female body is constituted as noise, "an undifferentiated presence which always threatens to disrupt representation." Whenever Akos showcases his films, the moving images are always accompanied by white noise generated by the projector. Woman as cinematic image is not only accounted for by her hypervisibility, but her speech and actions too. As Szilvia herself declares: "I think love is life, and life is a struggle." Szilvia is contantly trying to interfere with Akos and Irène's relationship. There is a brilliant scene where Irène and Akos are watching a film of Szilvia and Irène playing in the snow field (which Akos took), and Szilvia enters the room, her shadow momentarily overlapping with the projection. She then unexpectedly throws the reel into the fireplace, terminating the film and its noise abruptly. If Woman truly is the cinematic image par excellence, Szilvia would be incinerating herself and Irène.
Another example of distruptive noise occurs when Irène is giving birth, as Szilvia impatients awaits in another room, dressed in the same white gown, she repreatedly mumbles in pain: "I can't bear it," echoing what Irène said earlier when faced with the impending reality that she must give away her child. Szilvia's cries gradually fuses with the newborn's, signifying a return to pre-Oedipal sexuality which escapes the grasps of the symbolic. And last but not least, the leitmotif of the song "Don't Ever Say" plays an important emotive role throughout the film.
Don't ever say,
That you're past everything
That there's nothing new
and sudden in Life
Don't ever say it's over
Or that you no longer care
After everything that happened
Much may be left to come
Don't ever say it's over
Say only that so far
It has been worth it
And if it has been worth it
A point might come
Where you must say what you have to say
Don't ever say it's over
Say only that so far
It has been worth it
And if it has been worth it
A point might come
Where you must say what you have to say
In the final moments of the film, the empathetic melody resounds as Irène is being deported with fellow jews, and the lens moves back and forth between her and Akos looking at her inside a passing car, the camera slowly closes in on her face and freezes, her ambiguous expression forever etched onto our retinae. Through losing herself in the war, Irène allows the viewer to become lost in her too, grounding her as the mysterious and fascinating Jewish woman who characterises the fantasy of the other, the lasting image that marks the endnote of a cinematic climax.
《遗产》是匈牙利女导演玛塔·梅萨罗什完成于1980年的作品,入围当年戛纳电影节主竞赛单元。它讲述一个发生在二战前后的贵族故事。与玛塔·梅萨罗什大多数电影一样,《遗产》将视角聚焦在女性困境上,同时也涉及权力、政治、历史、种族等话题,这些宏大叙事沉落在一段不被世俗接受的三角恋情上。不得不说,这是玛塔·梅萨罗什拍出的又一部女性主义杰作。
时间是1936年,二战爆发前几年。贵族女性西尔维娅过着奢侈、优裕的生活,但她也有自身的烦恼,她无法生育。为了继承父巨额的财产,也为了留住军官丈夫阿柯斯的爱意,西尔维娅想出了一个异想天开的主意:让她的好友、平凡的犹太女孩伊莱娜(由年轻的于佩尔饰演)与丈夫孕育生子,并把孩子归到自己名下。西尔维娅在反复犹疑后同意,为之后友谊的破裂埋下伏笔。
西尔维娅与伊莱娜处在不同的阶级,分属不同的种族,有着不同的生活状态,两人走到一起仅仅因为志趣相投。在西尔维娅强势的攻势下(言语劝诱、金钱收买),单纯的伊莱娜根本没有招架之力。但现实远远超出西尔维娅的预期,阿柯斯在与伊莱娜的相处中渐渐萌生爱意,两人假戏真做。这段感情超越了世俗与种族。作为亲纳粹的军官,阿柯斯深知爱上犹太姑娘会给自己带来怎样的灾祸。
西尔维娅将自己推向了深渊,作为女性,她根本忍受不了丈夫与其他女人做爱,更不要说诞下孩子了。她深受嫉妒之苦,精神一度失常,经常会做出不合常理的举动。父亲去世后,她在下葬期间与阿柯斯在一间乡下小屋里疯狂做爱,地上铺满了苹果。有时,她会赤身裸体躺在伊莱娜居室的门廊外,身体做痛苦的蜷缩。伊莱娜在隔壁孕育生子时,她在床上痛苦不堪。
西尔维娅的出身赋予了她自信,这种自信也让她迷失了自己。她手握权力与财富,因此想当然地把他人作为棋子一般指使。她无法预见到人性和情感的复杂,人是会变的,世界也不会按照她的意愿运转。她如何能想到丈夫会出轨呢?但事实上这件事发生了。阿柯斯还与伊莱娜生下了第二个孩子,一个只属于他们俩的孩子,两人爱情的结晶。试问,西尔维娅如何能受得了呢?
玛塔·梅萨罗什显然不想简单拍摄一段三角恋情,以此探讨女性面临的现实困境。时间线上的特意安排,说明了这点。结尾时间切换到1944年,二战结束前夕,德国纳粹正在欧洲大肆清除犹太人。为了保护伊莱娜,阿柯斯找到独居的西尔维娅,希望能借西尔维娅的身份蒙混过关,西尔维娅断然拒绝。整部电影收尾在伊莱娜的特写上,她混在犹太人群里,即便被送往集中营。
阿柯斯与伊莱娜的爱超越了种族,让人感沛,但这不是玛塔·梅萨罗什表达的重点。《遗产》深刻展示了女性主义电影应该具有的样貌和价值,玛塔·梅萨罗什不是以俯视者的眼光看着电影里的两位女性角色,而是深入到她们内心,揭示她们所面临困境的深层根源。在男权制社会里,剥削同样发生在女性之间。或许我们可以说,剥削是强者对弱者的压倒性关系,而与性别无关。