Great acting in this film Jolie is clearly in her element. Lots of action and very little dialogue. I liked it more than most films of its kind. Editing was excellent in my opinion and well directed. Everything Salt did just seemed to flow effortlessly. Just a well done film.
This was a powerful film with brilliant performances by both Rampling and Bogarde in a dark and deadly dance of sado-masochism. Thanks to their courage in tackling these roles many of us have been saved from its powerful grip.
Night Porter is about Max, a sadistic, mentally disturbed Nazi Soldier awaiting trial for his atrocities during the holocaust while working as a night porter in a hotel. During the holocaust he commits heinous abuses upon Lucia, an it girl, during her captivity. He torments the girl, yet makes her believe he is her protector, at one point, after a performance before many SS soldiers, displaying the head of one of the male inmates in a box. He does this in an attempt to bind her to him while keeping her in fear for her own head, a story he later claims to be Biblical, but I viewed as his own vindictive, artistic interpretation of Holofernes, clearly in which he seems to be taking vengeance on seductive women. One might think his childhood interpretation of this event deserved rectifying by abusing seductive women and could be related to Hitler and his personal interpretation of this event in the Bible. Fairbairn states with regard to similar circumstances, “the badness of an object was not the child’s sadism but was a reflection of maternal deprivation.” His instincts have been perverted so as to cause him to desire such relationships in order to satisfy his sexual needs. Fairbairn states, “what ranked as crucial for the child was the establishment of a satisfactory object relationship during the period of infantile dependence”.
With this in mind, it becomes clear they are both victims of unfulfilled infantile desires and positive parental deprivation, Lucia’s deprivation having been created for his purposes in his god-like conception of himself. The behavior acted upon Lucia is part of the “traumatic bonding”, defined in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a Clinical Review, Sidran Press and is described in the Stockholm Syndrome. At some point Max and Lucia part, never to see each other again until she arrives at the hotel with her husband, where Max happens to be employed.
His atrocities upon her pervert her natural childhood instincts, replacing her parental attachments and creating in her a masochistic dependency, frequently inflicting his own sadistic behaviors onto her, later dissociated from her consciousness until she encounters him at the hotel. During her imprisonment, it is clear she was fixated on him and his abuse of her, why she has arrived at the very hotel where he is working. This happens, in part, because of their sick attachment, their initial involvement being what Jung called synchronicity. This is also dramatized in Death in Love, when the Doctor appears in the city where his victim lives. Lucia is like the mother in Death In Love only she does not have children on which she inflicts her trauma, she seeks to inflict it on her tormentor, Max. Again Fairbairn remarks that a healthy object (meaning caretakers) relationship is critical during the period of infantile dependence.
The encounter triggers her memories of the events that occurred between them during her captivity, as well as Max’s, called flashbacks. Their relationship is reignited with numerous scenes dramatizing their relationship during Lucia’s captivity, their libidinal energies now driven by the need for violence; suffering and pain. In one scene, we see her clearly exhibit sadistic behaviors, Lucia acting the loving obedient but flirtatious child, deliberately smashing a bottle onto the floor of the bathroom after locking the door. Upon unlocking the door, Max bursts through stepping onto the glass cutting his foot. Lucia then reaches under his foot at which time he crushes her hand into the glass, again inflicting sadistic harm upon his “little girl”. Here, from my own synchronistic observations, I recognize scenes from The Woman In Green in which a long needle is driven into the hand of a stage performer in order to demonstrate hypnosis, I later re-enacted by stepping onto a nail in a board while crossing a creek.
This is the nature of their bond with each other now, she as an adult woman and he as a civilian. Now he wants to love her as a man would love a woman but their affair is more or less a kind of sadistic play between each other, Lucia manifesting her childish masochistic flirtations, setting off Max’s sadistic desires he attempts to control. In hopes of changing her and saving her he keeps her locked up in his apartment at one point chaining her to a chest claiming he is keeping “them” from taking her. He also wants to prevent her from testifying against him which she has threatened to do. He provides her medical treatment she refuses claiming there is no cure, also intimating her reasons for her appearance at the hotel is more than chance.
The ending is climatic as the two sink further into depravity, still inflicting pain one on the other, acting like animals, he caressing her mouth as if to caress and care for her vagina which gives him pleasure, but wanting to cut out of her vagina that which makes her seductive and wanted by others. Both, on the verge of starvation, in an attempt to prevent Lucia from being taken into custody and Max arrested for his crimes, they leave the re-creation of their prison, the apartment, and take their final steps to freedom. Shots are fired, both falling to their death.
After viewing this episode of Rizzoli and Isles I went to my copy of The King Within, Accessing the King in The Male Psyche, Gillette and Moore, turning to pg. 49, Decoding the Male Psyche, The Archetypes and Brain Structure. It discusses the concept that the right brain (mind) thinks in images and symbols and grasps patterns as whole schema and is the source of our dreams, visions and fantasies. The left of course is more logical and is the source of language. This now is felt to be specific to certain species of people rather than to the whole of society, at least by me. The occipital lobe of the brain re-creates what we see and possibly stores it in stereo in both hemispheres of the brain. What is often thought to be the dissociation of one person into two, is possibly some brains ways of processing images. The sketches in this film apparently reminded me of this section of the book I read quite some time ago, as they depict patterns which concealed the victim’s location. It is clear it was a so called right brain interpretation as was my locating the page in the book. The ice pick in the neck of the victim of course triggered my memories of a dream I had and also something I read about the Duke of Hesse having injured or murdered his mother and some cop show I have seen in the past.
Gillette and Moore go on to say the limbic system is the storehouse for all of our primitive social behaviors. I argue this as it is clear through generations these primitive behaviors get acted out and so by the time a child of the 21st Century is born, these behaviors have been eradicated and evolved. It is the writer who most likely evolves his or her family, preventing acting out and it is an actor who prevents his or her family from becoming contaminated with that which is undesirable. It is the consumption of that which is unhealthy which produces ill health.
They also state the brain is the location of archetypes. I say it is the mind and the mind can be connected to a multitude of personalities through our nomadic behavior, attempts at geographical cures and frequently transient behaviors, as my less than professional research and student skills, has revealed to me on many occasions, including the discovery of the relationship between two images (Possible Scenes of a catastrophic event) done by two different people in two different media and created 442 years apart. One person with a whole brain can gain access to this collective unconsciousness. Some say there is no out there, I say there is and I think I’ve proven it many times. Certainly it was proven by investigators during 9-11. Minds from all across the world responded to that event with some sort of knowledge whether it be writing, drawing or just a sensation. This was depicted in The Rizzoli and Isles Episode, Brown Eyed Girl, when a police officer’s daughter is kidnapped, witnessed by her brother who later draws pictures to help investigators locate his sister. What has not been acted out or removed via oral catharsis would still be active in the mind and unconscious until some connection is made consciously. This I have demonstrated on this blog by recognizing and finding films, art and map locations which I have never seen before but somehow recognize. Here is an example. The episode I Kissed a Girl also reveals some of the source of many gay and lesbian issues I think. In The King Within, pg. 126 (my copy) the authors talk about King as Procreator and discuss “Sculptures on the Temple at Konarak depicting hundreds of Gods and Goddesses in every conceivable sexual position, caressing, licking, sucking, kissing, penetrating and being penetrated”.
Back to Rizzoli and Isles. I was somewhat unhappy about Rizzoli’s hostile attitude (penis envy?) she often projects onto Isles and her mother and sometimes the anger she and Frost inflict on perpetrators and in this film, we discover some of the source. She is dealing with masculine issues and is ordered to attend classes in order to deal with this. The King Within addresses some of these issues in the chapter on Psychotherapy: Attending to the Unconscious, pg. 201 in my copy, also dramatized in Just Cause. Other issues I’ve seen dramatized in this episode have also been addressed in Crimes of Obedience, Kelman and Hamilton. Isles’ father is a murderer well known to law enforcement and until this episode, unknown to Isles. Isles has projected this longing to find her parents onto Rizzoli who sees her father as what he is, a murderer without knowing the whole story, yet dutifully transforms these energies into uncovering the whereabouts of Isles’ parents. Rizzoli is at the vortex of a lot of heat, her birth order sets her up for this, but her skills at sublimating and transforming these energies are what make her a superior officer. The issues affecting Isles are not dealt with in detail due to lack of time, although they have carried it over into several more episodes. Rizzoli breaks all the rules of logical investigative techniques trusting her feminine intuition to guide her judgment. Her more logical side is projected onto Isles who performs forensic investigations on victims. Rizzoli’s skills are also supported by the more logical skills of her partner Frost and her superior Korsak. Sometimes the angst and rage are quite distressing yet it reveals the stresses of being an investigator.
Did she killer her? I don’t think Delores killed her, I think she wanted to kill Vera. I think she had enough time to realize Vera’s motive for convincing Delores to kill her husband was really selfish. Vera didn’t want to be alone. Delores came to understand there was such a thing as redemption, that her husband could have been helped had he remained alive. I think Delores decided Vera made her kill her husband and she wasn’t going to let Vera talk her into killing the conspirator who had already killed her own husband, Vera.
Why did the writer not let her kill Vera?
I thought Kathy Bates was so compelling in this film you could hardly focus on anyone else. Leigh, Strathairn (who I personally think is another of those really good actors who doesn’t get enough recognition), Plummer, Reilly, Parfitt and the rest of the cast made this story come to life.
This was a touching drama. I was quite surprised by this film and completely under its spell throughout. Very creative storyline, a little confusing at times but superb acting and videography. Pitt was sharp and has matured into an extraordinary actor. I was surprised he didn’t get nominated for best actor in this film.
Allison rents a room to Hedy. Hedy is mentally unstable, we aren’t sure what caused her instability (too much TV?) but it is clear there are issues of self-hatred and attachment problems which Hedy acts out for self preservation. Allison becomes the object of her parental depravity and when Allison does not respond as Hedy wishes her to, Hedy becomes violent. Allison has boyfriend problems but then they make up and he gives her a dog. Hedy is still trying to form an attachment with Allison. Hedy projects her hatred for her parents onto Allison. Things get messy and Allison’s pet, Buddy, gets in the way of Hedy’s attempts at bonding with Allison (not unnatural but inappropriate) which Hedy causes to fall from their 4th floor apartment. Hedy wants to be like Allison making herself look like Allison changing her hair color, wearing clothes like Allison’s and becoming more like Allison but with a taste for murder (Point of No Return).
I recall the Kent State scenes on the news trying to intimidate students protesting what was being done unfairly. When I went to college three years later I was unable to complete my course work for fear of being shot or beaten up if I thought or acted in opposition to some puritanical notion inflicted by those in power, "we will have law and order". In response to that fear I started drinking and taking drugs. The use of marijuana was not some Satanic ploy by some occult to bring me down to a level of evil, it was my own government.
“Walk this way, talk this way”, is certainly an attempt at controlling your behavior, that short message gets into the brain and then you start watching how other people are walking, literally, while some may become aware of how other people are conducting their lives. Think of lines of people waiting to get into a concert!
Dissociation is a fact of trauma – thoughts can be stolen. I have documentation from the Veteran’s Hospital Library documenting this fact. It isn’t the brain being read it is the mind. The brain can fire off a thought at 400 thoughts per second. They don’t stay in the brain, they become part of the mind. This is what writers extract from your mind. This make it possible to prevent masses of people from developing certain levels of consciousness.
I proved it with my Psychotherapist. I was having some thoughts about her and she heard them with her mind and she made certain normal gestures letting me know she heard my thoughts. I hear my sister and niece all the time. I hear my mother all the time. I hear other people I do not know but can identify.
Can they control your brain? I think it depends your your brain’s health and the levels of neuro-chemicals in the brain. If you deplete the brain of glutamate and tyrosine it would seem to me to be quite possible.
How could I have forgotten being molested as a child for 27 years, then suddenly recollect and write about it and still have a clear memory of those events at age 57? What I am worried about are all of the other happy memories I had in my youth that I cannot recall at all. Where are they?
See the film Dead Ringer – One Step Beyond – You Tube or at Kay’s Films
