Intergenerational Trauma

I heard this term last year in the context of the Oklahoma Massacre, but it resonated strongly after I recently had a chat with a Chinese friend who emigrated to Singapore. We are roughly the same age, grew up mostly in the 1980s, and have postgraduate degrees. We have had a fairly comfortable middle-class life with large chunks lived outside of China (me in the US and her in Europe and Singapore). And yet, there are family behavioral and psychological patterns that are detached from reality and eerily similar not only between the two of us but are widespread among Chinese immigrants of my generation --- the generation that are not directly affected by but nevertheless in the shadow of the traumatic years from the 1950s to 1976, when daily life was not normal for our parents. Numbers, documents, history accounts, and words cannot accurately describe the emotional experience of the generation(s) of Chinese people who lived through these years. Like soldiers who come home with PTSD, our parents rarely talked about it. Trauma defies language. And yet it is not unusual or unique among people around the world in history and in the present. I often wonder if people have to share an experience to understand each other --- truly and authentically understand and empathize. The answer is sometimes no and sometimes yes. The question remains whether and how much people are both together and separate, which perhaps is and will always be a paradox. (I feel like I should quote GK Chesterton here but cannot remember the source or the exact wording.)

Angry Women and Their Books (1)

James Tiptree, Jr. (Alice Sheldon)

I must begin this discussion with Alice Bradley Sheldon, who wrote under the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr. In particular, I recognized her anger in 2 of her stories --- Your Haploid Heart (1969) and The Screwfly Solution (1977). (Note: Spoilers of both stories below.)

Your Haploid Heart is the first Tiptree story I read. It puzzled me and tormented my mind. I knew the central conflict between the Esthaans and the Flenni, two manifestations of one species on the alien plant, is meant to refer to certain human qualities. I could feel it, but I could not figure out what it was.

All science fictions are allegories. All aliens are humans in disguise. Yes, even Arthur Clarke's gods.

In their misguided pursuit of becoming more human and more civilized, the Esthaans attempt to commit genocide of the Flenni, which is not really a genocide but rather "parricide, filicide ... perhaps suicide ..."

It was only after I read an article about the life and work of Alice Sheldon did I begin to understand. You see, she camouflaged her gender-related theme with descriptions of both "male" and "female" organisms in the strong and stocky Esthaans (the diploids) as well as the frail and beautiful Flenni (the haploids). Their codependence is established in that the Esthaans produce the Flenni in an asexual manner (while suggesting a certain disgust and fear of reproduction), and two Flenni (gametes) combine to give birth to Esthaans (but sex means death to them). Therefore, reading this story alone without context, it would be difficult to see that she was really talking about the perhaps-suicidal urge for men to destroy women.

But ...

Eight years later, after her male cover was blow, she unleashed her concerns of men killing women in The Screwfly Solution, under a female pseudonym Raccoona Sheldon. It is perhaps the most gruesome story I have ever read, even though the violence occurs off-stage. The cause of this massacre might be bizarre and alien, but the ideology used to justify it (i.e., purifying humanity from the corrupting effects of women's seductive power) is eerily familiar.

I think most every woman who has walked this earth can feel a shiver down her spine when she reads this story, because the threat of death is both literal and figurative.

Women are killed by men since the dawn of human society through today. It's not science fiction, it's reality. It's so common that we don't even talk about it. At least, nobody talks about it with any visible anger or shame.

Sure, women kill men too, at a fraction of the prevalence. And perhaps we can argue that men kill men the most, which is also true, although I don't know how that helps.

Figuratively, it is the dominance of male thought as the default, human thought, while female thought as "the other" and the aberrant and deviant.

Nevertheless ...

What Alice Sheldon wanted to point out is that men killing women is a form of human self-destruction.

This reminds me of a real exchange I read about between Cixin Liu and a history professor. Cixin Liu is a Chinese science fiction writer who won the 2015 Hugo Award for his novel "The Three-Body Problem" and has a massive following among Chinese (mostly male) science fiction readers. In 2007, at some public event, Liu and Professor Xiaoyuan Jiang had a debate about culture and cannibalism. Liu pointed to a young woman who was hosting this event and said, if the 3 of us were the last ones left to carry on human civilization, and we have to eat someone to survive, would you eat her? (Note that he went straight to the question "Would you eat HER?") Jiang replied, of course not. Liu said, we live in an indifferent universe (an idea he no doubt "learned" from Clarke). If you don't eat her and survive, you would be responsible for losing all of this glorious culture, think Shakespeare, Goethe, Einstein ... You think I'm cruel, but I'm only rational.

I'll leave you to ponder the irony of Mr. Liu's rationality.

Primer

It is perhaps because a friend and I discussed the fear of death and dying this morning that I decided (finally) to rewatch this movie after over a decade. Even though I had read and watched a number of variations on the time-travel theme, I was very impressed by this little indie movie to remember it over the years. It's more interesting than the tropes and the done-to-death "solutions" to the fundamental paradoxes, for example, the reliance on coincidences and characters' unawareness in stories like "12 Monkeys". (I'm not saying "12 Monkeys" is bad, but I found it unsatisfying and tiresome, certainly not as clever as it thinks it is.)

Upon the second viewing, I am again impressed by Shane Carruth's courage to at least try to face the paradox of time travel. Of course, it inevitably breaks down as the lead characters' little scheme to prevent paradoxes breaks down later in the story. In general, his choice to let paradoxes happen and let history be rewritten in the way time travel happens in "Palimpsest" (a novella by Charles Stross) is audacious. Unfortunately he kind of lost control of the story and chickened out of the inevitable confrontations --- perhaps because of the lack of budget for special effects --- led to an ultimately disappointing ending.

The particular wrong turn in the script is the sudden appearance of the third, "failsafe" machine that pops up when the story is written into a corner, leading to the problem of when the initial timeline (which leads to the disastrous appearance a second Thomas Granger, Abe's girlfriend's father) ceases to exist. If this timeline is killed the moment Abe goes into the "failsafe" machine on another floor, Aaron would have no opportunity to try to beat him with his own trip.

The hastiness of this third machine and Aaron's previously-unestablished scheme of bringing a machine back, etc., are a lot of hand-waving that somewhat diminishes the story. Of course, the inherent paradoxical nature of time travel cannot be resolved, and this story always faces the unsolvable threat of "what if the original Abe or Aaron chooses not to go into the machine at 6 pm in the afternoon". Nevertheless, I am still a fan of this movie and Palimpsest for their creativity and courage to challenge cause and effect.

Recalling my discussion with the friend (who is, by the way, the least vain person I know), however, I realized that the emotional core of all the time-travel stories is regret and the unwillingness to accept ourselves for who we really are.

Goyokin (1969)

I watched Goyokin (trailer) twice a few weeks ago, and even now I am haunted by Tatsuya Nakadai's eyes. (He might have been even more haunting in Harakiri, but that's a different kind of impression.)

The plot relies heavily on familiar tropes in jidaigeki and samurai movies and requires little to no elaboration to fans of the genre. Maybe that is why Hideo Gosha, who co-wrote and directed this movie, remains quite obscure in the West. Steeped in the enormous scope of the action, the scenery, and the larger-than-life characters is an old-fashioned romanticism, presented with pure visual bravura.

I consider myself a legit fan of the genre after watching nearly 80 jidaigeki movies and several TV series, mostly from its golden age of the 1960s and 70s. In these movies, we are often treated with sophisticated cinematography that captures the deadly beauty of sword-fights, from the forbidding grassland in Samurai Rebellion (Masaki Kobayashi) to the house of shadows and nightmares in The Sword of Doom (Kihachi Okamoto). Of all these entries, however, Goyokin has the most gorgeous and unforgettable scenes, shot obviously on location. It was unparalleled when it came out, and I very much doubt we will ever see anything like it again.

It is a shame that I have been unable to find a remastered or high-resolution version of this movie with English subtitles (Chinese subtitles would do, but they don't seem to exist either). This gem should be seen on the big screen.

The Love Triangle in Miller's Crossing

Someone astutely pointed out that this movie is defined by two love triangles: The Dane--Mink--Bernie and Tom--Leo--Verna triangles. It is made abundantly clear that the first triangle is sexual, or, homosexual. How about the second?

Many years ago, when I was a relatively new fan of Raymond Chandler's novels, someone who is far more well versed in film (than I am now and will ever be) casually mentioned that Tom is gay and is in love with Leo.

Rewatching Miller's Crossing (you know I'm either bored or old, or both, when I have started re-watching stuff), I'm not so sure. That Tom loves Leo more than he loves Verna (if at all) is made abundantly clear, but, if Coen brothers had a clear idea about the nature of Tom's feelings, well, they did not succeed in presenting it on screen.

Tom's love for Leo, which is clearly "insufficiently" reciprocated, could very well be Oedipal rather than sexual. The only clarity is in his possessiveness.

Does Tom care about Verna at all? The movie's answer is apparently "no." Putting aside Tom's repeated pleas that Leo should give up Bernie to Casper, Tom decided to personally and directly stab Verna in the back at least twice: When Verna told him where Bernie was hiding, he immediately gave that information to Casper, which would have led to Bernie's execution if it had not been for a twist. Near the end of the movie, Verna intercepted Tom outside his door and accused him of killing Bernie. Tom did not deny it, not because he was feeling chivalrous or anything, but rather that he really was going to kill Bernie in the next scene.

Throughout the movie, Verna is a parallel character to Casper. In the same way he uses Casper's misplaced sense of honesty and ethics to manipulate him, Tom uses her misunderstanding of himself to manipulate her for his own purpose, which is, always and only, to protect Leo. She thinks Tom loves her and utters various witty classic femme fatale lines to sad comic effects. This display reminds me of "Gilda," in which the love between the two male characters is even more explicit, although the extraneous female character somehow became iconic. How ironic.

I am inclined to chalk up Tom's love for Leo as more Oedipal than sexual. Nevertheless, over the years, I have come to learn that Raymond Chandler was indeed gay. So who the hell knows.

The Blemish

In the very last few minutes of the last episode of the 1972-73 TV series Nemuri Kyoshiro, the lead actor of Kyoshiro, Tamura Masakazu, appeared in modern costume as himself and walked around Kyoto for a few brief scenes. In these shots, a dark spot the size of a dime, is clearly visible on his right cheek. It gave me a shock.

Why such a shock? Perhaps because the blemish had been covered with makeup throughout the series. Well, that is not entirely true. In a number of scenes, when the directors almost casually allowed Tamura Masakazu's right side to take up the whole screen, the spot was in fact faintly visible. However, my brain refused to acknowledge it. After all, Tamura Masakazu is renowned for his beauty in Japanese audience throughout his long career from the 1960s to the early 2000s. In the dozens of TV series and movies he starred, there was never a hint of this spot on his face. He might have had it bleached at some point, or it went away on its own. And yet, here it is on his nearly-perfect face, captured on film, in open air.

Below is a shot in the Nemuri Kyoshiro series with period costume and full makeup.

I don't know why it has such a strong and lasting effect on me, to see that ... thing ... on his face the first time. In some ways, it reminds me of the portrait of Dorian Gray, except it is the reverse.

This is not the only example. Facial scars on an actor, particular a leading man or woman, has been a source of some fascination to me. For example, Sammo Hung and Sofia Helin (The Bridge) both have scars around their mouths.

There is something moving about such display of one's flaws, especially in contrast to the otherwise beautiful (or at least adorable, in Sammo's case) context. The emotional impact of such a face, at least on me, can be far stronger than perfection.

Nemuri Kyoshiro is the defining role for Tamura Masakazu. The strange mix of both aloofness and vulnerability more or less remained in many of his later roles. Even some of the more comic roles could not be entirely free of this slightly intimidating distance. That blemish overturned something fundamental, oh I don't know, maybe in my mind.

The Ending of Le Samourai (1967), Explained

A quick online search after watching Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai confirmed my suspicion: The plot is very rarely understood by English-language critics. Even Roger Ebert's Great Movie Review and Criterion's essay by David Thomson appear to have entirely missed the point. If one assumes that these two critics both read their colleagues' writing extensively, it is safe to bet that most of their colleagues, too, remain in the dark. Why does the killer-for-hire, Jef Costello, played by the expressionless Alain Delon, show up at the nightclub and pretend to threaten the unnamed jazz pianist (Caty Rosier), thereby committing suicide-by-police? Does Costello follow some made-up samurai code of conduct and his suicide is predetermined? Everyone comments on the movie's style, but none gives a plausible explanation of the plot, especially the character's motivation.

The first time I watched Le Samourai was almost 20 years ago. At the time I too thought the plot was as stoic and incomplete as the characters. I guess in the past 20 years I have learned at least one thing --- how to pay attention to details.

The critics' blind spot, I have realized, is their failure to look closely at the jazz pianist as a key character. There is a crucial scene that is missed by everyone. Approximately two-thirds into the movie, after escaping an attempt to eliminate him by his employer/client, Jef goes to the pianist and tries to suss out from her who has employed him. We watch the pianist driving him in a car. She listens to his questions (after a bit of unconvincing coercion) in a house that we can only assume to be her home (she is wearing a bathrobe or kimono-style pajama). The living room is shown as a grand loft with 2 staircases in the back that lead to an upper deck with railings. This room --- this set --- is the key to the story.

Jef lays out his case to her in a scene that contains more words spoken by him than the entire rest of the movie. He pleads for information on who told her not to identify him in the police station. She appears to be sympathetic and sends him away with a promise to give him information later. "Call me in 2 hours," she says. Why 2 hours?

He goes away and calls her from a payphone as agreed, but she does not pick it up. Instead, she ascends the stairs and passes through a door on the left, and then enters a corridor. The white walls on both sides are lined with paintings. She pauses and bites her nail. The scene cuts away.

Not getting an answer on the phone, Jef goes back to his flat and is ambushed by his handler, the go-between guy who tried to kill him previously. However, he is no longer trying to kill Jef. Shockingly, he pulls out the money he owes Jef for the first job ... and then some more ... for a new job! Jef is skeptical but takes the money anyway (while giving the guy a beating), implying his acceptance of the new job. Importantly, the scene cuts away before we find out who the new target is, but not before we hear the unfortunate go-between guy confess the name and address of the mysterious client who hired him. "Olivier Rey," and "He's not like us." In other words, Monsieur Rey is not a gangster. Although the name has never been mentioned previously, we have seen him in a previous scene, in which he discusses the need to kill Jef so that the murder is never traced back to him. There were 3 other men in this scene: the blond go-between guy, an older bald man, and a man we recognize as the bartender at the nightclub.

In the pre-climactic scene, Jef comes out of an elevator in a building (presumably at the address provided by the go-between guy) and kicks open a rather impressive big door --- a door to something like a penthouse. Here comes the tricky part of Melville's visual game. We see Jef walking through a white corridor lined with paintings on both walls. He opens a familiar-looking white door at the end and comes out on a deck overlooking two sets of stairs. The camera pans down: we see the living room where Jef and the pianist talked the night before. This is the same house!

Because this scene begins from the front door and corridor upstairs, while the previous scene is shot completely downstairs, the audience may not recognize this is the same house, but Jef obviously knows that he was here before (perhaps he and the pianist came through the garage downstairs?). This is the point where he understands the crime(s) and the players behind it.

Jef does not descend the stairs. Instead, he retreats to the white corridor and searches the house for Olivier Rey, the client who is not a gangster. Jef shoots him dead. Before he is killed, however, Rey asks Jef whether he has accepted the second job to kill ... We will soon find out.

"Oui," says Jef, after a pause.

Jef leaves and returns to the crowded nightclub that evening. The jazz pianist comes out in a stunning dress and sits down to play. Jef walks up to the piano and looks into her eyes, then takes out a gun and points it at her. "Why, Jef?" She asks, her eyes soft and unfrightened. "Because I was paid to," he replies. Then he is shot dead by the police who have been hiding in the crowd. They rush over to find Jef's gun empty. He had no intention of assassinating her.

It's reasonable to infer that Jef chooses to commit suicide (this much is obvious) because he has decided to abort the second job. Why didn't he just turn it down? Maybe he accepted the job so that no one else can be hired to do it. Maybe when he heard the name of the second target, he did not understand why. Ergo, his purpose is to protect the pianist. In addition, we now realize that killing Olivier Rey is a part of this mission.

Now let's review the story in chronological order:
- A man hires Jef Costello (through a blond go-between guy) to kill a nightclub owner.
- Jef does his job but falls under the police's suspicion.
- To avoid being traced back to him, the client hires the go-between guy to kill Jef, unsuccessfully.
- Jef investigates through the pianist.
- Jef is ambushed and given a second job to kill the pianist.
- Jef gets the name and address of the client. He goes there and kills him.
- Jef goes to the nightclub to kill, no, to protect, the pianist.

One may argue that the "Bushido Code" (made up by Melville, probably after watching a number of Japanese samurai movies without fully understanding the culture) forces Jef to remove the last threat to the pianist, which is himself. Therefore, he has to die. Makes sense? Not really. He's killed Rey who ordered the hit. She is now safe (probably). Why does he commit suicide?

We have to return to the key revelation: Olivier Rey and the pianist live in the same house. This means that they are probably husband and wife, or at least long-term lovers.

In the first assassination, Rey hires a professional (Jef) to kill the owner of the nightclub (Martey) where his wife plays. Of course we will never know exactly why, but the common excuse in this type of stories is that the wife is having an affair with the nightclub owner and the husband is jealous. This is pure speculation. Perhaps Rey and Martey are doing some seedy business together (even though Rey is not a gangster), and Martey embezzled money, or they just had different views on how to do business. If so, it is nothing but a coincidence that the wife happens to perform at this very nightclub.

Later, Rey hires Jef to kill his wife. Why? Again we can only speculate. There are almost no clues, but we do know that the wife/pianist knows by now that her husband has ordered the murder of Martey and the attempted murder of Jef Costello. Witness elimination or blackmailing would be a usual motive.

The web of connections among Rey--the go-between-guy--Jef--the pianist can also explain why, at the beginning of the movie, the pianist did not identify Jef in police line-up. Without knowing the connections, we can be forgiven to think that she saves Jef from the police because of Delon's beauty. The real reason, as Jef himself points out, is that she was intimidated by someone (maybe the bartender) to keep her mouth shut.

Is Jef the samurai who adheres to a suicidal code of honor or a medieval knight in shining armor to the damsel's rescue? Is he in love with her? Does he choose to protect her so thoroughly to repay her initial protection of him? Yes and yes. Such a sentimental story, if it were presented in a comprehensible way.

One last missing piece in this puzzle. There is too little information to even speculate on, but I will speculate nevertheless. When Jef calls the pianist, she hesitates and chooses not to pick up the phone. She could tell Jef everything and even hire him to kill her husband. But she does not. Instead, she walks up the stairs and enters the corridor, perhaps to go to her husband's office and ... confront him? Did this confrontation lead to Rey's decision to have her killed?

Another missing piece that could fit into this one is the events between the two scenes involving Jef and the go-between guy. In the first scene between the go-between guy and Jef, Jef barely escapes death. In the second, the handler shows up with a gun but chooses to make peace. Instead, he hands Jeff a lot of dough. What happened between these 2 scenes? Is Rey's wife blackmailing him to let Jef live? "I know what you did and I want you to stop"? Why? We will never know. If this is true, however, we could reasonably say that the pianist saves Jef twice in this movie: first from the police and then from her husband.

If that's what she has done, it is entirely justified that Jef Costello should die for her, by Bushido, chivalry, or any other code.

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A final note. I find it curious that even the most experienced film critics have failed to connect the dots, because they have failed to pay attention to the Caty Rosier's character. Perhaps I would not have either, if a male friend had not, many years ago, commented to me how beautiful and sexy the jazz pianist is.