Rape? *spoiler*
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lyndsay_lane — 13 years ago(May 08, 2012 01:36 PM)
That makes sense. Movies have limited time to tell a book's story, so they are often forced to leave a lot of character development out. I would like to read the book because books usually provide a better glimpse into a character's life and mindset than the movies based on them. However, I don't know if I want to if the disturbing scenes are more graphic in the book. I'll try it. I'm sure any book I read is going to be more tame than the half of American Psycho I managed to get through. That was just disgusting.
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I_Created_U — 9 years ago(November 16, 2016 03:12 PM)
I've just finished the movie and think this is the most off base interpretation i've read until now. Completely wrong in my book anyway. I should add that i've never read anything upon the movie or director and that i have seen the movie only once. Here's my take:
So he storms in to reclaim his position of power which the letter has taken away
That letter didn't take his power away, it gave him
all the power
imaginable over another person. He storms into her place to precisely realize her fantasy according to the letter. He was masturbating under her window, he mistreated the mom, he locked her in, took the key, slapped her in the face even though she was begging, treated her like sh!t, everything in order to please her and respect her wishes. He even doesn't hit her when she screams "not on the hands!" when she was trying to free her mom.
The reason he was frustrated is because this role playing wasn't really his thing and he was forced to do the kind of stuff to a person that would have otherwise never occurred to him. He was distraught after reading the letter because he finally acknowledged that the woman he loves was a nut case.
He didn't "throw out" anything, i don't see how you can think that after having seen the movie. He is trying to respect her twisted wishes to the letter.
I think part of the director's intentions, too, was to show the difference (or maybe not so much a difference) between ritualized violence like S&M and real violence. This puts the viewer in a strange position as well because we're watching "real" violence take place in a "fake" scenario
That's wrong too in my view. That was not his aim and what we saw at the end in her flat was nothing
but
ritualized violence. As to why she suddenly stopped enjoying it mid act, i have no real explanation. I would hazard that the realization of her fantasy wasn't up to her expectations, maybe he wasn't hard/mean enough? Maybe the constant apologizing and talk put her out of it? I think she realized that the fantasy wasn't painful/humiliating enough which is why she went back to something more powerful i.e raw pain, which is why she stabs herself at the end of the movie.
At last, and this is probably the first time in my life that i say such a thing, but in this specific scene, in my humble opinion, it wasn't rape. How can it be rape when the person clearly told you several times that you can do whatever you want with her and that even if she begged, he shouldn't care the least and just keep going. She
literally
wrote him a letter
explicitly
detailing what she liked and how she liked it and how she wants to be treated. She shouted several times "I want what you want!" and wrote "Shove me my own stockings down the throat until i can't breathe" or something to that effect. It just can't be rape. It's the only time i have and probably will say this, but this was, as twisted and perverse as it looked, consensual sex. Every time in the movie when she asks him to stop, he did indeed stop. Every time. Why would he rape her this time? From his POV and mine, she was willing and if he had felt otherwise, he would have stopped.
Now am I saying that one can't rape a masochistic person in a role play? Not at all. What i am saying is that you can't rape a person when the rapist is respecting to the letter the instructions he has been given by the victim. If the sex happens outside the limits described by the letter or if the safe word has been used and the role player doesn't stop, then it's absolutely 100% rape and there's no excuse for it. However, if everything unfolds according to the plan and the plan
is
rape, then it simply can't be genuine rape but a game.
She jumping on her mom and looking at her pubes and kissing her was more rape than anything the guy ever did to her
People who don't like their beliefs being laughed at shouldn't have such funny beliefs -
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angel-white — 16 years ago(June 28, 2009 01:17 AM)
WARNING: SPOILERS
It wasn't rape. They should have established a "safe word" to verify this. When such people engage in such "deviant behaviour" they need a safe word, because no really doesn't mean no, at this point. All he was doing was interpreting her letter, IMO. He knew what she wanted, and if he scripted it, it would have been too fake, so he interpreted it. Then, what he did was actually less obscene than her letter, but because it wasn't directly word-for-word from the letter, it gets labeled as rape.
I think it's a little sad, and I couldn't have done what he did, myself, but if you haven't been there, I think it's hard to realize that what seems to be giving someone what they want is actually hurting them (like giving drugs to an addict).
I don't know what I would have done in his situation, but at the very least I woudl have established a safe word. But you should take note that several times he quoted her letter directly, and asked her to verify that his quote is what she said. Presumably, at any point, she could have clarified "that's not what I meant" but she did not, because she needed to be abused.
The abuse may have been a little different than she depicted, but that made it much more real, which is what she needed (wanted?). Whatever it was, I cannot with any conscience in me, conclude that it was rape. This was what she wanted, it was what she needed. It killed her (one of many possible interpretations of the ending), but it was her decision. -
mikpii — 18 years ago(September 07, 2007 10:25 AM)
Yes the scene of him trying to fulfill her fetishes turned into a rape. I think it was highly ironic because he had expressed his disgust at her sick mind and fantasies and then there he was raping her.
The author of the book said the story is about authoritarianism in Austria; then the irony makes perfect sense: authoritarians stigmatize people who don't conform to their ideology and yet they themselves make horrible things in the name of their ideology. -
anna-glen — 18 years ago(September 09, 2007 02:41 AM)
I might just be the only one in the entire world who doesn't think Walter raped Erika. She detailed in the letter exactly what she wanted (which was far creepier than the actual "rape" scene). Anyway - Walter confessed his love for Erika a few times, and love doesn't just dissappear. Even though he knew it was wrong, he beat Erika because that's exactly what she asked for. During that entire scene you could see many times when he was reluctant, and when he was 'raping' her, he was affectionate and thought about stopping and leaving a few times. Erika was not unconscious and she didn't tell Walter to stop, she just lay there. How are we to know that wasn't how she wanted it? -The way i see it, Walter was just fulfilling her wishes. And later on when she said she wanted a normal relationship, I believe she was just saying that because that's all Walter wanted, and realising she might lose him - was desperate to be loved by someone other than her mother.
And the final scene when Walter briefly acknowledges her just as if she was anybody else, it says to me the ole saying "Indifference is worse than hate" and she just snaps. I really don't believe she was even considering stabbing Walter. I think she was just near breaking point.
I haven't read the book so forgive me if I'm wrong. -
the_playboy_bunny69 — 18 years ago(September 28, 2007 10:53 AM)
You can't be wrong, afterall lief is about perception.
I'd just like to make a point though, you said that she never asked Walter to stop, but she did. When he is 'raping' her or whatever anybody see's it as,he kisses her and looks at her and she then whispers something along the lines of 'please stop'. I think you can see it with the subtitles.
Although I agree in that I dont think she was going to stb Walter either. I don't think she was entirely sure herself what to do with the knife.
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dh_dh_3 — 18 years ago(October 14, 2007 12:46 AM)
Slovoj Zizek offers a very plausible interpretation of the rape scene in "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema": despite being the exact realisation of what Erika asked Walter to do with her (it was, actually, the perfect manifestation of her desires and fantasies), she wanted him to stop, as soon as she realised that reality can never catch up with fantasy and imagination: reality is never as good as imagination and in reality things never work out like you have imagined them. In fact, she BETRAYED her dreams and imagination, which left her deeply shattered and shocked. She lost something (maybe the very elixir that kept her alive) when Walter had sex with her. Was it rape? If she really wanted Walter to stop, it was. But we cannot be sure, because in the letter to Walter, Erika asked him not to stop when she would beg him of stopping (Why didn't they call the police anyway?).
Said that, I think the key sentence of the whole movie was Erika's utterance after Walter had started reading her letter. Obivously, Walter was somehow confused and Erika responded (in an excusatory manner): "Well, the essence of love is always very banal." That means: That what remains of love after transposing it from the realm of imagination to the realm of reality may seem odd, strange, childish -
chicandcheerful — 18 years ago(October 23, 2007 06:07 AM)
I think all of the interpretations on this post are really interesting. I watched this film for the first time last night, and found so many layers that I wasn't sure which interpretation was 'correct', but obviously that's what keeps you thinking about the movie long after the credits roll.
My own view overall was that Walter was unable to act out Erika's desires until his internal rage overcame his superego, but then he couldn't control the rage. Although he was now able to comply with the letter, he was past the point of responding to the fact that she no longer sought this abuse. The way that he kept pausing to look at her showed that he was aware that she was no longer consenting, but was too full of loathing (and self-loathing) to stop. -
kasparhauser44 — 18 years ago(December 14, 2007 05:44 PM)
i think way too many people are interpreting whether or not the scene was a rape in the framework of a very legalistic and modern p.c. view, not in terms of the nature of the massive sexual ambivalence that conflicts isabel huppert's character.