The Parisian Lannisters

Caution if you have not yet seen Game of Thrones and have no idea what the show is about and you are thinking about starting it DO NOT READ ON. SPOILERS!!!

The Papin sisters were the murderers of the week. They were two sisters who worked as maids in the thirties who worked for a wealthy widow and her young daughter. The story revolves around how because of there insane closeness the sisters world was becoming small, enclosed and it drove them mad.

Christine is the eldest and is working initially on her own. Later Lea comes to join her and the two sisters become reclusive and because of the time and the observance of the chaste system they are also alienated by their mistress. Chirstine is the jealous one. She believes that Lea is secretly forming a bond with the daughter of their mistress, Isabel. She also is jealous and angry at the love their mother has for Lea. She is slightly abusive to Lea and yet Lea always tries to soothe her fears that she will leave her side.

Behold the work of the Papin Sisters

During the entire movie I could only think of one other glorified incestuous pair of sibling murderers. Jamie and Cersei Lannister of the A Song of Fire and Ice  or as it is more popularly known the Game of Thrones television series on the HBO network. Jamie is a knight who is not supposed to have a wife, children and properties. Lets just say his secret wife is his wife, his children have been claimed by the King (he has been so sadly cuckolded) and his father has left him all his property in hopes that he can buy him out Jamie's knighthood. Jamie is like both Lea and Christine. He has Christine's penchant for rage and possessiveness but like Lea he is not in the lead and is constantly one of his family members pawns.

 Cersei, is a real piece of work, she is like Christine in the sense that she leads the relationship, she is the one that reminds Jamie to be cautious and she is also verbally and emotionally abusive, its almost sadistic. However she tends to be slightly impulsive like Lea and despite her nasty talk usually hides behind Jamie and lets him fight her battles. Cersei always obsesses about how they are twins, golden-haired and green eyed, full of the Lion Blood, heirs to the Lannister empire. Jamie and her always envision a world where only they can belong. When they were younger like the Papin sisters they were obsessed with a world that only they could belong to and that only they understood. They cared nothing for the outside world.











This is what most reminded me of the Papin sisters. Christine is jealous of the relationship that Lea has formed with their mother and is also jealous of anyone who even remotely speaks to her. After the first sexual encounter they have at their workplace they become increasingly withdrawn and close the world around them until they are the only two people left. Although Jamie and Cersei and a heterosexual they are like The Papin sisters in that they are hostile to the outside environment that does not consist of one of the other.

The relationship between the sisters also reminded me of another homo-incestous relationship in the very popular anime show: Ouran Host High School Club. The show is about a girl who gets a scholarship into an elite school and encounters a group of  six boys who have a very popular host club. They have devoted themselves to entertaining the girls that go to their school and have made considerable money from it. The twins Hikaru and Karou are very inclusive about who they let into their lives on an emotional level. The closeness reminded me of the Papin sisters who are very selective about who they let into their lives.

You Are All That I Have

         Our classmate Chris did a powerpoint presentation on a short film called "Tracks," and in his presentation he mentioned that a lot of people in the gay community only have each other or their significant other. That's because in this homophobic-hetero-dominated society, people in the LGBTQ community are being shunned by their families and often are kicked out of their home. So at the end of the day, if they find somebody who loves them for who they are, they'll go above and beyond to never lose them. This is what led Christine and Lea to kill their employer in the film "Sister My Sister."
        There was a moment in the movie where Christine tells Lea "You're all that I have!" Lea being, both, Christine's lover and sister.  So this, in a way, falls under the concept of an LGBTQ member trying not to lose the only person who loves her because if Christine doesn't have Lea then she doesn't   have anyone in her life. Christine's mom didn't love her or treated her as well as she did to Lea, so Christine had to learn how to learn how to live with just loving herself.  So when Lea moved in with Christine in her employers house, Christine was going to do everything in her power to not lose her sister, so when their relationship was threatened by their employer, the sisters killed their boss and their boss's daughter.

Homoerotic Friendship

        

                                                                                                                                                       
           A homoerotic friendship was seen in the film "Heavenly Creatures" starring Kate Winslet.  The movie depicts two girls, Pauline and Juliet, that develop a friendship that later becomes intense and passionate. The intense passion behind the friendship causes everything to spiral out of control. They start to become delusional, and in the end, they end up killing somebody. In a way, it's similar to the friendship between Gretchen, Regina, Karen, and Cady from "Mean Girls."

         The friendship in "Mean Girls" starts off as a regular friendship between three girls welcoming a new student into their group. That friendship, too, spirals out of control due to the passion behind the girls' frienship. There are differences between the friendship dynamics in both films. The passion in Pauline and Juliet's friendship made the love for each other grow stronger, and in "Mean Girls," it made the girls go from friends to frenemies.

       At the end of both films, the friends were disbanded and went their separate ways, because together, their relationships were unhealthy and caused mental stress on the girls, and in "Heavenly Creatures," it even caused the girls to kill somebody.

Le Lien Defait: The Defeated Link

This week's movie was a French one called J'ai pas Sommeil. The movie was ok, but what was really good was the soundtrack. Particularly this one song that one of the main characters sang.

This is a link to the scene I'm referring to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMcBEOvxXj4

The song was so heartbreaking:
Here are the French Lyrics and the English Translations

Le lien défait           

comme l'ange blond

noyé dans la Durance

comme un démon

tu déferas le tien

comme l'oiseau borgne

comme Jeanne de France

dans ta démence

tu déferas le tien

on se croit d'amour

on se croit féroce enraciné

mais revient toujours

le temps du lien défait

on se croit d'amour

on se sent épris d'éternité

mais revient toujours

le temps du lien défait

comme la vipère

comme la reine des près

morte terre

tu déferas le tien

comme la femme douce

comme l'homme léger

au moment d'oublier

tu déferas le tien

The defeated link

as blond angel

drowned in the Durance

like a demon

you déferas yours

as blind bird

as Jeanne de France

in your dementia

you déferas yours

one feels love

we seem fierce rooted

but always comes back

time defeated the link

one feels love

one feels enamored of eternity

but always comes back

time defeated the link

as the viper

as meadowsweet

dead land

you déferas yours

such as sweet woman

like light man

the time to forget

you déferas yours

Murderous Duos

            Nathan Freudenthal Leopold and Richard Albert Loeb are known for the murder of a 14 year old boy named Robert "Bobby" Franks. The crime was planned out for 7 months, and it was to be the "perfect crime" and it was suppose to gain the public attention and establish their status as "supermen," (A superman is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do [Simon Baatz, For the Thrill of It. New York: Harper, 2008] ).  Unfortunately, Leopold dropped his glasses near where the two had buried Robert Franks' body, and that led to them getting convicted for their crime. 

          So far the two just seem like typical partners in crime, but really their relationship went much further than that. Leopold and Loeb were lovers and friends. The crime itself was more popular than the criminals, but more recently when looking at the two men, people are putting the focus on the relationship the two had, such as in the film "Swoon."  The film focuses on Nathan and Richard's relationship with one-another and it doesn't necessarily revolve around Bobby Franks. The film shows their somewhat dis-functional relationship. You can see that when things get stressful, they tend to get annoyed with each other and eventually throw each other under the bus (after they've been caught). Though the film came out in 1992, showing that being criminal couples can make you iconic figures in history, Leopold and Loeb are still not as well known in popular culture, as oppose to Bonnie and Clyde who are the legendary infamous crime couple of America. It would have been cooler if the guys were the #1 crime couple because we need more homosexuality in this hetero-dominated society. But compared to what Bonnie and Clyde did, what Leopold and Loeb did seems like small stuff, so it's understandable why they hold the status as the #1 iconic criminal couple in American history.  

Heavenly Creatures: The Fourth World and Random Clay creatures

The movie for this week was Heavenly Creatures. Heavenly Creatures is based on the real life story of Pauline and Juliet, two young girls who commit murder.
I have wanted to watch this movie for quiet some time to be perfectly honest, I love Kate Winslet and Peter Jackson is one of my favorite directors, since he directed "Lord of the Rings". Needless to say I was very excited to watch this. This and Party Monster are the only ones I'm excited for. The movie did not disappoint.

Pauline and Juliet are two young girls who don't quite fit in anywhere, Pauline is an introvert and although not necessarily and ugly duckling or outcasted by others she prefers to be a loner. Juliet is also a loner but not by choice, because of her parents endless moving around she can never make any roots and settle down anywhere. She is also exceedingly bright and likes to show of her smartness, especially to her teachers. Pauline likes this quality in Juliet very much. They begin to create this other world where they are royalty and live in it they call it Borovinia. They create a family and have a rotten son named Dario who is a "rotten little blighter" and whom Pauline uses as a sort of coping mechanism.

The relationship is a co-dependent, obsessive relationship that only borderlines sexual "otherness" in the end. Like Loeb and Leopold it is not a homosexual relationship. The girls were innocent and were more like twin sisters than anything else. However when Pauline has sex with the border from the house her view shifts and she and Juliet have a one time sexual encounter. However they use sex as a form to get  to the fourth world.

Dario                      

The fourh world is what Juliet believes heaven to be. She does not believe heaven to be what the bible tells us. Her idea of heaven is a place where she can be creative forever, she can revel in art and all things of that nature. She invites Pauline to be a part of this world. When Juliet's parents tell her that they are leaving New Zeland for a conference and will be away for months it tears Juliet apart. That is when she and Pauline break their mental wall and can now enter the Fourth World. They can only visit the fourth wall in thier deranged state of mind or in Pauline's case whenever she has sex. There fourth wall also sometimes becomes Borovinia where Pauline goes to.

Like everything else we have seen this quarter it was weird. However unlike everything else we have thus far seen this quarter it this movie focuses on a female relationship as opposed to a male one. The dynamics are different because unlike the past two films this one is not dominated or driven by sex.

Mastermind Leopold and Angel Face Loeb

Swoon is a movie about glamorized murderes: Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, or as they are known respectively Babe and Dick. The relationship is based on power control.
Backstroy:
Nathan and Dick are friends who engage in a "homosexual" relationship with Richard calling the shots. He gets a thrill out of committing crimes and he uses sex as a method of controlling Nathan to do his bidding. The nature of the crimes escalates every time they complete it. Richard is the one who gets the rush of joy from committing atrocities. Nathan is Richard's willing accomplice as he is always searching for attention and love from Richard. In many ways this is reminiscent of a S and M relationship. In one of the scenes where Nathan is talking to the psychiatrist he says he dreamed of having Dicky in chains. The dream was about how he was a pharaoh in Egypt and that Dicky was his slave and then he continues to reference having Dicky in chains. Nathan loves and hates the relationship and the power that Dicky has over him, He sometimes wishes he could have the power and in the scene where they are burying the child's shoes, Nathan attempts to kiss Dicky but he is still in still in the throes of adrenaline produced by the murder, rebuffs him and Nathan does not move any further. He is stunned and saddened by the rebuff and just watches Dicky. Dicky realizes this and gives him a small peck on the mouth. Nathan's whole face changes. He becomes full of infatuation again and he proceeds to help bury the body.

Nathan "Mastermind" Leopold

The movie does not portray either of them as sympathetic characters; however, I will argue that sometimes you feel sad for Leopold. He is of course equally guilty of the crimes they commited. Yet there is still some feeling of pathetic pity for Leopold from me. He wants to please his psychotic and deranged lover. Its almost like watching Harley Quinn and the Joker. Leopold is Harley and Loeb is the Joker.

On the other hand we have Loeb. Loeb is not a character who anyone can sympathize with. He is way to full of himself, vain, narcissistic and selfish. Let me count the ways that he got under my skin. The first time was when he told Leopold that he would not continue to have sex with him unless he helped to commit the crimes. I know that Leopold could have said no and found someone else to help him commit crimes but using sex as power was such a femme fatale move, so unimaginative. Secondly he wants to commit a murder, not only a murder but his first thought is to commit kinslaying. He wants to murder his 10 year old brother! Thirdly he is so proud of himself that he shakes the hand of the guy on the road saying "Congratulations sir, you have just shaken the hand of a murderer." his cockiness knows no bounds. And lastly he throws Leopold under the bus, not even wanting to take credit for the crime he committed which he bragged about.  Then in the face of real circumstance he turns into a coward.