53. Voor Haar &...

Lyrics

Zij verstaat de kunst van bij me horen 

(She understands the art of belonging with me)
In mijn lichaam heeft ze plaats gemaakt voor twee 

(In my body, she's made room for two)
In mijn ogen woont ze, in mijn oren 

(She lives in my eyes, in my ears)
Ze hoort en ziet mijn hele leven met me mee 

(She hears and sees my whole life, together with me)
Soms begint ze in mijn hart te zingen

(Sometimes she starts singing in my heart) 
Waar het nacht wordt heeft ze lichtjes aangedaan

(She has put the lights on, there where the night falls) 
En door haar weet ik dan door te dringen 

(And through her I manage to reach)
Tot de onvermoede schat van ons bestaan 

(To the unguarded treasure of our existence)
Zo alleen maar wil ik verder leven 

(Only like this do I want to go on livinh)
Schuilend bij elkaar 

(Sheltering together)
En als ik oud moet worden, dan alleen met haar 

(And if I have to get old, than only with her)

Zij kent al mijn dromen en mijn wanen 

(She knows all my dreams and delusions)
Al mijn haast en al mijn honger en mijn spijt 

(All my haste, and all my hunger and regret)
Als ik lach kent zij alleen de tranen

(When I smile, only she knows the tears) 
Die daar achter liggen in de tijd

(That lay there, back in time) 
Zo alleen maar wil ik verder leven 

(Only like this do I want to go on livinh)
Schuilend bij elkaar 

(Sheltering together)
En als ik oud moet worden, dan alleen met haar 

(And if I have to get old, than only with her)

Zij is meer dan deze woorden zeggen 

(She is more, than these words say)
In mijn lichaam heeft ze plaats gemaakt voor twee 

(In my body she's made room for two)
Maar wie weet een wonder uit te leggen 

(But who knows how to explain a miracle)
En een wonder draag ik met me mee

(And it's a miracle that I carry with me)

I can understand the popularity of this song, but this kind of songs just aren't for me. It was a bit hard to find a movie to link this song too. I only knew it had to be about a man who's obsessed by a woman. So eventually I chose a movie, mostly because it was made by a great director of whom I had not seen a single movie yet and was eager to. 

The Movie: That Obscure Object of Desire (Cet Obscur Objet du Desir) (Luis Bunuel, 1977)

The art of painting is probably the art form I know and care the least about. But if you were to ask me about what my favorites are, I think the surrealists would surely be among them. More specifically, I mean Salvador Dali of course. I found him interesting even before I cared much about movies, and it was probably because of him that I first heard about Luis Bunuel, who was a frequent collaborator of Dali. I really became conscious of their collaborations when in high school we were being shown some clips of Un Chien Andalou. Considering that this is one of the most famous short movies ever made, it should come as no surprise that we had to see this movie in a class in college. I liked its completely freewheeling absurdism a lot and thought Luis Bunuel was a very interesting director. After reading more on him, and realizing that many of his movies were made in the same spirit as Un Chien Andalou, my interest in him was spiked. For some reason though I had not seen a movie by him until now. While this movie wasn't as great as I expected i still liked it quite a lot and it has made me even more curious about Bunuel's other work.

It all begins when Mathieu (Fernando Rey) boards a train from Sevilla to Madrid. Mathieu is a man who wants to project that he is reasonable, respectable man of class. A woman follows him on the train and he trows a bucket of water over her. Naturally the passengers sitting in the wagon with Mathieu are curious why he did such a thing. He says that she was the most awful woman he had ever known. And proceeds to tell the story his experiences with this woman, named Conchita. The rest of the movie is the story of Conchita and Mathieu, told in flashback by Mathieu. One of the most wonderful things about it is the fact that Mathieu tells the story to compatriots in order to show them that he is indeed a classy, reasonable and respectable man. The only thing he really makes clear though is that he certainly isn't any of those things, least of all reasonable. Sure, Conchita is an infuriating woman who is either terribly naive and sexually immature or the world's greatest con artist. Bunuel wisely never offers us a definite explanation. In any case, it should be clear to an ostensibly reasonable man like Mathieu that pursuing her so wildly is not a wise idea. It comes at great expense of both his happiness and his wealth. As for being a respectable man of class? Well, that too is suspect, as his wooing mostly consists of trying to (almost literally) buy her (off).

While Bunuel has a lot of fun with the behavior of Mathieu and Conchita (The interactions between Mathieu and his butler are especially of a wonderful oddness) he makes two choices that make lift the film even more into the realm of absurdity/surrealism. First of all Conchita is played by two different actresses. Bunuel could have done this in order to symbolize the split personality of Conchita (She sometimes loves Mathieu, sometimes despises him), or he could have done it to show how Mathieu is completely oblivious to the fact that she is tricking him constantly, so oblivious that he doesn't even realize she often looks differently. Or it could just be that Bunuel thought it would a fun trick to have Conchita be played by two different actresses. Again Bunuel doesn't offer a definitive conclusion and that's a good thing. Besides it doesn't matter much why she's played by two different actresses. What matters is that this is a fun, entertaining choice and leaves us thinking about his intentions. His second absurdist choice is to set this story in a world that's constantly under threat of anarchist, terrorist groups. There are constantly explosions and violent killings and robberies. And while these are really unpleasant to the characters, there is no big deal made out of it. They just happen in a ordinary world, that functions normally apart from an explosion here and there. And it's not like the characters don't notice this, but they almost shrug them off, treating them like an ordinary unpleasantness. There is no political motivation behind these actions. In fact we hear on the radio that extreme-right and extreme-left groups are collaborating together. Bunuel has a lot of fun with this, naming for example one group the Revolutionary Army of the Baby Jesus. And there doesn't seem to be a reason for this scenes of social anarchy to be in the movie, except the fact that Bunuel finds them fun. And is there a better reason than that?