🌈 HAPPY PRIDE MONTH🏳️🌈
When I see someone write, "I don't believe in love, and I don't believe in marriage, but I still strive to defend everyone's right to get married," not everyone ultimately seeks to get married; what they want is equality.
In the novel "The Last Son" by Yoshida Shuichi, the protagonist's mother once called and his boyfriend answered the phone. Afterwards, the partner anxiously explained that he was just a friend of him, using "the way a man speaks" over the phone. Yoshida Shuichi writes, "In the end, there are two kinds of pain: one borne by those who cannot obtain recognition, and one borne by those who have to grant recognition. From this perspective, the partner who spoke like a man and the demon (the protagonist's boyfriend) speaking to my mother both shoulder the pain that my mother should endure and his own pain." Either both parties suffer or one person bears double the pain... The path ahead for the LGBT community still holds many unknown hardships.
And most people are merely choosing temporary blindness amidst this vast unknown. Some are blind to the identity of others, while others are blind to whether they are accepted by others. The university professor Laurence tells his students in Laurence Anyways, "In fact, if it weren't for his talent, Louis Ferdinand Celine (French novelist) wouldn't have achieved his current status... Today, his talent surpasses his true self; that's life. Thus, if a person's work is great enough, it can help them avoid exclusion and isolation." Those who have seen the movie Yves Saint Laurent know that everyone covets Yves Saint Laurent's fashion talent, yearning to wear the exquisite garments he designs, longing to associate with him, desiring to indulge in the glamour and hoping to secure a place at his fashion shows... Therefore, they are willing to overlook the fact that he is a homosexual. However, such disregard is useless; when Yves Saint Laurent was beaten by a man, there wasn't a single person around him to come to his aid.
Pierre Niney's portrayal of Yves Saint Laurent was truly remarkable.
In "Laurence Anyways," at the beginning, there is a voice-over of a journalist interviewing the transgender Laurence: "Laurence, what are you looking for?" "I'm looking for someone who understands my language and speaks my language, someone who is not excluded by society, someone who not only questions the rights and value of marginalized individuals, but also questions those who claim to be normal.".
Xavier Dolan, after completing his first autobiographical film "I Killed My Mother," was chatting with his team in the countryside near Montreal. One person among them shared a personal story: one evening, her partner told her that he wanted to become a woman. This sparked inspiration for Dolan, and that very night, he wrote a 30-page script. That script became "Laurence Anyways," released in 2012.
In 1989, Lawrence Aria, 35 years old, had a successful marriage with his wife, Fred. He could have easily disappeared into the ordinary life of marriage and having children, just like many straight men. However, in that year, Lawrence made the decision to undergo a gender transition. Similar to The Danish Girl's story, no wife could instantly accept her husband becoming another woman.
Lawrence claimed to be a woman trapped in a man's body, pointing at his muscles and saying, "This is not me!" He pointed at his body and said, "This is not me either!" He pulled down his shorts and said, "And this, too, is not me!" Fred despairingly asked, "So, do you hate everything I love about you?" Lawrence replied in greater despair, "Is that all you love about me?" Just like in "The Danish Girl," Fred eventually decided to face what was to come together with Lawrence.
Fred believed that they were capable of accepting transgender individuals. Yes, when Lawrence first appeared in the classroom dressed as a woman, wearing a skirt, the once noisy classroom fell silent.
And finally, Lawrence passed his first test. Although there were more daunting mountains ahead, he had gathered some strength, making the climb a little easier. Because there were truly difficult challenges ahead, why did Lawrence choose such a challenging path? Everyone talked about a "free world," but the school expelled Lawrence under pressure from the students' parents. The principal hypocritically said, "Now you'll have more time to write your novel."
You see, accepting you doesn't mean standing against interests, power, or the crowd. What kind of acceptance is this? Such acceptance demands a response, like Lawrence writing an "eccehomo" (Latin for "behold the man") and throwing it back at them with utmost contempt.
Xavier Dolan said, "Although each couple and individual undoubtedly experience these changes differently... I imagine that as time goes on, if the past they shared hasn't been completely erased..." Fred and Lawrence undeniably deeply loved each other, and those beautiful memories supported Fred, making it hard for her to let go. But she also couldn't envision the future. If she hadn't fallen in love with Lawrence, perhaps she could have left without hesitation. If she could easily stop loving Lawrence, she could have disregarded him. Unfortunately, she found herself in the midst of it all, truly in love. However, love was not enough to sustain them.
Finally, after a heated argument, Fred left Lawrence. She met a new man at a ball. That ball was captured in splendid glory by Xavier Dolan, who himself appeared in glamorous makeup, briefly appearing before the camera.
Lawrence soon discovered Fred's betrayal; they understood each other too well. "How many times have you gone on a date with him?" "Around... once a month." "How many times?" "Five or six times." "Five times or six times?" "Six times." "So, that's seven times." They truly understood each other. It hurt both of them, and it was self-inflicted.
By 1995, Fred had a new marriage, a child, and a new house... everything seemed perfect. Lawrence finally published a book and had a new girlfriend. But he still sent a copy of the book to Fred. As Fred looked at Lawrence's book, suddenly, heavy rain poured down from the ceiling like a waterfall.
She discovered that for all these years, Lawrence had been silently observing her from the shadows, still loving her... and he painted a brick pink on the wall of Frede's house.
Back when Lawrence wanted to undergo gender transformation, when they were still married, Frede wrote on Lawrence's back: "In the destroyed hiding place, on the collapsed lighthouse, on my boring and tired wall, I write your name..." These are lines from Paul Éluard's poem called "Liberty." Frede and Lawrence reunited, leaving behind their respective innocent partners and escaping together.
Their love couldn't keep them in their marriage back then, and now their love is leading them to elope from their marriage. Well, just like those lovers we know who attempt to escape from rigid marriages, they always yearn for the romance of love while trapped in marriage. But once they elope, they start thinking about the responsibilities they carry. Can one truly have it all in this world? In the movie A Man and a Woman, the male protagonist played by Gong Yoo is so proactive and affectionate toward the female protagonist played by Jeon Do-yeon, who is also trapped in a marriage. It's he who suggests eloping, but in the end, the person who fails to show up for the meeting is him as well.
So what if Frede and Lawrence successfully eloped? They still had to come back. Lawrence took her to meet a couple of his friends who were originally a lesbian couple, but one of them decided to undergo gender transformation and they still loved each other and lived together. They were the complete opposite version of Lawrence and Frede. Lawrence's intention must have been to give Frede some confidence—look, they can do it! We can too! But the result was brutally exposing Frede to the despair of being with Lawrence—living in seclusion in the countryside, using cheap opium, completely immersed in their own spiritual world, disconnected from reality, with only each other. It's not to say that such a life is bad, but why would an ordinary person like Frede want to have it?
She said to Lawrence, "You arrogant man!" Lawrence replied, "It's 'woman'! Same goes for you!" Lawrence asked, "Then what do you want?" Frede answered, "A man!" She simply wanted a man to be her husband, to have a child with him, and to build a normal family. But her husband suddenly wanted to undergo gender transformation one day, and she couldn't accept it, feeling lost. She even had aborted their child.
In fact, back then, she had aborted a child with Lawrence. From the beginning, she had lost faith in this relationship. Years later, during an interview with Lawrence, the interviewer said, "You are a confident man... woman." He replied, "Confident? I am not. I just persevere."
When I first watched this movie, I thought that the person who can make choices is always lucky. It's the passive decision-makers who suffer, as no matter what they choose, it's a loss, it's wrong. But later I realized that Lawrence didn't have the opportunity to make an active choice either. In 1999, after several years, as a new century was about to begin, Lawrence met Frede once again. Finally, they could have a peaceful conversation. In the middle of their conversation, Frede went to the restroom. Lawrence, outside, thought for a moment, didn't wait for her to come out, and walked away. And Frede also left from the other side of the restroom. Finally, they understood each other. And that understanding meant separation.
"Laurence Anyways" is Xavier Dolan's ambitious work, a decade-spanning epic of love that lasts over two hours. Dolan is skilled at using remarkable animal imagery in his films. For example, in It's Only the End of the World, the wooden bird on the clock suddenly flies, circling and crashing into everything in the room before finally dying on the floor. In "Laurence Anyways," when Laurence and Frede first break up, a butterfly flies out of his mouth.
Only in the end do we realize that when Laurence first met Frede, he gave her a butterfly made of a paperclip and said, "I bet $20 you'll keep this." That was the beginning of their love. Later, when Laurence was struggling with whether or not to undergo gender reassignment, he held paperclips in each of his fingertips. And later on... when they first broke up, the butterfly had already flown away.
Ultimately, we ourselves are the ones who destroy our love and lives. Michael Hobbs once said in his article, "In the Netherlands, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2001, gay men are three times more likely to suffer from mood disorders compared to heterosexual men, and ten times more likely to engage in self-harm. In Sweden, where same-sex civil partnerships were allowed in 1995 and same-sex marriage was fully legalized in 2009, the suicide rate for men married to men is three times higher than for men married to women." A researcher in the article said, "In the past, the typical experience of gay men was enduring the loneliness of keeping a conservative secret in the closet, but now you can see millions of gay men coming out and still feeling the same level of loneliness." Even with marriage equality, even with society accepting the LGBT community, it's still just the beginning. And where you go, you have to rely on your own judgment and perseverance. We are like Laurence from both sides, and both sides are difficult.
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