I think it isn´t in the movie, nor in the book, why they are in love. I mean, they have sex with each other, but what else? What do they like about each other? It also confuses me, that the Chinaman slaps the girl, but it doesn´t really seems to disturb her.
"Hooters, hooters, yum yum yum,
Hooters, hooters, on a girl, that´s dumb!"
The Bundy credo
I guess it is just chemistry that the two feel for eachother. They are both somehow unhappy and lonely, and they just find eachother, and there is the sexual attraction that consumes them both. And that is the reason why the girl cries at the end. The sexual feelings were so intense, that they eclipsed the fact that she actually loved this man after all. I think sexual attraction and love are not as seperate as some might think.
sharesexual attraction.
i thibk that the man loves the beauty of girl's body.
Thank you both! Good points, but I think, there are many men, who feel sexual attracted by a women, but don´t love her or even consider her to be a sex-toy, only.
"Hooters, hooters, yum yum yum,
Hooters, hooters, on a girl that´s dumb!"
The Bundy credo
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I don't think they were in love at first. I think the Chinaman wanted a "clean" white woman. Remember he said the only white women he could get where whores. And I think the girl wanted someone who would pay attention to her. Her mother was focused on the druggie brother. Even the younger brother felt no love and attention.
After carrying on this affair for a while, they did fall in love. It may have started out sexual, but it didn't end that way.
"GG."
The Chinaman has the advantage of being older, male, and wealthy, but he is Chinese -- and she is white. He has "lived it up" in Paris, where he had many liaisons. He is an expert at lovemaking. Yet, on the ferry, as he steps out of his limousine and walks toward the girl, he is hesitant and trembling. He is vulnerable as an only child, orphaned by his mother, dominated by his father through the family fortune and traditions. The Chinaman uses love and lovemaking to shore himself up against his insecurity. He is the archetypal romantic lover, giving the girl his mother's ring, and talking to her of love, death, and eternity. His love, while passion-filled and pleasurable, is also an agony and physical torment.
The girl is a child, his child, with whom he can assume a semi-maternal role, bathing her, dressing her. Her body appeals to him as a reflection of his own childlike nature. He is not at all the dominant, forceful seducer whom she craves. However, we must be careful to remember that the narrator is never "in the head" of the Chinaman, and we see his desire for the girl only through the reconstruction of the narrator's past, through her very subjective memories.
By contrast, we know the feelings of the girl, even though we must account for the time which has passed and certainly altered her memories. Right from the start, the girl refuses to use the language of love, denying the romantic concept of being his only love. She says she would enjoy just being one of the Chinaman's many women, that she would actually prefer he did not love her.
The girl's desire for the Chinaman's body is firmly grounded in sensuality as well as in curiosity, but the first appeal she feels upon meeting him on the ferry is for his wealth, his luxurious car, his diamond ring. While the affair continues in Cholon, it is not clear to this viewer if or when her feelings toward the Chinaman changed. However, as she sails back to France, we learn that she come to the realization that she may have loved him all along. "[...] and suddenly she wasn't sure she hadn't loved him with a love she hadn't seen..."
Surely not. He's... erm, Asian. Otherwise they woulda' set it in Italy, or... uh, Africa?
Wow... I don't even remember posting that. I must've been drunk. Ignore it.
"People should know when they're conquered" - Quintus
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Dong...referring to the Vietnamese currency...sigh it's a pun, sir...
shareHe slaps the girl because of how he feels humiliated & used following the outing with the girl and her trashy mom and brothers where he paid for their expensive dinner and entertainment while they ate like pigs & refused to converse with him or even say thanks. Oh and while out dancing the girl danced all provocatively with her younger brother I guess to make the Chinaman feel bad.
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This film is very much like Last Tango in Paris and raises many of the same questions. In Last Tango, the two lovers deliberately blocked the possibility of falling in love, but the intensity of their physical relationship nonetheless made them emotionally and psychologically vulnerable. I think it's probably very difficult for both partners to sustain a relationship like this for that long and not have at least one of them fall rather hard.
There, daddy, do I get a gold star?
Yeah! I was thinking of the similarities between the two movies, as well.
~
Due to a lack of interest, tomorrow has been canceled
...it was just LUST.....it is hot, and wet in Vietnam....
Zee Ray
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2246560/
Trying to explain "love" rationally is like trying to assign flavor to a square.
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