I watched this film last night and I dint understand how Fiona fit into the ending..... how did she end up sleeping with mimi and why..... also why was Nigel tricked into thinking he was gonna sleep with her?!? It really confuses me..... The whole film was kinda easy to follow but the ending wasnt.... any suggestions??
Thanks xx
I saw this last night too, channel 4 by any chance?
I took Fiona sleeping with Mimi as a reinforement that anything Nigel could do she 'could do better' as she says in the film, I think she sleeps with her to simply show this and as a result of seeing him try to seduce her on the dancefloor, so jealousy perhaps and I also think when Fiona was watching Mimi on the dancefloor her reaction seemed perhaps olike she was slighly jealous of Mimi in perhaps she wanted to be a bit more like her? maybe I read toomuch into that!
And I took nigel thinking he was going to sleep with Mimi just aspart of the sick game the couple played with each other and it added a new dimension to the games?
Maybe ive totally missed the point!
I think she did it so he didn't have to - kind of a self sacrifice. She couldn't pull him out of his lethal fascination with the couple, so this was the only way she could act.
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Perhaps Mimi was seducing Fiona when Oscar told Nigel his story.
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Yeah! Good point. And maybe Fiona didn't really take those pills (or they are not real pills?) It was strange to me how she complained Nigel likes her taking pills, but did that with kind of ambivalency anyway. This all make sence. Or Fiona might have had romance with Mimi before and she was trying to hurt husband as she was evidently angry with him about not having children. But it's very obvious Oscar is the weirdest type. The one I could not solve. Why did he shot Mimi?
shareOh yes ! Clearly ! Great great point ! Cause Fiona looked like the lesbian type that can be seduced by a psychotic, must've been during a Bridge game. lol, you guys are really something... Probably intelligent and all, but when you came to this movie's board became retarded. :)
shareOk, this is in response to a few comments which I think are really good:
Fiona slept with Mimi as a self-sacrifice ===== I don't think so. I think that if this were the case, she wouldn't have performed with the kind of passion Oscar tries describing to Nigel (I could kill the camera-man for not filming those scenes!!!) I wish she had, though. Because I felt cheated-on (I put myself in Nigels' place) when I thought she was flirting with Mimi in an "I can do it better" way, and yet, I didn't feel cheated-on (well, not quite so much) when I thought she did it as a sacrifice. To hear the about the hunger that they showed for each other, and the passion of their love-making, made it feel like a betrayal by Fiona. And then to find out that Oscar was watching?? Wtf??? Was he sitting in his chair oggling them? Were they performing for him? I don't know, but it made the whole thing much much much more sordid. No, Fiona was NOT performing any kind of sacrifice to my mind.
Fiona was either running with her desires for a sexual partner, stemming from their marital dysfunction/ displeasure, period (nothing to do with tit-for-tat). Or;
Fiona was trying to show her husband that if he wants to screw around, she can screw around too (nothing to do with the marital problems that were taking them to India).
In both the above cases, it's possible that Fiona decided against the itallian chap as a partner, thinking instead that it would be much more insulting to her husband to take the woman he was trying to bed. Or it's possible that this never really crossed her mind, and it was simply one of the 2 cases above, by itself.
In any case, I think that if Fiona were simply making love to Mimi so that Nigel wouldn't have to (so he'd get the idea out of his system), as an act of self-sacrifice, it would have been love making of the most perfunctory kind, such as Oscar describes there being in his relationship with Mimi after their Piggy-Gate incident. This does not appear to be the case at all. Perfunctory love making rarely leaves the couple exhausted to the point of colapse and deep sleep. Perfucnctory love making is also rarely ever performed in front of a crippled audience. And lastly, what Oscar describes to Nigel is perhaps the exact planar opposite of perfunctory love making.
As I say; I should very much like to believe that she is doing it out of self sacrifice, because if she indeed is doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, there's a nobility in that, and it isn't as sordid and hurtful as it could otherwise be. But what seems to me to be evidence suggests otherwise.
I don't really know, I guess. What do other people think, now that I've brought up these previously unaddressed points?
She got it on with Mimi because she was turned on by her. If she was not thinking about her or desired her then she would not have considered it. You just don't up out of nowhere sleep with another woman if you are not into that person. Straight women don't do the things lesbians do to each other in fact it would repulse them. So she liked what she saw and went after her plain and simple and my guess is that these two will never be the same again.
shareI agree. I think it was a tribute to Mimi's raw animal magnetism, that even a straight woman couldn't resist it. But I'm also convinced that there was a bit of triumph in the languid way Fiona moved toward Mimi, sort of a "watch how it's done, Nigel, there aren't YOUR pathetic moves." I see no sacrifice there. I see a regal, self-justified response to nature's call.
shareThe movie has everything, including politics, love, and sex.
Mimi is attracted to Fiona at the the climax (and ending) of the movie. Through out the film you have themes of love and attraction between male and female. When Mimi and Oscar first find themselves together, you have Mimi as the helpless woman who fears losing Oscar. Oscar takes advantage of this by sleeping with other women and taunting Mimi. Mimi's loss of power makes her want to become a man, hence she shortens her hair and changes her dress because she wants to be like Oscar.
Soon after, the tables turn, Mimi is in a position of power now. She sleeps with a "black man" to intimidate the American (Oscar). She intimidates him well by the sexy erotic dance she does in front of him (Oscar). Through out the movie you have the narrative from the American (0scar) who's telling his account of love and sex with French girl Mimi. You really don't see any troubles with Nigel and Fiona like the troubled relationships you see with the American and the Frenchwoman. The themes in Polanksi's movie's arise often. Remember Frantic, when you have the American (Harrison Ford) caught in a conspiracy over some coveted item. The french woman, played by Emmanuelle Seigner dies in the end over the dispute with the Arabs and Harrison Ford, the American.
To return to the topic and climactic ending of Bitter moon, we have troubles arising over imbalance between male and female roles. The British still seem superior to the seemingly vulgar and troubled American. The American meets with lots of "bad luck". He is confined to a wheelchair. He ends his own life. All of this, is due to an imbalance between the male and female relationships. Oscar is given all of the power in the beginning when he is "man of the house". Mid-movie, Mimi is given all of the power when Oscar is now confined to a wheel chair. In the end, after this troubled relationship, Mimi runs to the to British woman Fiona, at the New Years Eve Party, in a last grasp for something stable, to become a woman again. Oscar gets greedy and jealous of Mimi, and ends the lives of the both. It's a constant struggle between Masculine and Feminine, sex, and power.
Fiona sleeps with mimi as a revenge .Cause her husband was hunting Mimi all the time .
I think Mimi did the same thing .I mean i think she was damaged because of her husband behavior that her only happiness in her life was hurting people .So in the beginning she tries to seduce him and then he seduces his wife.Also her situation ,was the same with fionas she had a husband who also left her for more women ,so this was the womens revenge against men i think .
The problem is that it did not end for her so well..
I take it like Mimi was a toxic person, and she had become in some kind of poison "thanks" to Oscar.Everybody who met her,fell for her, and you can see how she changed phisically.At the end of the movie she looks sexier, colder,and it seems everybody wanted to have her.I recall a Fiona's quote where she says that women and men would fall in love with Mimi or something like that.
And for this, every people Oscar and Mimi met,were corrupted.Because Oscar and Mimi were corrupted too.Both were bad people,and enjoyed playing with people.Nigel and Fiona were classic people and when they met Oscar and Mimi, both changed a lot.Fiona had a lesbian experience and Nigel fell in love with Mimi.Both cheated on each other when at the start of the movie were the perfect couple.
Mimi got to catch Fiona and Nigel sexual interest.It was like a new birth.If before she adored Oscar and he ignored her,now the new Mimi made people adore her and however now she was who ignored people.She played with people's feelings.And I am sure Oscar and her agreed to Mimi seduced Fiona and Nigel at the same time and Mimi got Fiona's attention to finally bother Nigel.Oscar enjoyed when he told his sexual stories and Nigel showed nauseated.I think Oscar wanted Mimi to seduce Fiona to hit Nigel in the face.Oscar was the devil and sadly Mimi too.
Anthony,the light and love of my life..
To simplify it abit: I think that after all of Mimi and Oscar's wild sexual escapades became uninteresting and boring for both of them, that the only sort of satisfaction either one of them could find anymore was in hurting each other as badly and deeply as humanly possible, whether it was physically, emotionally or mentally, or all 3. For example, Mimi having sex with her dancer friend in Oscar's presence wasn't really about sex(at least for her), but rather of Mimi going to any lengths possible in order to punish and humiliate Oscar. And Mimi's later sexual tryst with Fiona obviously pushed Oscar to his absolute breaking point and to where he could no longer bare the idea of even living anymore. And maybe that's what Oscar really wanted all along.
shareWhen did ‘Mimi seduce Fiona’? This was never shown or implied... was it?
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