Very uncomfortable watching this

The fact that she's actually 17 is what made it not disturbing for me to watch. Had she actually been 14 (or 12 as per the book)I'd have felt differently. The fact that the end of the movie shows what his desperation does to him, makes it watchable. It's not a happy outcome and doesn't suggest that adult/child relationships are meant to work.

Seconded. Not uncomfortable at all.

Ummm... just exactly what was the "trauma?
The one who really ends up destroyed is Humbert Humbert, mainly by the manipulations of Lolita herself. She knows VERY well what she is doing, almost throughout the entire film.

In today's world we INSIST that there is trauma, so that we can then scream hysterically and make sure that there will BE trauma.

Why am I saying such a thing?
Experience.
Here's MY story - true to the last detail.
At 9 years of age I went to see a Tarzan film with a cousin. We decided to stay and watch the beginning again, but someone sat in front of me and so I moved one seat over...it looked like I was alone. When the film started up again, I didn't immediately notice that a man of about 24 had sat down beside me. What made me notice him was that suddenly his hand was on my knee.
I thought this was funny, as I believed it was because he was so excited about watching Tarzan wrestle with a python that he had missed the arm-rest and grabbed my knee instead by mistake.
I turned towards him - and he pulled his hand away like it was burned!
Still thinking this was funny, I leaned over to tell my cousin about the man who had mistaken my knee for an arm-rest, but my cousin replied "What man?" He was gone.
In a flash I realized that it had NOT been an accident, and I realized EXACTLY what he had wanted.
Now, according to modern standards, everyone will think that I was frightened and traumatized by this incident.
In fact not. I already knew that I was attracted to my own sex, and when I realized what this young man had wanted, my first reaction was DISAPPOINTMENT that he had left! I was totally intrigued by the idea of maybe "fiddling around" with him...
Now, the REAL problem is that every time I tell this story, people INSIST that I was traumatized.
I tell them no.
But they NEED me to be traumatized, because if I wasn't, then their entire world-view has to be changed from the knee-jerk reactions that everyone expects.
Some will say" Oh, well, that's gays for you!"
But I have heard enough stories to know that one doesn't have to be gay to be attracted to an older person and be curious.
But once the adults find out about this, they have such incredibly violent reactions to all of it that the kid invariably realizes very quickly that he(she) BETTER feign "trauma" or they are going to be in real TROUBLE! The parents will panic, send them to the psychiatrist, yell at them "What's WRONG with you?" and punish them in any and every way imaginable until the "child" admits that he was "scared, didn't know what to do, " and begins to play the victim. Then the parents and other adults calm down and concentrate on getting the adult and throwing him in prison; The world order has been upheld.
BUT... human beings are far too complex to fit into boxes, especially when it concerns sexuality.
If you read a lot of the reports (especially with teenage boys, rather than with girls - their reactions ARE different) very often the sexual events took place for MONTHS before someone finds out about it, and suddenly the kid starts telling everyone he was "too scared" to stop. Well, he realizes VERY quickly that if he admits that he was HAPPY to be there, he is going to be in deep doo-doo. So he lies...
I'm done; I just want to say that I fully realize that some children are raped, forced and are truly victims. I do not deny this, and I find it totally unacceptable, like ANY rape of ANY person at ANY age.
But it must be known that sometimes the child is NOT unhappy, NOT traumatized, and often quite willing.
I prefer the truth to lies; I felt I had to set the record straight.

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OF COURSE this is an uncomfortable movie.

You are right. A man who claims not find Dominique Swain sexually attractive in this film, is a man suspected of hiding something.

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I thought she was fourteen in the movie?



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Greatest Hope: LOTR
Worst Fear: LOTL

"Yes it is a very disturbing movie (barely legal?) and i felt the same watching it for the firsth time. In the book she is 12!!!!! that is realy bad, this guy must be locked up big time. But in the movie she is 17 so you are not disgusted by watching it in the same way. "


In the new testament based On the social mores of the time.. it is believed that Mary, the Mother of jesus, was 14 or 15, when she married Joseph, who was believed to be in his mid 20's to early 30's... In other words the step Father of our savior, had he come calling on mary today, would be on "To catch a Predator"

Not saying that it is ok for a 30 year old to have sex with a 12 year old, Just saying that different cultures have different beliefs at different times.

We are supposed to be uncomfortable as we watch Lolita, we are supposed to find Humbert a disgusting individual. Obviously his depiction of Lolita is self serving, because if for one Moment hye actually saw his actions for what they were, instead of for what he wished them to be... he would have killed himself.

The real problem is that no-one wants to really discuss this question SERIOUSLY.
Everyone wants the whole problem to go away!

OF COURSE Hollywood should tread there!
Why NOT?
Because it makes you feel "uncomfortable"?

Are you brain dead or what?
(Or just American? It becomes almost the same thing...)

Death in Venice is a masterpiece, based on an extremely famous book.
It is obviously beyond YOUR appreciation, but that isn't a reason for Hollywood to stay away from such topics... and by the way, the film was made by an Italian.