Post Coitum and Unfaithful
Does anyone else think this movie is really quite similar to Unfaithful with Diane Lane and Richard Gere?
shareIt came out earlier than Unfaithful. So I guess Unfaithful would be like Post coïtum animal triste.
shareWARNING - family=heterosexuality (mother+father+children) taken for granted here!
I don't know about QUITE similar, but they do have similarities in the stories, especially the focus on married women's unfaithfulness.
I found both films strangely relieving, I liked how the joy of sex was described. But there is something problematic about that the few films that portray female infidelity (in a hetero-relationship) focus on how the world falls to pieces for the involved persons, while male infidelity in films and tv-series is "normalized" and oftenly not made a big deal of or "the wife (and the family) can live with it" -the family-life can be maintained.
Excuses like "sex-drive", smothering family-life and need of freedom are when reagarding men to some degree taken seriously. Of course this is not an absolute rule I speak of general pictures of male and female infidelity that comes to mind.
Another difference in how male and female infidelity is described:
Susanne Bier's film Open Hearts (Elsker dig for evigt) maybe captures the many different aspects of infidelity with all involved. But still there is the deceived wife who is left with the "family", she is the one left to take care of the children and the house-work and confused surrounding people - and these are things that can't be separated from her being personally deceived/deserted. But such a separation between the husband/father and the family is both commonly seen and unquestioned.
Even if the deserted husband is left with the children and the home, this situation is rarely given explicit space in films (also in Unfaithful and Post coïtum animal triste), this at the same time as the family-world is falling apart (which is the centre of the film). Isn't this a strange tension?
What I mean is that whether it is the man or the woman that leaves, it is still the woman that is seen as the one internally connected to and responsible for the family.
That is because women naturally are more connected with their children than are father's. Even today with role's having been challenged, women take more responsibility for their children's day to day life and education than do father's. It is our evolutionary legacy.
On the other hand, in the real world, I have seen women who have left their families, including children to take off with some man. I do not mean to support stereotypes, but unfortunately in these circumstances, the woman is often uneducated and/or has drug or alchohol addiction problems. Again, this is not always the case. Children without mother's are at a greater risk of not doing well in life. Kind of goes back to my evolution comment.
[deleted]
In most of these stories the woman is made to be finding herself and forgiven while the man is a cad.
share