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captainburrito (128)
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Why is the immigration status of Marta's mother even a thing?
What happened to Isabel?
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It was better than Peninsula. There were editing and pacing problems as there was unexplained stuff. Also a huge lull in the middle where it was really boring.
The lead, Liu Yifei made her name playing a famous character in a martial arts epic adaptation which can launch careers. That character is emotionless due to upbringing and just looks pretty and innocent. She played another which was also just a pretty face and that sort of made her a household name. She can't act.
People like Donnie Yen can't act that great either but they are big names. Gong Li can act but she's wooden in this too.
This is a well established trope in Chinese period movies / tv dramas. There's a really famous classic called The Butterfly Lovers (like the Chinese Romeo and Juliet) that basically has this play out with a girl disguised as a guy at a boarding school.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRxffYVgqSc
The guy has pretty much fallen in love with her before her reveal. There's even a gay character in it and the lead male characters chastizes himself to not be like him when he realizes he has caught the feels.
I think it was meant to show the distance between them due to one being a young man and one being an adult. Elio is trying to confess his feelings and at first it seems the more he says the more distance there is as Oliver walks round on the other side. The camera also lingers from a distance instead of giving us intimate reaction shots so you don't really get a cue as to how it will play out. Oliver's tone is also quite hostile at first but Elio doesn't back down and by the time they walk round Oliver is torn and conflicted as he looks around nervously. The distance between them has closed and they are together again because Elio had he balls to confess. Then when he speaks his tone has softened and asks if Elio is saying what he thinks he is saying. At this point Elio can't even talk and nods like a child. Oliver gives him a soft poke and walks off as he is still conflicted, his previous confident wall has been deflated. The nervous energy is abundant and is something we can all relate to.
Oliver chides him and says such things can never be spoken about so that kind of justifies why things are cryptic. It was 1983 and the tolerance of Elio's family wasn't the norm.
Oliver had previously signalled to him at volleyball and Elio clearly rebuffed him. After that, Oliver backed the hell off and avoided him as he felt he did something wrong. So now only Elio could move things forward (had the courage to do so) and he had clearly been stewing over it. His attraction overcame any doubts and resulted in their awkward intellectual sparring and courtship.
Legally it isn't rape. In Italy the age of consent is 16. In France it is 15. It's lower if the participants are both young.
Their attitudes may well be different or a daughter.
I also felt that scene with his father was far too long, it retracted from impact.
He tells him he remembers so he knows that what he felt was reciprocated. The call was a courtesy as he respected Elio enough to have that uncomfortable convo with him to let him know he was getting married. That provides closure for Elio as he himself must have understood what first love is like, especially when you have to hide. The pressure can be unbearable because you have to hide it from your family and never let your guard down 24/7.
He himself probably knows Elio will forever remember that experience and he wants him to know it was something special. In affairs like this, sometimes the cruelest thing is to not know.
When Oliver leaves on the train you can see how bitter sweet it is and he is torn up about it too. Previously you saw Oliver try to restrain himself after backing off from the initial pass at volleyball. When Elio takes him to his special reading place and Elio grabs his genitals he still resists. He later tells Elio when he was out, not with that girl but just staying away alone before coming home late to avoid Elio. That shows how much he cared about Elio's welfare.
Was it a surprise for Elio that Oliver would be leaving? I think he held off partly because he didn't want to hurt him.
>In the end, the bisexual man who "keeps it to himself" doesn't get any sex with men. He has to show his cards if he's gonna get any male lovin'! At which point I'd know about him.
I don't get why he needs to get any sex with men. If he's bisexual and with a woman that he loves then he is fulfilled. Just as if he was with a man he doesn't need a woman or another man to be fulfilled.
If I wasn't prepared to die, I'd have declined the job in the first place. That General should have killed himself. Even if the president ordered him to give the code he should have disobeyed. He was the former president at that point and also under duress. He was the military man, how could he live with himself, at the pinnacle of his career and whimpering like this? What would be his legacy? The shame would be worse than living with that. He could have had a swift death. He likely faced situations like that before in his lifetime.
Both of them should have ignored the president. They were resolute in their defiance, his order shouldn't have swayed them.
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