Lived City (2): Love and Desire on Cities‘ Margins

1. Lived City (2): Love and Desire on Cities‘ Margins Exotica, “I’m Running for my Life” and “Blossom”

2. Outline • Starting Questions • Exotica: • General intro and comparison with Vive l’amour • Margins and Minorities • Exotica: the Site and the Sight; • Betrayal vs. Ritual/Contract for Self-Therapy; • The Caribbeans in Toronto • “I’m Running for my Life” • “Blossom”

3. Exotica General Introd. Common Themes: 1. Gradual revelation of the past (esp. about broken families; 2. Inspector at the airport or for the government; 3. Need to deal with trauma with rituals—esp. the use of camera. • Francis (Bruce Greenwood ; tax auditor, the father who loses his wife and daughter) • Eric (Elias Koteas; DJ of the Exotica; ex-lover of Christina) • Thomas (Don McKellar; owner of the pet shop) • Christina (Mia Kirshner; strip-dancer, used to baby-sit for Francis) • Tracey (Sarah Polley; Francis’ niece); • Harold, Tracey’s father and Francis’ brother • Zoe (Arsiné Khanjian; hostess of Exotica, pregnant with Eric’s sperm) • Inspector & Customs Officer

4. Exotica: General Introd. • Three plotlines intertwined in three major Settings: • Exotica; Francis’ home. • Aquarian & Concert Hall; • 3. The past: The grass field.

5. Starting Questions • How is the film Exotica and Vive l’amour similar to or different from each other? • How do these two films define and present city’s margins respectively? • How do people survive on the margins in these two films? • How about ‘I’m Running for my Life” or “Blossom”?

6. Margins and Minorities

7. Notes: Deconstructing the Myth of Marginality from 夏鑄九’s lecture 邊緣性[如：非正式經濟、非正式部門]擴展，不單因為人們貧窮，是因為在人與勞動市場間的機制，這機制是再生產marginality之情境之基礎。記得無住屋運動中李幸長曾說過：“無殼蝸牛不要人同情！” “窮人不是經濟上的邊緣而是被剝削，不是社會上的邊緣而是被拒絕，不是文化上的邊緣而是被污名，不是政治上的邊緣而是被操縱與壓迫”（Janice Perlman）

8. Vive l’amour Anonymous, rootless and drifting Lower-Middle class With Desire (Homo/Hetero) Empty apartment Desire and Gaze, and re-invention of meanings Comforted by transient relationships which seems like a new kind of “family” Exotica Obsessed, from broken families Middle class With Desire (Homo/Hetero) and a need for self-healing Empty home Desire and Gaze, and other rituals Comforted by ‘family’ rituals (repetition and breakthroughs) Our Focus – how marginal desires are expressed; how m. spaces lived

9. ExoticaAtom Egoyan Everybody knows that the dice are loaded Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed Everybody knows that the war is over Everybody knows the good guys lost Everybody knows the fight was fixed The poor stay poor, the rich get rich That’s how it goes Everybody knows ……..………….. Spaces Trauma, Ritualistic Obsession, & Breakthrough “Families”

10. Spaces:Site and Sights • Exotica -- • Voyeurism – of the clients, (with the rule of ‘no touching’) • Routined dances  Christina fetishized/fixed as a school girl.

11. Spaces:Site and Sights • Exotica -- • The other different gazes –designed or un-designed; • The ‘other’ relationships (clips 5, 6)

12. Spaces (2) • Aquarian: Just because they are exotic, doesn’t mean that they cannot endure extremes. It is a jungle out there, isn’t it? • Concert: a place to steal glances at each other or their bodies. • Homes– empty or spare

13. Trauma & Obsession: Lines • Influences of the past -- • Airport Inspector: You have to ask yourself what brings this person to this point. • Francis: As you get older, you become aware of the people and the person you are is carrying a certain type of baggage, and the baggage creates a certain type of tension. • Eric: It seems that everytime we want to hold on to something, it’s bound to slip away.’ • Alienation – • Francis -- ``They look at you with those big eyes, their whole life ahead of them, while you've wasted half of yours.'' • “You didn’t ask to be brought to this world, but then who did?” “Now that you’re here, who’s asking you to stay?”

14. Trauma & Obsession: (1) Francis • Francis’ trauma: family broken by 1.His daughter’s being murdered 2.His wife’s betrayal (love affair with his brother) • Ritual (1) –Tracy as a babysitter (tries his best to preserve his ‘memories’ through photos, videos & automatic piano) clip1 • Ritual (2) : be a (protective) father to Christina. (clip 8)

15. Trauma & Obsession: (2) Christina and Eric • Christina: 1. Eric’s ex-girlfriend  Eric’s obsession 2. Used to be baby-sitter for Francis (ending clip) 3. Francis’ “present daughter” 4. Strip dancer A. Betrayal -- Eric’s contract with Zoe (Zoe’s mother’s betrayal of the girls) B .Obsession--- (Loss of family love) needs to be cared and be protected C. Repetition--- Dancing for Francis

16. Trauma & Obsession: (2) Christina and Eric • Obsession--- Loss of his “innocent girl”; • Still reads the lines to soothe himself; • plays the role of a protector, even to the degree of setting up Christina’s clients. • clip 12, 13

17. Thomas’s Ritual: A. a gay pet shop owner B. shy with communication problems C. doesn't know how to go about picking up menScalping tickets as a chance of dating (clips 20 – 23)

18. The Characters’ Breakthrough • Zoe – repeating her mother’s career as a challenge (to overcome her shyness); making a new option for herself • Tracy – refuses to babysit anymore • Thomas – found out by the officer (clip 27) • Francis and Eric – clip 28, the ‘touch’ meaning? • Final resolution among the four – clip 17; • Zoe and Christina – What do you think their relationship is like?

19. The ending • Mutual understanding between Eric and Francis -- Hug with Francis; facing reality – “I found her”  “; I lost her”; leave the job as a DJ—at least temporarily • Christine dances by herself and is able to protect herself • ‘Families’ outside the traditional nuclear families. Eric and Zoe--- a. Lovers and Friends; Zoe and Christina; Thomas and Francis; Thomas and his lovers

20. Symbolic Meanings Reviewed • Mirrors: Betrayal & Appearance vs. reality; double identity • The Pet Shop: Exotica • The Green Field: conflicts in color, music, gain and loss at the same time, with inherent dangers; • Photos & Video: Irony, Imply the failure of keeping memory • Eggs, & Zoe’s pregnancy: “You didn’t ask to be brought here…”(Francis) • Home in postmodern city: Tracey’s, Christina’s, Francis’s---Which one is the real home?

21. Are we voyeuristic? • Voyeurism  emotional involvement and catharsis? • “At Exotica (as in, one supposes, an erotic film), voyeurism is a frustrated alias for emotional intercourse, . . . Egoyan's achievement in Exotica is singularly fitting, as he yokes the experience of the movie audience to that of the audience in his film, acknowledging erotic needs without condemning them, and stripping down the obsessions that color a life. ” http://www.deep-focus.com/flicker/exotica.html

22. Are we voyeuristic? • There are different types of gazes; gazes to express one’s desire, love and concern, or gazes to fix the others as objects. • Gazes can be obsessive, but they can also be turned into glances or flâneurial looks.

23. Note: • “jailbait” 'a girl under the legal age of consent for sexual intercourse'

24. References • ３.都市邊緣性之批判 1).神話與現實都市社會學 夏鑄九 http://www.bp.ntu.edu.tw/bpwww/Students/course92_1.htm • Fetishization in "Exotica" http://strangerbox.topcities.com/exotica.html