Compared with "Portrait of a Burning Woman" in the 2019 fire, the same genre film "Ammonite" released in 2020 received mixed reviews.
Set against the same seashore, Ammonite tells the love story between fossil scientist Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) and the widowed Charlotte Murchison (Silsa Ronan). In addition to the large-scale drama of Winslet and Ronan, the ambiguous sublimation of the two feelings and the unfinished sense of the ending make it difficult for the expectant audience to say that this is a qualified same-sex theme film. Is "Ammonite" with a Douban score of 7.1 really so unsatisfactory?
If you want to completely frame "Ammonite" in the same-sex theme, it seems too narrow. When the forbidden love that maximizes desire is set aside and returned to Mary and Charlotte, the essence of love between them is to find another story of their own. Even if the environment, personality and social class are completely different, they all share the same identity anxiety - in 19th-century England, whether it is the few "professional" women represented by Mary or Charlotte, who depends on men to feed, they are all male shadows. Although they are unwilling, they have to succumb to social positioning and gender settings, and suppress the desire to become themselves.
Like mirror images, Mary and Charlotte can see themselves in each other and be recognized, so they feel the love that they have not been able to get from others, but can this kind of unadmissed love break the gender tradition and cross all barriers?
The "self" on the opposite side
Mary was a daughter who did not smile and was not expected by her mother. The fossils of Ichthyosaurs she discovered when she was eleven years old were displayed in the British Museum, and she has since made many discoveries that shocked the academic community, and because she was a woman, Mary was always nameless and poor. Talent did not bring her fame and money, and she had to dig ordinary fossils alone along the rugged southern coastline and sell them in shops to tourists to support herself and her mother.
One day, a wealthy guest, Mr. Murchison, came to visit with his beautiful but melancholy wife, a fossil scientist who had long heard of Mary's name and admired her. Murchison asked Mary to take him with him in search of fossils, and under the temptation of money, Mary agreed.
When Murchison, with Mary's help, found the fossil he wanted and wanted to return to academia to ask for credit, he left his wife Charlotte, who was dragging her feet, with Mary, and prescribed conditions that the poor Mary could not refuse. Two women with completely incompatible personalities have a magical chemical effect.
Unlike Mary, who was strong and healthy and immersed in fossil work, Charlotte was a typical noblewoman, with a delicate body, delicate mind, love of music and dressing herself, and her appearance and personality were the opposite of Mary.
Mary and Charlotte belong to different social classes, one is a self-supporting superwoman, the other is an angel who depends on her husband to support her, but their plight is similar, which is why they feel sorry for each other.
The rewards of Mary's scientific discoveries could have left her with nothing to worry about for the rest of her life, but she could only be the driving force behind male scientists. Although she did not clearly express her desire to be recognized, when Murchison expressed her fan-like admiration, Mary asked if the men in the academic world also looked at her in this way. No matter how much Mary could sell her own fruits for money and call them by the name of others, she also cared very much about the fossils that she dug and cleaned with her own hands, just like her children. However, Mary understood that no matter how much she competed with others in her work, no matter how much she could rewrite history, she could not become the discoverer of the light of Zhengda.
Whether it is Mary or Charlotte, they are women who are not accepted by family and society, which is the fundamental reason why they doubt themselves and are not satisfied in their hearts. Even though Mary's mother was left with only one child, she grew up as a money-making tool for her mother. Mary's fossil discovery and her name should have attracted academic attention, but she knew from an early age that her name was not worth much. Even though she was very reluctant to sell the Arowana fossil, she still sold her "own child" because it could be exchanged for a year's living expenses. However, her understanding and sacrifice did not come in exchange for care, and Mary seemed to be numb to the matter of pleasing her mother.
On the other side, Charlotte is the shadow of her husband. She was obedient, but her husband did not like her and did not accept her change. Murchison takes her to the beach to recuperate, praying that Charlotte will return to the cheerful and lovely woman she was, but his inadvertent indifference makes Charlotte more depressed. Obviously, the music in the restaurant will make Charlotte feel bright, but Murchison ignores her feelings on the grounds that she is too noisy, and insists on changing rooms. When Charlotte wanted to be close to her husband while sleeping at night, he said coldly that they were not fit to have a child.
Similar to Mary's position, Charlotte wanted to preserve her marriage, but her husband would not give her a chance. She can't change the society's accepted marriage creed, and can only live in the cold violence of her husband, and fall deeper and deeper into the sick mood.
Love is the sublimation from confrontation to fusion
When Murchison left his wife behind, Mary and Charlotte officially intersected. Like many love development routines, two people with very different personalities are of course unaccustomed to each other at first. Charlotte listened to her husband and reluctantly followed Mary to work on the beach.
Charlotte pointed out Mary's work on the grounds that she was recuperating, which made her very unhappy. Like Murchison, Mary, not accustomed to Charlotte, was coldly angry with her and spoke harshly. Charlotte went down to take a bath in the sea and ended up seriously ill.
Mary is a typical knife-mouthed tofu heart, and she is very remorseful to take Charlotte back to her home, taking care of her as a mother who is confused. Charlotte's whispers in a coma made Mary see her pity, and her unconscious words hit Mary's heart. The tough-looking Mary craves love just as much as Charlotte. Unfortunately, Mary did not get the care of her mother, and Charlotte did not get the love of her husband.
Illness and care were also turning points in their relationship, and they no longer had prejudices against each other. Charlotte knew that Mary was a good person, and she would rush out to speak for Mary when guests came to bargain. It was a bit abrupt, but it was a way for her to defend Mary.
Mary still doesn't like to laugh, but she gradually opens her heart to Charlotte, talking about the secret of the Arowana fossil. When Charlotte's doctor only invited Mary to concerts, Mary insisted on going with Charlotte, knowing she loved music.
These subtle changes are the places where warmth is given to each other, and they are also the premise of the so-called love germination. Are Mary and Charlotte greedy women? They never ask for a lot of love, they just want another person to miss them, understand them, and no longer see them as a shadow of someone else.
At the concert, Charlotte and another woman had a hot conversation, and Mary left in the rain with jealousy. It also shows her childlike side, apparently the opportunity Mary has won for Charlotte, but she "abandoned" her after meeting new friends. When Charlotte returned home, she sensed something was wrong, and in order to appease Mary, she kissed her, and there was a fixed-tone scene.
After Mary and Charlotte are together, they are also making changes for each other, and love becomes complementary. Charlotte would go with Mary to the beach to dig up fossils, and even though her hands were covered with black mud, she smiled so happily. Seeing Mary bathe in the sea, even if there are shadows, she bravely approaches Mary in the rough waves, which seems to subvert the weak image of her previous illness after bathing in the sea. She felt Mary's love, and Charlotte became whole and healthy.
And Mary, who has rarely shown joy, also smiles from time to time, only because charlotte's enthusiasm infects her. She was still silent, and when Charlotte received a letter from her husband and had to leave, Mary, although she was very reluctant, did not confess her feelings. After being separated from Charlotte and losing her mother, Mary, who was at the bottom of her life, received a letter from Charlotte, and her heart was ignited again by the passion of the past, this time she planned to be brave again. She changed her passive and low-key attitude and wore a burgundy dress across the sea to an appointment.
Their own differences are doomed to tragedy
Lovers reunite after a long absence, and the passionate kisses speak for themselves. But when Charlotte can't wait to show Mary the surprise, Mary returns to the strange appearance she had when they first met. Charlotte prepares a room for Mary, and she wants Mary to stay as a canary, which touches Mary's minefield.
Mary did not like Charlotte's possessiveness in treating her as a fossil in a display case, and she very explicitly rejected Charlotte and fled to the British Museum to see her fossils. At the end, through the window, Mary sees Charlotte, and the two look at each other meaningfully. Do they see their familiar selves, or are they strangers? In the end, what happened to the love between them was full of suspense.
Mary and Charlotte's love begins with a desire for freedom. Same-sex love maximizes the desires of shackled women who mistakenly believe they have gained true freedom and are in tight control of their own destiny. However, when Charlotte tries to "imprison" Mary, what is the difference between her and the men who buy out Mary's scientific research?
They all just wanted to deprive her of her rights on legitimate grounds, and Charlotte made a decision for Mary in the name of love, and the men who bought fossils at high prices stood on the high ground of capital and gender, seized on Mary's weakness, and forced her to betray herself.
The name of the film "Ammonite" does not just refer to fossils, it is her child to Mary, her life, condensed sweat and frost meaning extraordinary, and for Charlotte, it is just a stone that can be exchanged for money, and the hardships it contains are insignificant. The differences and antagonisms between the two heroines allow the audience to see another possibility of love freedom - any form of feeling has a dark side, and estrangement and incomprehension exist in various groups like soup and medicine. Just as Charlotte wondered why Mary was so angry and didn't accept her "kindness," she could never understand Mary's definition of every fossil.
Same-sex bondage can produce a wonderful reaction that does not exist between heterosexual love, which may stem from the fact that gender empathy compensates for the mutilation of love, but simple love and physical satisfaction cannot resist the harsh reality. When capital, class, and individual desires are mixed, this unique amount of love also deteriorates. Mary and Charlotte can feel sympathy from each other because of their gender, but their wrong door is also doomed to the tragedy of love. The so-called free love is just an illusion that exists in the minds of the two people.