Regarding "sex", Chinese has always been secretive.
There are many euphemistic and implicit statements about "the joy of the flesh" in our culture. The most contagious thing is the "joy of clouds and rain".
These four simple words hide the earnest expectations of fertility and "succession" in agricultural civilization: the cloud turns into rain, nourishes all things, and brings harvest; just like the sex between husband and wife, giving birth to children, passing on the generations.
Li Baojia, a famous writer of the Qing Dynasty, in his novel "The Appearance of Officialdom", through the mouth of others, expressed the concept of marriage in ancient culture:
"I have worked hard all my life, earned this furniture, and when I die, I don't know what the use of keeping this money is."
In the old era of parental orders and matchmakers, the social principles of marriage were infinitely magnified, and "passing on the generations" was regarded as the most important purpose of marriage, so in the "Seven Out of The Rules", there was a clause of "no children".
As for the mind and the body, they are usually subordinate, often ignored and even oppressed. In ancient times, there were loving couples like Lu You and Tang Wan, who were forced to divorce because of their wives' inability to have children; today there are still many women who are abandoned because of fertility problems.
What is the place of "spirit and body" in marriage? In marriage, between love, sex and procreation, what is precious? If the three cannot coexist, how should they choose?
Fortunately, there is such a movie "Brick Bed", which uses a beautiful and soothing narrative style to tell us a story of the intertwining of love and desire in the conflict of sex, love and fertility. The young master of the Wu family and his wife Yulian struggled in this contradiction, and after all, they took a wrong step and left a grudge.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-center-line" > blossoms can be folded straight and folded, do not wait for the flowers to fall into the air: in a loveless marriage, a pair of wronged men and women tell unspeakable tragedies</h1>
In Jiangnan Town, silk rain is pouring out, nourishing such delicate beauty flowers as Yulian. Walking in the alley, she frowned on the spring mountain and her eyes were autumn water. Young Master Wu of the High Gate Family only glanced at that and then fell deeply.
A pair of bi people who are just in their prime, male and female appearance, a match made in heaven. Mention the worship hall, in one go, the two are married.
Young Master Wu is a talented figure, he can play, know how to play, play elegantly, and have fun.
He thrushed Yulian's eyebrows and taught her to dance; he had Yulian in all sorts of seductive poses on a huge brick bed in the house. The wife's delicacy and youth are all painted by the husband.
He told Yulian the story of this brick bed: the emperor and the empress were also in love with each other on this brick bed; Yulian was more interested in whether the emperor and the empress had ever "shared a room" on this brick bed.
As soon as this key issue was mentioned, Young Master Wu was sullen.
The couple is highly compatible in spirit and has the ideal love. But the pain of the flesh became an obscure thing for the couple to say.
Yulian's young flesh needs the release of lust and the caresses of the opposite sex. But every time Yulian's courtship was rejected by her husband.
Yulian used all means to seduce her husband. Young Master Wu hugged Yulian and lay on the bed, facing his wife's eager eyes, he turned his head and could only say to her, "Forget it, let's sleep" to cover up his incompetence.
Who can blame this? It was the stone bed where the cool air seeped through his bones, and he coveted the coolness and spent countless hours on it. Cold poison invaded the body, causing Young Master Wu's male obstacles.
Yulian had to suppress her desires. She had never tasted the "joy of the flesh", and she loved her husband deeply and single-mindedly.
If it were not for the persecution of the family's "succession", how could Yulian know that the original "sex" was actually like this: it was like water, nourishing her round and plump; it was like fire, burning her good years.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-center-line" > "borrowing sperm to give birth" caused a fire of lust</h1>
The trees want to be quiet and the wind is not stopping. Yulian and her husband's desire for "one lifetime" was ruthlessly torn apart by mrs. Wu.
They issued an ultimatum to the idle couple: if they could no longer give birth to offspring, they would have no chance of inheriting the Wu family's property; not only that, but Young Master Wu would also take concubines and have children.
Yulian chose not to defend. In order to procreate, she cooked countless soup medicines for her husband, asked the gods countless times, and made countless wishes.
Hopes were disappointed again and again, and Young Master Wu came up with a bad idea: let Yulian and the next person Agen give birth to offspring: "As long as you are a mother, who can suspect that I am not the father of the child?" ”
Faced with her husband's request to "borrow sperm to have children", Yulian resisted, but finally chose to obey. She loved him so much that she was willing to carry the black cauldron of "infertility" for him.
But Yulian's love could not shake the patriarchal thought in Young Master Wu's heart. He wants to be in control, to arrange everything, and he wants to sacrifice his wife to cover up his physical defects.
The servant Agen, in this way, was vaguely involved in the entanglement between the couple. His appearance was intended to be used as a tool for fertility, providing an animal with "sperm".
Under her husband's arrangement, Yulian and Agen had the joy of clouds and rain for the first time. I didn't expect it to be so magical.
Afterwards, Ah Lian looked at herself in the mirror, her face was rosy and radiant, and in the gloomy atmosphere of this deep mansion compound, she was like a jade lotus with dew and pearls, blooming out of the most glorious moment.
Young Master Wu was on top of the ladder all his life, and this incident became a greater shame than "inability to have children."
In the face of his delicate wife, the husband lost his temper with Yulian for the first time. The medicine brought by Yulian was reprimanded by the young master as "not clean, take it back and redo it." ”
Yulian's heart was full of sorrow and bitterness, as well as unspeakable grievances. On the one hand, she has to fight against the lust that has been ignited in her heart, and on the other hand, she must be wronged in front of her husband and take care of his poor self-esteem.
Desire does not mean to let go, to say to receive.
Desire is fire, and when it is ignited, it burns like a raging fire, and it will not cease unless it burns one to the ground; this fire, which burns two people to death, and one half-dead, surviving the rest of his life.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-center-line" > a higher desire, departing from the original intention of "passing on the generations" and only to enjoy the "pleasure of the flesh"</h1>
With the first time, there will be a second time. Yulian began to look for Agen behind her husband's back.
The film does not describe Agen as a subordinate, which is in line with Agan's positioning: he is just a symbol, the embodiment of a real and healthy man, who does not need to use a medicine jar to maintain his vitality.
For the first time, Yulian felt how wonderful it was to be with a healthy and normal man! Their skin is intimate, like water blending. Yulian enjoyed it, transcending the most primitive desire of "passing on the generations".
Especially with Agan's last time in the same room. At that time, Yulian had been diagnosed by the doctor as not pregnant. Young Master Wu was disappointed and humiliated, and he sent Agen away from the Wu family.
Taking advantage of her husband's absence, Ah Lian found Agan and gave him a precious grinding strip. Yulian's feelings for Agen have developed from the joy of the flesh to the feeling of attachment.
The desire hidden in her body began to work, and Yulian closed the door and window and lay down on the stone bed. Agen understood what she meant, so on the brick bed, they had one last skin-to-skin contact.
This scene was seen by the husband who returned home early. Obviously, the wife already knew that she was infertile with Agen and took the initiative to ask for pleasure, which is undoubtedly a betrayal for a husband.
For a man who has lost his sexual ability, how can he understand a woman's desire for sex? In his eyes, the wife's "betrayal", in fact, is just the release of her inner desires, which is a woman's normal appeal, regardless of spiritual fit, and has nothing to do with inheritance.
It was at that moment that Young Master Wu painfully killed the machine. Eventually, Agen was beaten and then brutally buried alive under a brick bed.
The brick bed was Yulian's happiness, where she and her husband had a harmonious past, and the servant Agen had enjoyed the joy of the flesh; and now, the brick bed, it buried a living flesh, allowing him to turn into a sensen white bone, wandering in this gloomy and damp ancient mansion.
In her later years, Yulian kept asking herself, "I don't understand, if I hurt Agen, then who hurt me?" ”
Oh, yes! Desire is sinless, it is a higher pleasure, it transcends the shackles of "procreation" and makes Yulian live like a woman.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-center-line" > husband who insisted on "passing on the lineage" and gave up his young life; self-redemption and reconciliation allowed Yulian to obtain final happiness</h1>
Young Master Wu died, at the age of 30. The family and neighbors said that he was killed by the stone bed, and only Yulian knew that he was killed by those soup medicines.
Even if countless bitter waters were poured in, even if his wife was sent to other men, Young Master Wu could not complete the task of "passing on the generations".
He not only took his own life, but also took the happiness of his wife's life. They obviously had such a beautiful spiritual love.
His inferiority made him reject Yulian's original proposal to "raise a child", jealousy made him betray his original promise to "let Agen leave the Wu family", and Yulian was also shackled by him in this marriage and became a "living dead".
In her later years, Yulian became an ugly-looking woman. She is childless and husbandless, ill, severely paralyzed, paranoid and eccentric, and has become a nasty madwoman.
An old man who went south to collect antiques entered the life of Yulian in this way. He was so fond of Yulian's brick bed that he insisted on buying it.
This well-informed old man brought Yulian news from afar, brought her the customs and customs of distant places such as Shanghai and Guangdong, and also brought her strange things.
The antique dealer looked at the photos of Yulian and her husband when they were young in the old mansion and said casually: "He looks quite good-looking." ”
Yulian replied meaningfully, "Face good..."
Heaven and man are separated, and life and death are separated. Young Master Wu made her love and hate, he fulfilled her and destroyed her; he gave her the ultimate spiritual love, and destroyed her ultimate physical love.
Yulian could not be relieved for half of her life, and she spent the second half of her life guarding the stone bed where Agen's white bones were buried. It's guilt, and it's atonement. But what is sinful about one's desires?
Fortunately, the antique dealer became the only condiment for Yulian's later life. He made her a wheelchair and pushed her out of the ancient mansion to see the scenery around him; he pushed the wheelchair and took Yulian to visit her husband's grave.
After a few months of leaving the antique dealer, Yulian was anxious and worried. She herself shook her wheelchair to look outside to see the news, the wheelchair slipped, and Yulian fell to the ground - which finally killed her.
She didn't wait until her death to see the antique dealer again, but it didn't matter anymore, what mattered was that she finally reconciled with herself, completed her redemption, and walked out of the haze of her heart.
Before dying, I knew that there was such a person in this world who had been worried about her, was this not the greatest happiness of an old man who was in a broken candle?
This happiness was realized by Yulian after years of dispelling her fantasies about sex, love and fertility.
As soon as a person dies, everything becomes less critical. The Wu family has long since fallen, and no descendants have inherited incense; what reputation, wealth, and status have become a passing cloud.
The niece and daughter-in-law who had been taking care of Yulian sold the brick bed. None of this had anything to do with Yulian and Young Master Wu.
They used to be so attached to some things, some feelings. Perhaps it is not until the moment of death that it is understood that in a short life, it is necessary to follow the desires of the heart, enjoy what you should have, and do not force what you do not have.
< h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" > epilogue</h1>
This film adapted from the famous writer Li Pingyi not only received two nominations for the "Golden Rooster Award" in China, but also became the first film in New China to be purchased by Hollywood, and also showed its face internationally.
Good literary and artistic works always cut to human nature, resonate and ponder. The famous writer Zhou Guoping said:
Sex is physical life, following the principle of pleasure;
Love is the spiritual life, following ideal principles;
Marriage is social life, following the principles of reality.
In marriages that follow the principles of reality, there is such a patriarchal concept as "passing on the generations". The question is how to properly place sex, love, and patriarchal notions of "passing on from generation to generation" when they clash.
The hardest part of marriage is how to combine the three perfectly in a person of the opposite sex. If there is a conflict, what are the trade-offs?
Young Master Wu and Yulian in "Yan Bed", they have perfect love, but they have no sex, resulting in the problem of not being able to complete "fertility".
Any effort to strip these three apart separately would be futile.
Sex is born because of love, and love is sublimated because of sex; and procreation and reproduction, the so-called "succession", are only derivatives of the perfect combination of love and sex, and are a natural harvest.
The so-called "benevolent see the benevolent, the wise see the wise", what do you expect from marriage? What is first and what is later?