An erotic psychological thriller that took the Cannes Film Festival and many viewers by storm with its subtle premise, where a woman traumatized for life by an unusual phenomenon suffers from hallucinations. At first, you might think these are hallucinations, but without understanding the cause, you could easily believe everything happening to the woman is real. I recommend this thriller to psychologists.
Firstly, the film presents eroticism in an unusual way. Passion, love, infidelity—all these vices follow pain and depression. Our subconscious responds to childhood trauma in harsh ways, sometimes in the form of sexual desire. Having such hallucinations, such intense, pathological desires to cheat and engage in sex with the twin brother of her partner, reveals the depth of pain endured in childhood. Sexual disorders are not always pathological; many renowned psychologists have explained nearly every sexual desire and act as stemming from past trauma.
In this film, the woman is the one traumatized. Female sexuality differs drastically from male sexuality; it carries the meaning of a woman’s entire life, her feminine strength, and her role as a life-giver. It reflects her soul, her connection with her father, the father of her child, and eventually the father of her children’s children.
The film features intense passion, a desire for rough sex with a forbidden, secret lover who doesn’t actually exist—and who suddenly becomes her psychotherapist, mentor, teacher, doctor, a man who could hold power over her, physically stronger than her.
Later in the film, the woman sees herself disfigured by this dangerous lover, the twin brother of her partner, and her own mother insults her, calling her a dirty slut.
The woman punishes herself for something she ultimately didn’t do. She ate her own twin in the womb. Did she do it herself, or was it her embryo? Yet the woman punishes herself in every possible way. Her subconscious punishes itself.
