belle de jour

i saw it again with k and i didn't think any more of it than i did the first time, which isn't that bad of a thing considering how terrific i found it. but what was interesting is how k saw it, which was significantly different from me. she put a good deal of emphasis on the flashback moments intimating severine's childhood sexual abuse, and the fairly clear evidence of her virginity and generally on how her relationship to sex is NOT HEALTHY, that her interest in getting roughed up is a worrying thing born of that childhood trauma. and this understanding is reinforced by the ending, in which the carriage is empty and you can understand it to mean that she's cured! that it's over! that healthy, conjugal relations can begin! and that is reasonable, compared with my understanding that this movie was about the supplement, the certain basis of happiness provided by a marriage and the other stuff that necessarily exists outside it, which doesn't really make sense when you think about how their marriage wasn't the proper thing by any standard, and her refusal to have sex, etc, and that now she's cured and can BEGIN having a proper marriage.

but that is so disappointing to me! that makes the movie into this psychoanalytic thing a la some of hitchcock's stuff like marnie where it's practically educational and literally clinical, rather than opening doors it's about reaffirming the properness of the present! and i don't think my initial understanding of the movie gets entirely discounted by that empty carriage at the end, by the idea that this movie's about a cure, but i just find that rather less progressive and intersting than what i was hoping for. la la la