{"id":143,"date":"2011-04-24T11:45:00","date_gmt":"2011-04-24T11:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/?p=143"},"modified":"2015-07-20T00:39:23","modified_gmt":"2015-07-20T00:39:23","slug":"maria-has-no-lovers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lidaprypchan.org\/?p=143","title":{"rendered":"MARIA HAS NO LOVERS"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a><\/div>\n


\n<\/span><\/b>By Lida Prypchan<\/span><\/b>
\n
\n<\/span>Dedicated to Cinema Studio Group\u2019s sixth anniversary on \u201cTuesday Specials\u201d. \u00a0<\/span>
\nBased on Maria\u2019s Lovers (with Natassja Kinski and John Savage)<\/span>
\nA pregnant rat creeps across the end of the bed of an American soldier fighting in Korea. \u00a0Blond and athletic, with a square jaw and shy smile as if apologizing for laughing, that is Ivan.<\/span>
\nDriving along in silence, Ivan\u2019s eyes alight upon an establishment advertising ten year old prostitutes.<\/span>
\nHis thoughts fly to the image of his girlfriend Maria, a heavily thighed woman with wide mouth and fleshy lips, who would glide around slowly and gracefully wearing the sort of dress that slips down over the hips to below the knees. \u00a0<\/span>
\nIvan returns from the war and they marry, but the first night, in spite of Maria\u2019s desire to make love and get pregnant, he doesn\u2019t even try \u2013 simply tells her \u201cI can\u2019t.\u201d \u00a0It\u2019s not as if Ivan is impotent \u2013 he\u2019s had uninhibited sex with one of his father\u2019s prostitute friends without any problems whatsoever.<\/span>
\nI offer three explanations for Ivan\u2019s conflict. \u00a0First: since this situation takes place in the United States at a time when the virtues of virginity and a woman\u2019s \u201cpurity\u201d were extolled, fear of deflowering a virgin. \u00a0As a result, the man would feel he was violating her purity, a situation that generated further fear. \u00a0Second: fear of impregnating her. \u00a0Ivan came from a war where everything he had experienced, especially the act of procreation, caused him to question all aspects of life along the lines of. \u201cWhy should I bring another human being into the world just to suffer what I suffered in the war?\u201d \u00a0Third: his obvious combat neurosis, evidenced by the nightmares where he revisits the horrors he has witnessed \u2013 nightmares of the pregnant rat creeping along his bed and crawling into his mouth.<\/span>
\nHis neurosis consists in denying himself what he wants: to live with Maria and be happy with her. \u00a0But instead of letting this be, he denies himself the possibility because he is neurotic. \u00a0Denying himself what he desires, he experiences great pain \u2013 which is just what neuroses feed upon.<\/span>
\nLater, Maria and Ivan separate, and within a short time she loses her virginity to a musician and gets pregnant. \u00a0Then, once the deflowering problem is resolved, Ivan goes back to her.<\/span>
\nComing out of the theater, I heard some girls saying: \u201cThat\u2019s more common than you\u2019d think.\u201d \u00a0I didn\u2019t know the frequency of similar situations, but I wouldn\u2019t be surprised to learn of them, especially in Latin America where men are raised amid great sexual ambivalence.<\/span>
\nOn one hand, a male has it instilled into him to marry a very conservative woman who will be \u2018the mother of his children\u201d and on the other hand, a father takes his son to have sexual relations with a prostitute \u2013 if he hasn\u2019t already had sex with some other woman, that is. \u00a0Isn\u2019t what he is taught ambivalent and contradictory to how he is encouraged to act? \u00a0How can a young man in his puberty find any similarity between a prostitute or a tramp and a conservative woman? \u00a0What conclusion can he draw from this confusion? \u2013 that only animals and street walkers can enjoy sex because they are impure and degenerate, while \u201cthe mother of his children\u201d is too pure to be allowed to enjoy it. \u00a0Besides being based on the adage \u201cRaise crows and they\u2019ll peck your eyes out,\u201d these ideas lead to the virtual institutionalization of the Latin American male\u2019s frequently ambiguous love life: the lover-wife relationship. \u00a0With his wife he has children, tells her his troubles and gets bored, with his lover he goes dancing, tells her his wonderful ideas and makes love.<\/span>
\nThere\u2019s no reason to blame either the man or the woman. \u00a0The sad thing is that the situation is mainly due to the woman\u2019s acceptance of suffering and lack of self-appreciation. \u00a0It\u2019s the nurture-inertia syndrome. \u00a0Women are raised in this way, then when they begin to realize it, they lack the drive to change their way of thinking, because the ruling force in their lives is inertia.<\/span>
\nFinal note: For me this article has a double significance, since it represents two events that coincided as if by magic. \u00a0When I first saw this movie I wrote about it, but my article was never published. \u00a0Only last Monday I was thinking about Collision andMaria\u2019s Lovers and the next day Collision was on, then two days later Maria\u2019s Lovers was proclaimed one of the best movies in six years of Tuesday specials \u2013 so I had another chance to publish the article!<\/span>
\nSooner or later, I told myself, circumstances work out so I can get what I want. \u00a0I don\u2019t believe I was born to wait. \u00a0I am by nature an impatient person, but one who realized long ago that Destiny or Fortune intended to satisfy her at a much later date than it had many others \u2013 an impatient person who ultimately learnt to be patient. \u00a0In doing so, I discovered the great advantages in waiting, thus avoiding unnecessary mistakes and maturing in thought as well as in feeling, for it is only with time that you discover what you feel. \u00a0Time is a sort of all-powerful entity that asks questions before it gives answers and creates the appropriate circumstances for the particular individual who is to experience them at the appropriate moment, or when the right time comes. \u00a0That\u2019s why forcing something to happen before its time has arrived leaves you desperate and out of sorts, because everything turns out backwards.<\/span>
\nYou have to allow time to operate on its own, because that\u2019s how it always determines what\u2019s most appropriate. \u00a0If it denies us something, it is because we are not yet ready to experience it.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lida Prypchan Dedicated to Cinema Studio Group\u2019s sixth anniversary on \u201cTuesday Specials\u201d. \u00a0 Based on Maria\u2019s Lovers (with Natassja Kinski and John Savage) A pregnant rat creeps across the end of the bed of an American soldier fighting in Korea. \u00a0Blond and athletic, with a square jaw and shy smile as if apologizing for … <\/p>\n

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