1320 The Crying Game

[HinkyDinkyTruesmith]

The film ends with a reiteration of the scorpion and frog narrative from Mr Arkadin, a parable about the essential qualities of beings that are unchangeable even if they are ultimately to our detriment. That this parable is retold

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in a sequence where Dil returns to Fergus dressed as a woman following his force-masculinzation of her is telling. The film seems to be designed to be nebulous, an ouroboros akin to its inspiration, Vertigo, since is the essential character of Dil that she is a woman or that she is "not a girl", just as Scottie's recreation of Madeleine in Judy is after all a true recognition of the Madeleine that Judy performed.

Also telling is the fact that when

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he cuts her hair and dresses her in men's clothing, it's not any man's clothes, it is Jody's clothes, the male lover who Fergus is almost attempting to revive. Jaye Davidson does a fantastic job of making Dil seem out of place in these clothes, wearing them like a woman wears her boyfriend's oversized sweatshirts. It's also telling that Dil must wield a metaphorical phallus in the form of a gun when she kills Miranda Richardson's character. The film is ultimately overdetermined, and the climactic killing is less clearly the vengeance of a homosexual masculinity that Dave Kehr argued it to be in his contemporaneous review than a hodgepodge of that, return of the dead (Dil is dressed as the martyred), a racialized vengeance. Of course this is all Vertigo.

Lastly,

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whatever adjectives we want to attach to gender labels, when Dil visits Fergus at work the day after he finds out about her genitals, he says, "I kind of liked you as a girl," and she replies, "that's a start." She lives her life stealth. She responds to Fergus's wiping away her makeup with, "Do you like me even a little bit?" I can't imagine a world where Dil, as a character, would appreciate being called a type of gay man even if her creators think of her that way.

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I was just revisiting some scenes from it and there's the magnificent rejoinder Carl the bartender makes to Fergus when he declares that she's not a girl: "Whatever you say!"

[colinr0380]

Jordan is a director with a fair bit of frustrating tendencies to go with his incredible strengths, this is no exception and one of many Jordans sent off-rails by a strange third-act jump into genre. But it’s a very sincere and emotionally intelligent movie through the difficulties, and radical in more than the obvious way.

I do agree with this, and your comment made me remember the discussion we had on the board about Jordan's The Brave One a while back. I can find Neil Jordan a bit of a frustrating director in that sense, where I admire his work and can always see a much subtler film going on that does not need the often literal 'in your face' confrontational moments to underline the message. Yet at the same time that bluntly confrontational approach may also be his primary characteristic as a filmmaker! Where any chance for the characters to be allowed to retain their dignity and remain subtle, understated (undercover) or just imply things without having to be brutally exposed or having to explicitly reveal themselves and their allegiances gets suddenly removed from them, leaving them fully out there in front of others. Which may be key to understanding his entire body of work, even things like The Company of Wolves or Interview With A Vampire. Presumably if you grew up in Ireland in the mid 20th century, you were forced to choose a side, or face having one chosen for you, with ambiguity or subtlety being an unaffordable luxury!