u/FunkyPleasance

I feel the rage my mother felt
Inside me boiling at the person I love
Scalding wanting

to scream at them
For existing

I dont.

I set up walls inside me
I watch my tone, my thoughts
I ration energy 
so I am never too exhausted
To control myselfThere are a lot of things
I choose not to try
So that when that fever comes
I have the strength
To keep it all inside

I know the pain 
Of being told
Im worthless

My mother in that trance
Would reach for whatever
Would hurt me the most
Whatever secret I’d told her
A Weapon to rip my soul

I want to throw my beloved’s words
Back at her
To wound her

blindly

however I can

But I don’t
That’s the difference
That will always be the difference

I will hold the rage
Feel the pain
Control the insanity
And die with it inside me

(The majority of this post is what I wrote for letterboxd when I first viewed it years ago)

At the heart, this is a film about overcoming an abusive childhood where a boy is sexually abused by his mother. Contemporary reviews called this "sexual initiation," "oedipus obsession," and a myriad of other phrases that put the agency on the child despite the fact that the boy is clearly the passive and confused victim. Thankfully, the movie is much more authentic and intelligent than the critics of the day.

Great film, but hard to watch. Some truly disturbing ick scenes in regarding to crossing boundaries with a child. An accurate look at what its like to have an emotionally violatile mother who doesn't understand boundaries. And to be a confused child in a world where the only affection is sensual affection. Its an aspect of the so called Oedipus complex that most films don't understand -- children play by the rules adults set up. If the adults set up a world where attention is linked with being sexual, of course the child is going to lean towards acting sexually in his attempts to receive attention. It doesn't make the child precocious, it makes him desperate to figure out where he fits in that world.

The movie does an outstanding job detailing the sexual confusion of someone growing up in this environment, including the alcoholism and long term sexual paralysis that occurs when sensuality becomes so full of manipulation and farce that it loses all sense of honesty and even as an adult the character cannot recapture what honest love is supposed to be. A couple of very icky scenes between a completely nude 12 year old boy and a grown woman (Shirley Temple Black called it pornography and resigned from the San Fransisco Film Festival when they decided to screen it), so watch with care. But the scenes while nude **seem** to have been filmed responsibility and with sensitivity to the young actor, which is always a concern for me.

Its controversial cred is also shown by the fact that despite premiering at the 1966 Venice Film Festival, it was only allowed to be screened privately. According to Criterion (who is currently streaming it), John Waters once called it his favorite film.

I highly recommend it but potentially VERY triggering.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060740/

THE SONG OF THE UNWEPT TEAR 


I DREAMED a dreadful dream, almost 
   Too terrible to tell; 
I dreamed that you and I, my love, 
  Together were in Hell. 


I dreamed in all eternity 
  We two together were; 
Condemned each other’s face and limbs 
  In hate and rage to tear. 


I dreamed your kisses keen, my love, 
  Bit my flesh through and through; 
I tasted the salt taste of blood, 
  My love, as I kissed you. 


I dreamed your soft warm limbs, my love, 
  Burnt with Hell’s furious fire; 
And demons laughed, and said, This is 
  The end of your desire. 


That laugh—you never saw that laugh, 
  You never heard its tone: 
Thy very presence maddens me, 
  Yet leave me not alone. 


Think’st thou they weep with many tears, 
  Deem’st thou their brows are knit with pain? 
Ah no! far worse than that, they laugh— 
  Their laugh is hollow and insane. 


Almost too horrible to hear, 
  Too terrible to tell, 
The song about the unwept tear, 
  And the laughter heard in Hell.

-- Eric Stenbock

How lovely the elder brother’s
Life all laced in the other’s,
Love-laced!—what once I well
Witnessed, so fortune fell.
When Shrovetide, two years gone,
Our boys’ plays brought on
Part was picked for John,
Young John; then fear, then joy
Ran revel in the other boy.
Now the night come; all
Our company thronged the hall;
Henry, by the wall,
Beckoned me beside him:
I came where called, and eyed him
By meanwhiles; making my play
Turn most on tender byplay.
For, wrung all on love’s rack,
My lad, and lost in Jack,
Smiled, blushed, and bit his lip;
Or drove, with a diver’s dip,
Clutched hands through clasped knees
And many a mark like these,
Told tales with heart’s stress
He hung upon the imp’s success.
Now the other was brass-bold:
He had no work to hold
His heart up at the strain;
Nay, roguish ran the vein.
Two tedious pacts were past;
Jack’s call and cue at last;
When Henry, heart forsook,
Dropped eyes and dared not look.
There! The hall rung!
Dog, he did give tongue!
But Harry—in his hands he has flung
His tear-tricked cheeks of flame
For fond love and for shame.
Ah Nature, framed in fault,
There’s comfort then, there’s salt;
Nature, bad, base, and blind,
Dearly thou canst be kind;
There dearly then, dearly,
Dearly thou canst be kind