In August and September, I published articles on this website on the films, Field of Dreams and Contact. I gave them subtitles, “Magical Womb” Part I and II, respectively. With each, I tried to demonstrate a fantasy of a womb with magical properties to overcome death and separation. In each, the central character is reunited with parents long lost in this magical womb.
Part III concerns two films, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Hours in which death is not overcome but itself becomes a path to reunion and to the womb. In each, I hope to demonstrate a fantasy of reunion with a loving mother through death and suicide. In The Hours, there are explicit images of a return to the womb. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has images suggestive only of a return to a blissful reunion with a maternal figure. I will deal more briefly with it than with The Hours, perhaps to return to it at another time. Read the rest of this entry »