"In Your Line" + "Indictment"

On my walk home through the blossoming trees a smile-inducing double play greeted my ears thanks to the alphabetical sort by song title. First, the DJ/rupture-Matt Shadetek remix of Telephathe's "In Your Line":

Followed by Antibalas' "Indictment":

But what I wanted to talk about is Last Tango in Paris -- the Bernardo Bertolucci directed film from 1972 starring Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider -- which I saw again last night for the second time in a year. When I first saw the movie with my wife I was a young man in my early twenties. I didn't really understand it. I understood the basic plot -- a guy who is mourning the suicide of a wife with whom he lived but was alienated begins a relationship with a young woman who he meets one day by accident when they're both looking at an empty, old apartment; I got that. What I didn't get was the guy's attempt to keep the relationship depersonalized and confined to the old apartment, which he ends up renting and which serves as the lovers' "walled garden." And what I was completely baffled by was the ending tango competition where he suddenly loses his cold, dominating demeanor and becomes a giddy lovesick school girl.

I think I saw Last Tango again a decade ago. And while I was better able to follow everything, I still didn't really appreciate it; I thought the ending foolish. Then again, a decade ago I couldn't imagine not having a girlfriend.

But when I saw it again last year, streaming it this time from Amazon, it hit me head on. This is a manifesto labeled ration for a burdened bachelor:

Paul: You want this man you love to protect and take care of you. 

Jeanne: Yeah. 

Paul: You want this golden, shining, powerful warrior to build a fortress where you can hide in. So you don't have to ever ... have ... You don't ever have to be afraid. You don't have to feel lonely or empty. -- That's what you want, isn't it? 

Jeanne: -- Yes. 

Paul: -- Well, you'll never find it.

Jeanne: -- But I find this man. 

Paul: Then it won't be long until he'll want you to build a fortress for him out of your tits and your cunt and your hair and your smile and the way you smell. And ... and some place where he can feel comfortable and secure enough so that he can worship in front of the altar of his own prick.

Jeanne: -- But I find this man!

Paul: -- No, you're alone. You're all alone. You won't be free of that feeling of being alone until you look death right in the face. I mean, that sounds like bullshit, some romantic crap, until you go right up into the ass of death. Right up in his ass ... till you find the womb of fear. And then ... maybe ... Maybe then, you'll be able to find him.

Paul/Brando's mistake is that he thought he could control the man-woman dynamic. And he was doing pretty well there for a while, keeping the relationship bottled up in the old, empty apartment in Passy; he was talking and walking a good game. Then he falls in love, which is what always happens eventually, and she kills him.

Lately, the last couple of months, I've been cautiously approaching the idea that the root of war is the relation between the sexes. Man and woman try to make two into one. But two is not one and cannot be one. Nonetheless man and woman keep on trying. So there is a lot of devouring, a lot of pain and suffering. This is nature. But multiplicity cannot be reduced to sameness. There is no going back to that fortress of tits and cunt and hair. To mommy. You can try though. That's what were stuck with. Good luck.