The Lover

When the young girl ( I will call her Jane) first meets Chinamen ( I will call him Mr.) she is on a ferry crossing the river, in a dirty white dress. Her lips are an innocent pink, and her hair is in pigtails with a ribbon. Mr spots her because of her fedora, and he tries to strike up a conversation, an awkward conversation, He offers her a cigarette and she declines. he also seems to have a thing for white women. later mentioning how hard it is to get a French woman, stating the only way he could be with a French woman was with prostitutes while living in France, he also only wears suits, separating himself from the other Asians who wear traditional attire, makes me think has a complex about his background/ ethnicity.

There meeting:

They ended up in his car, back in 1920s Vietnam, cars were a big deal. He asked her if she was studying, and she said yes. he asked her what grade she was in, and she said 11th, as he lit a cigarette this was the first time she saw the ring, his mother's ring as the smoke went between his fingers. he asked how old she was, and she said 17, she was 15. She asks him his age, he says 32. The tension is in the air, he slowly places his hand over hers she closes her eyes in ecstasy. She gets out of the car as he has his hand between her thighs.

The second time he sees her is outside her boarding school as he waits outside for her, she teases him by kissing the car window.

She follows him on foot to his mistress' apartment, he explains, that young rich Chinese men have mistresses. she is intrigued and says she likes the idea of him having mistresses. He says he is afraid of falling in love with her, she says she doesn't want him to love her. they start undressing, he stops himself saying she is too young, she leans in and starts kissing him so he won't feel guilty, she is fully nude next to him on the bed.

There first time:

he gives in and they become intimate for the first time, When she arrives at his apartment, she looks youthful with her pink lips, and pigtails with ribbons in her hair, now she looks older, after the deed she looks more mature, She looks like a woman.

He starts bathing her, he says she looks sad because they made love in the daytime, she exclaims“No, it's me, I'm always a little sad, like my mother”. They lay next to each other, she tells him about her troubled home life, and he tries to figure out her intentions, but she does not make them clear, but later tells a friend she likes him the way he is, jobless and rich. But he has no job or purpose, he is a lover. he lives off of his father's wealth. They make love again. By the time they finish, it is late evening, he takes her out to eat.

She comments on how she can't be with a Chinese, she has Prejudice, and she unknowingly hurts Mr’s feelings. He looks visibly uncomfortable with her remarks. She asks if a girl in his culture can marry when they are not a virgin. Just to spite her, he says, no, once a girl is no longer a virgin, no one will want her, no one will marry her. He hurts her feelings, but she laughs it off and says she wouldn't want to be with china men anyway. when she gets back to the boarding house she cries. After this incident she becomes cold towards Mr, she only sees him for money now. Her feelings are now removed.

He does not pick her up anymore, he sends his driver to get her so they can make love after school. She no longer wears her dirty white dress, she now stuns a beautiful white dress and expensive shoes but has her ribbon pigtails and fedora. She meets him by the door, they make love on the floor. They are shameless now. After their steamy lovemaking session, he takes her out to eat, telling her about his father's plan for an arranged marriage as she continues to eat unfazed. She asks “Do you love her?” he says no. She does not care, at this point, they are like friends with benefits. She later says to her friend “It's his wealth that takes his strength away”.

she goes back to the Mr’s place, she kisses him while he sleeps, this is intimate like she loves him somewhere in her heart. He wakes up, usually, when they made love, he was always on top, but now she gets on top on moans as she satisfies herself. but when they finish, she is back on the bottom. She submits. this is the most intimate they are, he uses all of his might. She is screening from enjoyment, as is he. Mr’s driver drops her off at her real home this time.

as she walks into the house, she has this new confident strut that makes her family suspect she has been hiding something from them. the fancy car dropping her off does not help her case.

Mr meets the femily

Eventually, Mr.and her family end up at a restaurant, seemingly filled with French people. He introduces himself as if he were her lover, telling them about his mother and father, but the family doesn't care because he is Chinese they don't take him seriously, even jane acts as if she is embarrassed by him, she doesn't utter a word, and eats. Her family used him to get food. They are more excited once they see him pull out the cash to pay for the food.

They go dancing, mostly French people and 1 or 2 prostitutes. Mr. dances with Jane as her brother laughs. Jane's brother threatens Mr. They only stop when Jane’s mother says that her brother is drunk and not to mind him.

Jane hears a very seductive tune, looks over to her right, and holds the boy by the hand as they walk to the dance floor. they start dancing very seductively, in contrast to how she was dancing with Mr. She is Shameless, her mother is crying, saying she did not raise her children well as her brother gyrates seductively on the dance floor with a seemingly chinse prostitute, and her a young Frenchmen.

The slap

Once they get back to to his place l Mr is very disappointed and she can see it in his face, She takes off her Fedora and he puts his keys down, she stands next to the bed looking ashamed and wondering what Mr will do next,

Mr looks at her as she tries to look away, he slaps her hard pushes her onto the bed, and Yanks her panties off. this is the first time he has been aggressive with her, the first time he has treated her like a prostitute, just as he would treat any other prostitute. Jane is nervous as she plays with her eyelashes he pulls her in closer and inserts himself, this is the first time she is not moaning, he is the only person who moans at this point. if you didn’t see the rest of the movie, this would look like a rape scene. she is breathing heavily and it only lasts for a few seconds. As he finishes pleasuring himself, he Zips his pants. sits on the bed, Jane still in the same position she was in, asks how much he would pay her for this encounter if she were a prostitute. he asks how much you need. she says her mother needs 500. without her even finishing her sentence he rushes over to his jacket takes out the wallet and gives her the money.

He asks her when she will be leaving for France, she says by the end of the school year but she is not sure because her mother has taken a liking to living in Indonesia. her saying this makes the following events make sense, I think she has already started to mentally prepare herself to leave him, she didn’t even give herself space in her head to consider that maybe this person means something to her. She has pushed him away whether consciously or unconsciously because she already made it in her mind that this would not work. I think she has abandonment issues from her father dying.

After this incident, she is no longer wearing white, or her dirty white dress anymore. she is now wearing a brown dress and Brown shoes, still with her Fedora and pigtails. everyone was already calling her a s*** and saying she went with the Chinese man to sell herself, now she owned it. the school board already complained to her mother but her mother told them to let her go wherever she wanted to. her mother has now figured out how her daughter is sustaining herself. one thing to note,

she only takes off her Fedora and pigtails when she is with him. Even when she is no longer wearing white, she still has her Fedora and her pigtails.

Her fedora symbolizing how indepent she is as a woman, . and her pigtails still symbolize her youth and her pink staind lips what lose there color after making love with Mr. She loses her indepence ( fedora) when she is with Mr. Her youth (pigtales) and her rosey lips (sentuality) with Mr. She is in the nude with him,no gimmiks.

Mr goes to the family Mansion to talk to his father, he does not want to marry this mystery woman he is being arranged with. he is letting his father know that he has Found Love in this French girl. his father said he would rather see his son dead than see him with a white woman. Mr and Jane end up on the beach, Mr wants to be with Jane, and he makes his intentions clear on this beach but remarks what his father said. he also says he is nothing without his father’s wealth. Jane says she doesn’t care, she wouldn’t want to be with a Chinese man anyway. he is confused he says “but everything you said”, she makes it clear she was lying, she doesn’t care. It is also on this beach that we get to learn where her prejudice against Chinese people comes from, she tells the story of how her mother worked hard and used to own land on this beach, something about how the locals lied. the government stole their land and eventually killed her mother. they used to be as good as any other French people, but after they were accused of stealing, all the other French people did not want to associate with them. now they were the poorest white people around.

now this is an observation, she can either be lying to protect him from losing his father’s wealth and chasing after her, or she is telling the truth, and this whole time she didn’t feel anything. when they meet up for their regular sessions, he tells her to repeat after him, you were only with me for my money, say I never met anything to you. and she repeats after him after that he cries, he just wants her to say it so he can move on,

he gives her THE GOLD RING that Was his mother, her gave her his heart with that ring

. he still has the wedding, but as his bride is coming out of this beautiful golden chariot, he looks over at Jane who is in the distance with the crowd, she is wearing black, as if she is symbolizing the death of something. even though she said she did not care, the way she looks at him, her eyes are telling a different story. she looks like she is going to cry. Before his wedding, she went to see him again, this time she was wearing black. he isn’t alive with his fancy suits anymore, he is now destitute, depressed, and smoking an opiate. She tells him she will meet him one more time after his wedding. this time they don’t make love. that last time they were supposed to meet up never comes as her brother becomes abusive and has to be sent away, soon enough all of the French people are leaving colonized Indonesia. on this big beautiful Grand ferry, she is wearing her dirty white dress, her lips are pink, her hair is in pigtails and she is wearing her fedora. She is standing the same way she was when she first met Mr. He is watching her somewhere in the distance in his black car. she puts her leg out in a masculine way, standing in the same position she was standing when he first spotted her. She looks exactly the same. before she sounded sure now that she's leaving Him, she is crying as if she were a lover leaving her beloved. Before they were about to depart for France, her mother asked her if she was only truly seeing Mr for his money, and nothing else. She says yes she is only seeing Mr for his money.

later find out that Mr is the one who paid for her brother to go to school and also paid off their family’s debt. as they are on this big Grand Titanic boat, she hears her brother playing the piano, it is a beautiful tune that is out of this world. she goes to hide between some cargo boxes and she cries, she cries her heart out. She asks herself if she never truly loved him. before she sounded sure now that she’s leaving Him, she is crying as if she were a lover leaving her beloved.