Perversion the Social Relation

Exotic Rituals and Family Values 105did? All I'm saying is, nobody asked you if you wanted to be broughtinto the world. So the question is now that you're here, who's askingyou to stay?" Francis's rituals have apparently functioned since Lisa'sdeath to give him a reason "to stay," to continue living: he exists toguard Christina from the harm that may befall her. When that role isdenied him—when he loses another little girl—Francis's outrage leadsto his plan to murder Eric. But to do so also requires him to becomemore involved with Thomas: to convince Thomas to help him, and togive him the gun Thomas inherited from his father, Francis must tell therest of his story, and here is where we learn of the police investigationthat informed Francis of his wife's affair. Francis desires to redress thepast losses he's suffered and the past crimes against him—by Lisa's murdererand by his wife and brother—by displacing his previously impotentanger onto Eric. And in curious ways, Francis both fails and succeedsin achieving his desire. In the film's penultimate scene, Eric and Francisapproach one another, Francis's gun in hand, but matters don't play outas we might expect (particularly if this were an American film). In thedialogue that follows, Eric speaks first:"Don't be afraid. I know everything about you.""What do you know about me?""I found her.""You found who?""Your little girl."[cut to Eric and Christina in the field discovering Lisa's body][Eric to Francis] "I found her."Silently, Francis embraces Eric, as if Eric's role in finding Lisa's body hadactually served in some way to restore her to her father, safe and alive.Francis's powerful impulse first to preserve the possibility of the ritualat Exotica and then to avenge himself on Eric for destroying that possibilityparadoxically forces Francis to move outside his limited relationsand the closure of his world. But it is that enforced movement into newmodes of relations with the familiar figures in his ritual that may actuallyenable him to find another strategy for dealing with his losses. Inthis sense, the "law" of limits—on what strangers could do to little girls,on what he could do to his own little girl—that Francis tried to call intobeing through his conduct with Christina was more effectively if puni-