LYRICA is also an approved treatment for GAD and in fact began to be used in lieu of lorazepam. It is so licensed in most of Europe. It was also found to be useful for the type of pain caused by fibromyalgia and so licensed in the USA. I also don't believe Norma's character is meant to imply that she has been using ALL of those medications together, but rather that she's been chemically in treatment for a long time. Most of you also seem to have missed that she tells Vicente that she's also in psychiatric treatment I forget what she called it - something like psycho-analysis visits) and asks him if he's in such "treatment" too, because she misunderstands his "recreational" use of drugs. She's naive in that sense and illegal drug use to her never comes to mind.
BTW people, she didn't freak out and yells for him to stop because of the sex, she freaks out because of the song (a song she associates with her horrendously burned mother splattering herself in the garden in front of her). There is the implication that since her father kept the mother locked up in a room, while attempting to heal her, without mirrors, it's doubtful anyone else in the family would actually SEE her. It would be nearly impossibly to keep a child from noticing and reacting to mom looking that way! I think the extra trauma (as if seeing you mom commit such a carnage-resulting suicide wasn't enough for most people) of seeing her mom post-burn added to the hurt & trauma(and having such a crazy, weird dad didn't help).
The Dr at the clinic (shall we call it in old-style, a sanitorium?) tells Robert (her father) that she's reacting "to him as her rapist" because that's what Robert has told the clinic, that she was raped, because that's what he has assumed from what the found. He was never able to ask Norma what really happened. That's why we are shown both versions of events. We are shown Robert's memory of it - he assumes rape. We are shown Vicente's memory of it, where Norma freaks out and he doesn't know why and he's high. We see the actual event as it happened, and unless no one was paying attention while watching, you are meant to recognize the song and that hearing it re-traumatizes Norma, in fact, scares her into a frenzy. Imagine if only that had happened in the dance hall during the reception in front of everyone instead?
When the Dr tells the father they can't make her wear regular clothes because she tears it off, you are meant to recall (was anyone paying attention to the dialogue, is it a language problem/reading captions problem?) that Norma throws off her shoes AFTER her heel breaks and then her sweater and tells him she can barely stand wearing any clothes let alone high heels, that she'd just as soon walk around naked if she could! Whether she (her character) is actually a sufferer of dermatographism (look it up, I'm not your medical encyclopedia) and it's a side-affect of some of her meds, there really are people like that IRL (I know some and they've been diagnosed by different dermatologist, there's even an artist who's gotten some notoriety for it). So it wasn't Norman "being really a man." It was just a character feature. There should be no confusion as to who Norma is and what's wrong with her and that it wasn't the sex act that freaked her out and she wasn't raped, it was the song and the memory that freaked her. Yes, I'm sure the anti-anxiety drugs together with all the treatment was meant to help her work through and entirely forget her trauma.
BTW some people are confused about the relationship between Marilia, Zeca and Robert. Again, do people not pay attention to everything characters say, do you get bored, do you not realize that every word of dialogue has already been pared down and carefully chosen to the essentials. Movies are expensive, every minute of movie is meant to be there, there really can't be any filler, throwaway with little to no impact. Everything you see and hear was meant to be that way. These aren't Ed Wood films! Marilia clearly explains the entire backgrounds histories for each to Vera after the fiasco with Zeca. Just to review for those who didn't pay attention: Marilia was a maid in a home where she has served since childhood. Then she had a son, Zeca by another servant in the house who quickly took off once she told him she was pregnant. Zeca didn't grow up in that house, he was far from her (she kept her job and couldn't raise him in her boss' house and she wasn't married either) and then she had an affair with her boos and had another son, Robert (the boss and his infertile wife were childless and stole Robert claiming him as THEIR own son, never allowing him to know Marilia was his real mother). That's right, he thought she was just the housekeeper. She referred to both the fathers of her sons as "crazy" men. She even commented that both her sons were crazy too and that she believed she had "insanity in her womb" (the film translated it as entrails but in Spanish it meant womb) because their fathers were crazy.
Oh and "angelexposed" it was that mentioned in the "mirrored" parts that Marilia
kills her son Zeca, wrong! Zeca (as you call him Tigerman) was not "killed by the woman who gave birth to him." Marilia even points out to Vera that the 2 brothers had been "playing at killing each other" since they were kids!
What movie did you all watch? Robert finds Marilia gagged & tied up to a chair in front of the closed circuit TV watching Zeca rape Vera. Robert runs up to her room and shoots Zeca dead, after thinking it through being very careful not to accidentally shoot Vera, too. It it then that she realizes that Robert has (despite his horrific revenge on him, Vicente) somewhat fallen for her, Vera. She doesn't know why yet, until the next scene where Marilia retells the entire history of the family to her. Marilia felt compelled to do this after feeling she needed to explain to Vera why her son Zeca thought he "recognized" her.
Major clue here: actually pay attention to the details (every one, visual, verbal) that the moviemakers put it the movie, there shouldn't be any throwaway scenery or dialogue. If you miss any, especially in a detail-rich film like this one, you are bound to be confused and even reach the wrong conclusions. After reading most of this comment board I have to wonder what movie some people actually watched! And I hope it's just a problem with people's attention span and language and reading skills.
Oh and one more thing, it's a movie - not a documentary. Much poetic license has been taken with reality. It's a horror/Sci-Fi film, by no means is anyone to believe that the results achieved in this movie are realistic or even possible (at the very least at this time in history). When entering a cinema, you are expected to suspend your disbelief, it's all illusion, trickery and story-telling, with a message, often told through metaphor and allegory, not literally. It's art and license of art. Are you people as harsh and critical of Bond/Lord of the Rings/Star Wars films? I would think not.
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