Originally Posted by AgrippinaX (Post 2076192)
My feeling is the cultural shift right now promotes exactly this sort of ‘murdering guys whose only crimes are domestic abuse’ thing. This was the case with Vigilante (2017) with Olivia Wilde and even back in ‘In Bed with the Enemy’ with Julia Roberts...
Very curious as to why @AgrippinaX would say this. “Domestic abuse” is rampant throughout the world. Police officers have told me it begins with verbal abuse, gaslighting, control, manipulation & then escalates to physical abuse. I enjoyed the movie yesterday. (Vigilante was also very good.) I was glad when Moss was finally rid of that monster. Saddest thing for me where I live is to see mothers & their children hiding & sheltering from their abusive partners. Can’t even imagine a life like this. |
Re: Trailer for a new Invisible Man movie
I wasn't impressed by the first part, hope the 2nd will be much better. If you wanna watch something like this movie take a look at Gone Girl (2014).
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Re: Trailer for a new Invisible Man movie
Why compare this to Gone Girl?
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Originally Posted by JennyferMc (Post 2178376)
I wasn't impressed by the first part, hope the 2nd will be much better. If you wanna watch something like this movie take a look at Gone Girl (2014).
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Originally Posted by Sedai (Post 2178387)
I am not seeing a similarity here...
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Re: Trailer for a new Invisible Man movie
Yes they aren't 100% similar, but Gone Girl is much better as a thriller.
Can you write your list of movies similar to Invisible Man? |
The Invisible Man isn't a thriller, it's a horror.
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Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 2177061)
(emphasis added)
Very curious as to why @AgrippinaX would say this. “Domestic abuse” is rampant throughout the world. Police officers have told me it begins with verbal abuse, gaslighting, control, manipulation & then escalates to physical abuse. I enjoyed the movie yesterday. (Vigilante was also very good.) I was glad when Moss was finally rid of that monster. Saddest thing for me where I live is to see mothers & their children hiding & sheltering from their abusive partners. Can’t even imagine a life like this. Many people will disagree but that’s how I’ve always seen it. This is nuance, the films where women kill abusive men lack that, for the most part, in my opinion. The Invisible Man was a reasonably good film but someone here said it could be seen as a tongue-in-cheek thing if you wonder whether Adrian was really the monster, which makes it that bit more fun. I’m pretty sure we’ve discussed this at some point somewhere with @Takoma11 and I’m aware I’m in a minority. I think I find it so difficult to explain this viewpoint because people always make reference to real life and why domestic abuse is bad. But it’s not about real life, it’s about art and I usually try to view art as abstract. I think it makes for poor, boring, underdeveloped stories with one-dimensional characters who don’t grow and always ‘win’ against men disproportionately more often than other tropes, that’s all. |
Originally Posted by AgrippinaX (Post 2178654)
I am in no way denying the reality and prevalence of domestic abuse. I think for me it’s about narrative, I don’t see these plot lines in film as ‘real life’ (which I think is part of the point in any creative medium) and on a diegetic level, I often feel there’s not enough nuance in them. It’s like a rape fantasy turned backwards - a certain type of man likes to imagine raping a woman who degraded/disrespected/dumped/didn’t like him and films like Vigilante create the opposite fantasy of a woman getting her own back on a man, both these types of film to me lack nuance. I’m pretty sure I have used this exact example here before but I feel the ending of Kill Bill shows the Bride & Bill’s relationship as complex and demonstrates that she has conflicting feelings for him to the very end.
Many people will disagree but that’s how I’ve always seen it. This is nuance, the films where women kill abusive men lack that, for the most part, in my opinion. The Invisible Man was a reasonably good film but someone here said it could be seen as a tongue-in-cheek thing if you wonder whether Adrian was really the monster, which makes it that bit more fun. I’m pretty sure we’ve discussed this at some point somewhere with @Takoma11 and I’m aware I’m in a minority. Adrian not only pursues her and antagonizes her, he continues to escalate things. I'm curious what you think would be left for this character to do. He is clearly not going to stop coming after her. He has hurt or killed multiple people she loves, sabotages her getting a job, etc. This isn't a "Goodbye Earl" fantasy where a man hits a woman a few times and she decides to murder him. Adrian has the intellectual and financial resources to make the rest of her life complete hell. He is a sociopath. There are a lot of horror movies in which main characters eventually rise up and kill the person who has been antagonizing them. I don't see the nuance in the film being about the relationship she has with Adrian--I see the nuance in watching a woman coming to terms with understanding something that should be impossible, in the way that the camera pans to the corner of a room and she (and we) have to wonder if it really is empty. I also don't think that it is comparable to a "rape fantasy". A man wanting to rape a woman out of wounded pride is WAY different than a woman fantasizing about killing or having power over a man who has abused her. Especially when the woman's first instinct was NOT to harm him, but just to get away from him.
I think I find it so difficult to explain this viewpoint because people always make reference to real life and why domestic abuse is bad. But it’s not about real life, it’s about art and I usually try to view art as abstract. I think it makes for poor, boring, underdeveloped stories with one-dimensional characters who don’t grow and always ‘win’ against men disproportionately more often than other tropes, that’s all.
Yes, there is a trope of "becoming a monster to defeat a monster", but I felt that the film took common tropes and executed them incredibly well in both the acting and the direction. I also think that a fantasy of putting down a person who has abused you is incredibly relatable. I mean, go and watch the documentary I just reviewed about domestic abuse. Watch the woman who, two years after rebuilding her life and moving and taking her husband to court, is once again being stalked by him. She can only look incredulous as the social worker tells her she needs to move to a new town and "disappear," but in the same breath warns her that her ex may get angry at her shutting him out and do something "extreme." Consider the look on her face as he says that her husband has just gotten really good at doing creepy things that are not technically illegal. This woman is facing the rest of her life of looking over her shoulder, wondering about any phone call from an unknown number, and not knowing whether or not a person who has threatened her life knows where she lives. She loved this man at one time. She had several children with him. But at a certain point his behavior crossed a line and there just isn't any "nuance" left in her attitude toward him because she just wants to survive. I'd say it's certainly no worse than the trope of the man avenging the rape/murder of his wife or daughter. On the other hand, if this is a trope that irks you, that's fine! We all have our storytelling pet peeves. |
Originally Posted by Takoma11 (Post 2178817)
I'm curious what you think would be left for this character to do. He is clearly not going to stop coming after her. He has hurt or killed multiple people she loves, sabotages her getting a job, etc.
This isn't a "Goodbye Earl" fantasy where a man hits a woman a few times and she decides to murder him. Adrian has the intellectual and financial resources to make the rest of her life complete hell. He is a sociopath.
I don't see the nuance in the film being about the relationship she has with Adrian--I see the nuance in watching a woman coming to terms with understanding something that should be impossible, in the way that the camera pans to the corner of a room and she (and we) have to wonder if it really is empty.
I also don't think that it is comparable to a "rape fantasy". A man wanting to rape a woman out of wounded pride is WAY different than a woman fantasizing about killing or having power over a man who has abused her. Especially when the woman's first instinct was NOT to harm him, but just to get away from him.
I do think that she grew, though not in a way you liked!
Because I think that her growth is about realizing that she has to become as ruthless as the man who is tormenting her. The first two thirds of the film is the emotional journey of her realizing what is happening to her and grappling with whether or not she is going crazy. Then in the third act, once she gets clarity on what is happening, it's about how she will defeat the monster.
I also think that a fantasy of putting down a person who has abused you is incredibly relatable. I mean, go and watch the documentary I just reviewed about domestic abuse. Watch the woman who, two years after rebuilding her life and moving and taking her husband to court, is once again being stalked by him. She can only look incredulous as the social worker tells her she needs to move to a new town and "disappear," but in the same breath warns her that her ex may get angry at her shutting him out and do something "extreme." Consider the look on her face as he says that her husband has just gotten really good at doing creepy things that are not technically illegal. This woman is facing the rest of her life of looking over her shoulder, wondering about any phone call from an unknown number, and not knowing whether or not a person who has threatened her life knows where she lives. She loved this man at one time. She had several children with him. But at a certain point his behavior crossed a line and there just isn't any "nuance" left in her attitude toward him because she just wants to survive.
I'd say it's certainly no worse than the trope of the man avenging the rape/murder of his wife or daughter. On the other hand, if this is a trope that irks you, that's fine! We all have our storytelling pet peeves. |
Originally Posted by Takoma11 (Post 2178817)
I also think that a fantasy of putting down a person who has abused you is incredibly relatable. I mean, go and watch the documentary I just reviewed about domestic abuse.
Originally Posted by AgrippinaX (Post 2178925)
In terms of plotting, I feel a more entertaining take is something like the original Rebecca (updated contextually of course), where she does marry him (maybe even falls pregnant) and leverages her thus obtained status in any way she can. She could discredit him professionally (he could well be intimidating his colleagues as in Novel’s Last Will (2012), and science is by nature a precise thing, so he couldn't ‘gaslight’ his way out of the predicament), ‘out’ him using that very secure status of a wife and thus make it public & leave him with no way to save his reputation.
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Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 2179068)
What documentary is this? I want to see it.
I’m confused. The original Rebecca with Olivier? Are we talking about the same movie? |
Originally Posted by AgrippinaX (Post 2179083)
Yes, I recently rewatched it and if you take Maxim’s version of events at face value, then Rebecca hated him but refused to divorce, instead choosing to fall pregnant by another man to raise the child as his heir and have a claim to his fortune, besides flirting with the cousin and just deliberately making Maxim’s life hell. That’s how he sees it, or tells the nameless protagonist he does. I think in this film you’re not expected to be sceptical as the revisionist approach wasn’t in fashion yet.
Joan Fontaine was so good as the frightened little miss. |
Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 2179100)
Got it. I always thought the first half or so of this movie was terrific & then fell apart somewhat with the subplot, which didn’t interest me one bit.
Joan Fontaine was so good as the frightened little miss. |
Originally Posted by AgrippinaX (Post 2178925)
In terms of plotting, I feel a more entertaining take is something like the original Rebecca (updated contextually of course), where she does marry him (maybe even falls pregnant) and leverages her thus obtained status in any way she can.
. . . As creative writing tutors say (I’ve got friends among them), it would give her agency and she would be the one taking action from the get-go, rather than ‘reacting’, which would also nicely avoid the problem of her being the victim. If someone says they want out of a relationship, they should be allowed out of that relationship. I mean, pregnancy permanently changes your body. Having a child with someone means that that person is directly connected to you for the rest of your life. And having a baby with Adrian would give him yet another thing to hold over her. There's a reason that there's a stereotype about men who keep their wives "barefoot and pregnant". Her escaping from him in the beginning is agency. She is making a choice about what she wants and makes it happen.
I’m not sure that I agree but I don’t know if we want to go into the semantics of that outside the film. I distinctly remember making these points the last time we discussed this film, I.e. that she did make a conscious choice to use his financial resources while it suited her. That is a choice, when you make a choice like that you accept the consequences and the fundamental restrictions on your life and freedom that come with using someone else’s resources.
And how can we say that him keeping her prisoner and sabotaging her birth control is a reasonable consequence of her actions, but her seeking revenge on him for murdering her loved one is not a reasonable consequence of his actions?
Sure, except I don’t see her as ‘ruthless’ at all. She gets her sister and friend involved which is such a cliché - you’d think with her implied understanding what kind of man Adrian is, she’d know what a selfish and stupid thing it is to do to put someone else’s child in danger. I definitely already made this point here. She is simply relying on other people who suffer for it, how is that ruthless or particularly impressive or laudable?
And getting support from her loved ones is exactly what any abuse victim SHOULD do! We can't have it both ways. If he is so dangerous that she shouldn't risk even being near her friends, then how is she not justified in seeking revenge? Is she supposed to cower alone in an apartment, waiting to Adrian to do something horrible to her? Isolating people from their loved ones is Abuser 101. Hurting the people that someone cares about to harm them is also Abuser 101. Again: what does she do at the beginning? She leaves. That's it. She just leaves. She tries to rebuild her life outside of their relationship. And unless she is putting on one heck of an act for the entire film and even when she is by herself, this is clearly a person who has been traumatized by her experiences, to the extent that she can't bring herself to walk down the sidewalk to check the mail. She relies on her loved ones in the beginning of the film, and then when it becomes clear just how far Adrian will go to hurt her, she becomes more ruthless and begins to fight back. |
Originally Posted by Stirchley (Post 2179068)
What documentary is this? I want to see it.
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Originally Posted by Takoma11 (Post 2179330)
The idea of marrying a man you don't want to be with and getting pregnant with his baby just in the hopes that the power this gives you might one day put you in a position to discredit him would be a horrendous attempt at agency.
Her escaping from him in the beginning is agency. She is making a choice about what she wants and makes it happen.
How can you say that we don't understand their relationship but then argue that she "made a conscious choice to use his financial resources".
I would hope that if I one day agreed to move into a house with someone who made more money than me, it would not be implied that one of the "consequences" of that would be someone keeping me prisoner and deciding that I don't have the right to use birth control. I'm not sure what you mean when you say "a choice like that". Is there ever an implication that she went wild with his money? Or that she was dating him because he was rich?
And how can we say that him keeping her prisoner and sabotaging her birth control is a reasonable consequence of her actions, but her seeking revenge on him for murdering her loved one is not a reasonable consequence of his actions?
We can't have it both ways. If he is so dangerous that she shouldn't risk even being near her friends, then how is she not justified in seeking revenge? Is she supposed to cower alone in an apartment, waiting to Adrian to do something horrible to her?
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Originally Posted by AgrippinaX (Post 2179426)
If that’s a view you take, fair enough. I never said it would win any original screenplay prizes. It would depend entirely on how it’s done, but I would at least find it refreshing as opposed to the woman-in-trouble-running trope. Besides, people do it, plenty of people are that calculating and see far ahead, as in, I’ll marry him at 19 and divorce at 30 as a wealthy woman with a property portfolio. I’d say it would depend on how much power and money the man had and how little the woman did.
Yes, but it’s not as if she wants to move to New Zealand and then does. It’s a choice stemming exclusively from her circumstances, orchestrated solely by Adrian. If she actually had her own narrative and plan outside leaving him, she would have more agency. I am well aware then plenty of critics & reviewers think she’s a very well-rounded character with her own story. I just don’t see it - we don’t even get to glimpse her drawings.
Well, that’s the problem, when we’re not told explicitly, we make assumptions. But I would say we are all adults here and we understand that if you live in someone’s huge house and don’t pay the bills, that’s not because the house owner has forced you to and is a horrible person.
Many relationships that involve abuse and control do not start out that way. Sorry to keep going back to that documentary, but the one woman talks about once she lived with her husband, every day when he went to work he would take her wallet (to keep it safe, naturally!) so that she didn't have her driver's license. He kept all of her credit cards in a safe. I'm not recalling the exact wording, but I'm pretty sure there is a part where she alludes to sexual abuse. But even if he doesn't physically/sexually abuse her, it doesn't matter. The most abusive relationships I have seen from people I know have not involved someone having a hand laid on them. They have included: breaking into someone's personal e-mail and sending messages "from" them to others; making threats of self-harm; using children as emotional weapons (saying in front of a child things like "No daddy can't stay because mommy has decided she's mad at him"; not showing up for custody visits and saying "I wanted to come but your mom doesn't want me there"; literally not picking them up from a summer camp so often that the camp took the children to a police station where the police then called mom); calling their workplace and/or embarrassing them intentionally in front of co-worker; etc. And, honestly, even the most conniving, gold-digging person does not deserve to be held captive and also be
I mean, we don’t actually know about the birth control until much later and neither does she. I don’t know, I can totally accept that no one sees it the way I do. And I’ve said this before - I never intend to antagonise you when we’re having these conversations. I just think it’s so self-explanatory, she is a person who has always had to earn a living. She has no capital, even the lifestyle that comes with living with Adrian means she can’t pay for anything they do even if she wanted to. I think when women come into these relationships they know they’re dependent. They know it’s dangerous in many senses of the word and still do it. And this is completely separate from barefoot and pregnant and imprisoned and so on. He has cameras in the house not just to soy on her but because he’s a control freak who conducts secret experiments likely involving parents he wouldn’t want stolen and he simply has money, all that makes the cameras reasonable. Who says all the cameras are exclusively on her account to keep her prisoner? How about the reclusive billionaire trope that wants to hide away in his fortress?
But agreeing to be in a relationship where you are financially dependent (though, at the same time, it seems pretty clear she would have been more than capable of making a living and supporting herself), is not the same as agreeing to be someone's prisoner. Any relationship where one partner cannot walk out the door when they want to is not a healthy relationship. It is not okay. No person has the right to dominate a person and disregard their consent. And it's clearly not about the money, as evidenced by the part where she is offered a bunch of money and doesn't want to take it and has to be talked into it.
What I do agree with you on is there’s no way to resolve these kinds of narratives in any other way, that’s why I find them reductive. In the stories about men seeking revenge, you can have any kind of resolution - failed revenge, man chooses to keep personal enemy alive (e.g. Quantum of Solace), man being killed during his act of revenge, man marrying enemy’s love interest, finding out the said enemy was his father/brother, et cetera, ad infinitum. But female revenge always ends with the woman killing the man, that’s it. I’m not trying to out-argue you about anything, but I think none of the above makes for a good story. If something isn’t a good story on a narrative level, even if it does happen in real life, just don’t make films about it.
I also thought that the direction was interesting and the effects were used very, well, effectively. I saw it in a theater and there were gasps and cheers from the audience. I would argue that male revenge basically always ends with the man (protagonist) killing the man (antagonist). I agree that there are films with different endings, but they aren't big-budget horror/thrillers. Waiting for her to get the upper hand on Adrian was what kept me hooked into the film. To me it's not about the ending itself (because, again, 99% of revenge films end with the good guy killing the bad guy), it's the journey to that ending. I don't feel antagonized, but I stand by my feeling that her fear and paranoia, as well as Adrian's later actions, tell us everything we need to know about their relationship. It is, after all, a monster movie. And the man who
WARNING: spoilers below
knifes an unsuspecting, innocent woman because he can't handle being left by a romantic partner . . . he's the monster
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Originally Posted by Takoma11 (Post 2179677)
But this is assuming that her goal is to get back at him. She doesn't want revenge. She wants to get out of an abusive/controlling relationship.
Originally Posted by Takoma11 (Post 2179677)
But that is how abuse works! When you are basically being controlled by another person and possibly in physical danger from them, getting away is the priority. Survival comes before career ambitions.
Originally Posted by Takoma11 (Post 2179677)
I feel like we didn't watch the same film. ….Many relationships that involve abuse and control do not start out that way.
Separating fiction from life is, in my view, the only way to be able to enjoy the ‘aesthetic’, side of art (I think @Iroquois and I had a conversation about this in the Shoutbox in relation to Cabaret or Sound of Music, can’t remember). When I watch a film, I root for the more entertaining character. Not the Shakespearean fool as much as the one that ‘acts out”. That doesn’t always mean it’s the villain. But this is partly why I keep banging on about the lack of backstory in the film. Cecelia is not entertaining and it doesn’t matter whether this is because in real life, she wouldn’t be. If Cecelia had a personality outside this relationship, if she smoked weed, for God’s sake, or did anything of note, such as watching porn while Adrian was asleep, that would keep me hooked. This has nothing to do with ‘career ambitions’. Yes, I do understand being in an abusive relationship leaves no room for personal growth or building new skills, but this is where we need to distinguish between life and fiction. Yes, I do understand that she would be, in short, too scared to do anything whatsoever of any interest, but that is boring to me as a viewer and consumer. Creating a film or a novel means arranging events in a particular order to create an artificial semblance of progression and development, which is what we call a narrative. This is especially the case in a genre film. We know that is not how life works, things do not all progress to a conclusion, nothing gets resolved, but this is what I expect in a work of fiction (unless it’s some post-modern experiment). Even if in real life, Cecelia would have lost all sense of identity and agency in this relationship, this is not enough of a justification to make her interesting to me. In Gone Girl, Amy Elliott-Dunne is fascinating because she schemes, she sets up Desi, she has her own weird and fascinating personality, and she entertains, while we still sympathise with her a bit because Nick cheated. (Could also note that we do get a lot of Nick-Amy flashbacks and that Amy has a hell of a backstory with the books about her). Amy is fun to watch. Cecelia isn’t. You have explained very well why Cecelia isn’t, but why should I be engrossed? I keep brining up Gone Girl,, because this is another film in the broad genre of ‘domestic thriller’. (Incidentally, Gone Girl does show both sides and shows both parties as having been at fault in the past in some way.) Even Adrian is, as you say, a ‘monster’, he is more entertaining than Cecelia is (which is bad news as he is also quite boring).
Originally Posted by Takoma11 (Post 2179677)
Sorry to keep going back to that documentary, but the one woman talks about once she lived with her husband, every day when he went to work he would take her wallet (to keep it safe, naturally!) so that she didn't have her driver's license. He kept all of her credit cards in a safe.
Originally Posted by Takoma11 (Post 2179677)
If Adrian wants to hide away in his mansion, go for it… …I think it is a good story because of the suspense and the performances that are lifting up a story that has a lot of typical revenge tropes. It's not the story itself that is worth attention, it's how well it is executed. Much the way I feel about John Wick or The Man from Nowhere. I also thought that the direction was interesting and the effects were used very, well, effectively.
I saw it in a theater and there were gasps and cheers from the audience. I would argue that male revenge basically always ends with the man (protagonist) killing the man (antagonist). I agree that there are films with different endings, but they aren't big-budget horror/thrillers. Waiting for her to get the upper hand on Adrian was what kept me hooked into the film. To me it's not about the ending itself (because, again, 99% of revenge films end with the good guy killing the bad guy), it's the journey to that ending. I don't feel antagonized, but I stand by my feeling that her fear and paranoia, as well as Adrian's later actions, tell us everything we need to know about their relationship. It is, after all, a monster movie. And the man who
WARNING: spoilers below
knifes an unsuspecting, innocent woman because he can't handle being left by a romantic partner . . . he's the monster
If her paranoia and fear tell us ‘all we need to know’, fine. I appreciate this is a conscious choice Whannel made. He is telling her story, focussing on her perception, doing his best not to take away from it, because this is the kind of film he wanted to make. But it then becomes (for argument’s sake, let’s ignore the invisibility gimmick) a story about her feelings. There is nothing to it except her knowing she is right and the world telling her she is crazy. It is her feeling versus objective reality. This is why I feel this kind of film needs more characterisation than John Wick. If Whannel makes a choice to focus on her feelings, then she should be more interesting. You can’t, as you say, have it both ways. John Wick gives me gorgeous fight scenes and Kill Bill-style fight choreography. The Invisible Man gives me Cecelia figuring things out. There are millions of films like that that have nothing to do with domestic abuse, all the way to Prisoners where Loki has a gut feeling Alex Jones has something to do with the girls’ kidnapping, but can’t prove it. If it’s just about that, about knowing you are in the right but have no evidence and feeling undermine by that, then in a sense that makes it even more trivial. How is it a ‘monster’ movie if all we are concerned with is whether or not she is crazy? It’s what I would call an entirely inward-facing plotline, like A Beautiful Mind, where the resolution depends on John Nash realising he is schizophrenic (shorthand here). Cecelia, conversely, realises she is not crazy. All she desires as a character is to get out of the relationship, you have convinced me Is that all it is? All I’m getting is ‘no, this character is not crazy’. But then this is where I will again readily admit this is something I’ve always hated. I hated A Beautiful Mind. So, perhaps you got to the bottom of it and I have reservations about it because underneath the invisibility-cloak-gimmick exterior, it boils down to the ‘Am I crazy?’ narrative. |
Originally Posted by AgrippinaX (Post 2179426)
Besides, people do it, plenty of people are that calculating and see far ahead, as in, I’ll marry him at 19 and divorce at 30 as a wealthy woman with a property portfolio.
If she lives where property owned by either party before the marriage is off the table, then she won’t succeed. Eleven years of marriage might not be considered substantial depending on where she lives. But, good luck to her! |
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