In this film, Curtis and his wife represent two completely different levels. Whoever chooses their position determines the audience's different experience of the film. Believe or not, often only between one thought. Normal viewers seem to choose to stand on the side of his wife and feel puzzled by Curtis' madness. But obviously, the director himself is not a normal one. The whole film starts from the dream, and then when the dream enters the reality, everything is actually adhering to an unexplained principle-the inner truth is the real truth.
Just as psychoanalysis always believes more in dreams, and treats dreams as an expression of the true self. The dream of continuous disaster is actually the real world beyond order. This also gives us important clues to interpret the mysterious storm. To put it bluntly, the storm is a huge reality that we cannot accept. Just as Lacan interprets the twisted skull in Hans Holbein's famous painting "Ambassadors" as the gaze of the real world. The storm actually represents this imperceptible reality, making Curtis a person too close to the truth. In Frieze Lang's [Green Windows Yanying], there is an example of a professor who killed his love rival. In the end, he woke up, found that it was just a dream, and continued to live his own life. But in fact, he in the dream is the real him. In fact, each of us is a murderer, but in reality we disguise ourselves as a decent professor. This is still true in this film. Curtis saw the great danger in the world in his dream. In reality, he is doing everything he can to make himself a normal person like his wife. The so-called psychiatric history of the mother is actually not as simple as the director's blindfold. Inside, it is even more a simple way out for Curtis. In fact, Curtis hopes that he is mentally ill and uses all means to convince himself. In his opinion, only integrating into order and receiving treatment is the best way to escape that future storm.
But the really scary thing is that he is not crazy. After checking all the information, he found that he did not have any symptoms of mental illness. But the dream is like a wild horse that has run off, slowly invading the order of reality, fantasy begins to appear when awake, and the pain in the dream will continue for a long time. Without the protection of dreams, the established order between Curtis and the normal world has been completely broken, and he must face the truth directly.
But truth is not everyone can handle, and without the external symbol system, Curtis has become a total lunatic in the eyes of ordinary people. But as he yelled after messing with the church lunch, "Only I know, but you don't have any preparations." He insisted on his own opinion, made all preparations, and tried to embrace reality in the end. But in the face of feelings, he still made a wrong move, which is to compromise with his wife who represents order. In the dream, his wife's eyes are fierce, which actually represents Curtis's inner distrust of this marriage. But at the most critical moment of accepting the truth, he chose to give up. Everything started again, and Curtis once again persuaded himself to return to the town's system, receive treatment, and go on vacation, as if the prophecy of a storm never happened.
At the end of the film, Nichols gave a real finishing touch-the storm really came, and it really fell on his wife's hands. The real world has eroded everyone's life at an unimaginable speed. This time, not only is Curtis' subjective reality, it extends to everyone's lives. After giving up, everything really collapsed, and it seemed to be a bad ending that couldn't be worse. But this happens to be the most unconventional expression.
Just imagine, if Curtis really did look ahead to the dreamland and insisted on being his inner self, he would surely be like Jack in [The Shining], picking up a killing axe. After all, in our hearts, we are actually murderers. And if he integrates into the society like a normal person, completely throws the storm behind him, pave the way for the dreams made in the first half, and turn it into the obscenity of the mentally ill. The whole film will not only become boring and naive, it will also make Curtis, who is reluctant to return to the system, become an empty shell of self-doubt. The brilliance of Nichols is that the truth is still the truth, it will not be transferred by human will, but once you notice it, it will swallow you without hesitation. The storm the wife saw was actually more like a kind of inner sublimation. For the first time, she truly felt the huge nihilism facing her husband. For the first time, the whole family returned to the same system. Under the apocalypse, people and people finally reached reconciliation. Although it was a little late, compared to the previous two, it was definitely a glimmer of hope in the dark. In order to avoid a huge tragedy, the director did not hesitate to choose a smaller tragedy, which is the real pity for the character.
As for the specific meaning of the storm, the audience can give answers that fit their own hearts. It can be a financial crisis, a marriage quagmire, or a lingering nuclear shadow... There are countless such answers, it is the audience. Shortcut to access the film system. After all, this world has too many real predicaments that can instantly destroy us, and the invisible and ruthless storm is the perfect metaphor for all of this.
Originally published in "Watching Movies" magazine with special screening, the main text of the publication has been revised
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