The Frenchman Rohmer told three love stories in Paris, the Italian Antonioni told four French love stories, and the American Woody Allen reciprocated and told four stories about Rome. The three films are all written and directed by the creators; they all adopt a parallel structure to tell a few loves that are not intertwined; they also choose location instead of time as narrative clues, as if these intricate loves are not the point, they happen. The city is.
They have different interpretations of love. In Rohmer's narration, love is always accompanied by chance and unpredictability. When you think it is really good to hold it in your hand, it has already quietly moved away. When you are discouraged and hopeless, it does not know which corner it is lying in ambush, waiting for you to pass by, there will be a sudden surprise. . Under the lens of this classical master, love always stays at the most authentic and purest level of spiritual feelings and verbal communication. Between lovers, between female and female friends, between male and female friends, there will always be infinite love. Endless topics. They repeatedly explored from different angles, trying to find their own-more often other people's-heart, but they are always unable or unwilling to obtain it through hard work.
Antonioni’s focus is different. Here, love is abstracted as desire, detached from the mind, abandoning discussion, and entangled only with the body. Desire makes the objects that are not pursued become incomparably beautiful, and once the desire comes true, it loses its magic. Some people restrained their desires to always retain the illusory imagination in their hearts-the lovers who had just met and separated, finally reunited after two years, but the man always restrained his touch to a few inches above his skin and did not want to look at it. To the actual touch breaks everything; some people are desperate to devote themselves to passion, waiting for the reality to be unbearable, then look around at a loss-the man who wanders between his wife and lover, after extraordinary happiness, had to report to both women lie. It is difficult to judge these two types of practices. Maybe they are all selfish. However, love cannot be measured rationally. It only waits for those who are willing to be fooled to plunge into it.
Of course, Woody Allen is more interesting, laughing and cursing, handy, and romantic and sweet, it is more teasing and mocking. In the picture he showed, love is no longer love itself, not love in the mind or passion on the body. It has become a complex consideration, mixed with various factors that cannot be stripped away by modern society: money, power, fame , Status; self-esteem, vanity, absurd, ruthless... Woody Allen loves to put it down a kind of story is the best example: sexy, exaggerated, impulsive, brainless young artistic women-in "The End of the Game" and " The character in "Midnight Barcelona" belongs to Scarlett Johansson, which seems quite convincing. In "Love in Rome", only the rebellious Ellen Page is obviously unable to support this setting-often overwhelming. When the once reliable young man finally made up his mind to abandon her old life for her, she was already marching into the next life and romance. Love for her is a necessity of life, a necessary part of stimulating novelty, a proof of sexy beauty, and the spiritual support of the whole frustrated life. However, this is not caused by a specific person, it is just a flood Emotions, including vanity, exaggeration, emptiness and imagination, far exceed the essence of love.
Looking along the way, the love stories of the three directors seem to naturally form a clue: classic-modern-postmodern love. This can explain why this topic repeated by countless predecessors has not decayed. In different eras, love always has different aspects. Taking a step back, even if all aspects have been developed, all discussions have been exhausted, and all traps have been reminded, people will always be reconciled if they don't experience one in person.
The city here provides the background of these love stories, which has also become one of the motivations. Paris, Rome, and small seaside cities have indeed become examples of "Cities make life better." If you change to another city, it’s hard to imagine that the same story will still appear. For example, the lovers in Hou Mai’s film who are constantly dating in various parks in Paris, if you change to the gloomy Beijing, you will be desperate because there is nowhere to go.
【For Xinmin Weekly】
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