Slow is fast, drunk is also awake, life with alcohol content of 0.05% is not enough.
I'm a near-drinker for the first 26 years and 8 months, but I hear stories about men and alcohol all the time. Almost every time they participate in a dinner, the boys will have a few drinks. Choosing to watch "Alcohol Project" seems to be crossing into the bodies of four middle-aged wine putty uncles and experiencing such a happy, free and easy drunken and hiccups life. It is also very interesting.
For middle-aged men, alcohol is a key to open their hearts. "Only the dream of being drunk is the freshest. The momentary pleasure makes the spirit sink, and the experience of alcohol is used to exchange the soul." Just like the collective aphasia of the four men's four lives in the movie, they need an outlet to relieve themselves under the depression and self-isolation for many years.
After paying attention to too many issues of women's anxiety and women's living conditions, "Alcohol Project" made me sink in and read how middle-aged men like our parents faced the breaking down moment of their mid-life crisis in their lives. Men are not good at talking, and they are even more ashamed to cry late at night. They can only use alcohol to distract and express themselves.
Compared with the depression in Winterberg's previous works, the new film "Alcohol Project" is a little more relaxed. When the four friends who are also teachers met for the first time, the friends talked about the origin of wine as soon as they came to the table. Knowledge, the best flavor of drinking water, etc., professional and chatty, Martin silently listened to the discussions of the three old friends, which seemed slightly out of place. The lens language of the film also uses a large number of close-up and medium-range shots, and uses the technique of close-up, focusing on the relationship between people's lips and wine. At this end of the screen, I also felt the pleasure of wine sliding into my throat. Finally, Martin couldn't help his friend's persuasion. He picked up the glass and took a sip. At this time, the background music faded out, the table had turned into a pantomime, and a chorus of chants sounded. Martin's other world, another self emerged from the wine, he picked up the second glass of wine and drank it, the crowd's chatter gradually emerged, but the surroundings seemed to be different, and the concentration of the world increased by 0.05%.
Physical education teacher Tommy is the only bachelor without a family. The marginal effect pushes him to pursue greater excitement and enjoyment. He is alone but desperately longs for company and joy. He also drinks a lot more than others in the alcoholism experiment. I suddenly felt that they were both experimenters and subjects. In the catalysis of alcohol, they looked at themselves and each other. He saw the state of the male protagonist and made some enviable remarks to him. He said, "Alcohol is not good for alcohol. Your help is very big, you are full of energy and leisurely." But what he didn't know was that Martin and his wife Annika spent less time together, and it was all a pain in their hearts, and the psychological teacher Nicola was nagged by his wife. They were dragged by the trivial matters of life so that they couldn't turn over, but they were collectively aphasia and difficult to express. And I might as well understand this boldly, the "0.05% concentration plan" is their self-punishment model. They are punishing themselves and the people around them. All four of them are betting with an experimental mentality. , although the way of building happiness on the paralyzing effects of any addictive medium is known as chronic suicide, it is a self-sufficient revenge for their unreliable and unfulfilled life.
In the film, alcohol does not seem to be an obvious object of criticism. To a certain extent, it is the best friend of the four brothers. Naturally, it runs through the friendship between men like flowing water from beginning to end, sharing the joy of drunkenness and the helplessness of life together. Tears in laughter, unwilling to wake up. As Bei Dao's "Drinking Story" said: At that time we had dreams, about literature, about love, and about travel across the world. Now we are drinking late at night, the cups touch each other, it is the sound of broken dreams.
But alcohol cannot be planned. It is free from the will. Alcohol will dilute a love. After all, it will evaporate and disappear into the sun, leaving only a white trace. After the four-person experiment to see if alcohol levels had to be kept at 0.05%, the overall tone of the picture was gloomy and bleak, and the results of the survey were as we expected - it had a huge negative social impact and risk of alcohol poisoning. The irreducible sequelae of alcohol addiction also drove Tommy to death. He was punished by the school for drinking too much. After that, only the old wreckage and an old dog named Laban were left in the world. Wine, the troubles in reality will still not be solved, but we are like Faust who exchanged souls with the devil, maybe this is God's favorite joke, you think that after you recognize the darkness at the end of the road, you can It is easy to brake to change lanes and derail to survive, but in fact, the gears of fate have been stuck in the rails and sleepers, making people unable to move, and can only go down.
In fact, the most powerful drug that destroys a person is not alcohol, but long-term loneliness. This reminds me of the way Tommy persuaded Martin before committing suicide to inspire hope in life. I think Tommy should have been sober at the time, maybe what the alcohol project brought him was to realize the meaning of life just to prove its meaninglessness. These men are troubled by the mid-life crisis. Some choose to seek it, some choose to get rid of it, and some have no choice. They can only reconcile with themselves and go to heaven with the shackles of the devil.
After the turmoil, the three of them went to a restaurant for dinner. The waiter asked them how many tables they wanted. After a little hesitation, the three still chose a table for four, but the chat content was no longer as chatty as before, and the topic was withdrawn from alcohol. After Tommy left, the three old friends seemed to have established a new type of relationship-peaceful and cordial, lonely and firm, like the mellowness brewed by the years, while the previous four seemed to be an experimental bond, Alcohol turned into a rope, implicated in the common laughter and sorrow among the four.
In the last 7 minutes of the movie, the tone suddenly became brighter, and the boys and girls danced happily with the three uncles. The music at this time was exactly the same as the music that everyone danced passionately in the title, but it created a transition and ending with a completely different atmosphere. Still shaking and wandering, but no longer out of control after alcohol paralysis. Martin looked at the sea, and the waves burst into a layer of bubbles, which was where his best friend Tommy once ended. He jumped, and everything came to an abrupt end.
I couldn't help but flash back to the scene before Tommy left: the rickety boat that went out to sea also seemed to be drunk, carrying Tommy who couldn't extricate himself to the depths of the sea, he might go to find his true safety place. How good would it be without alcohol, how bad would it be without alcohol. Tommy fell into the sea, the picture turned around, and the students sang the prayer-like sound of nature, as if it was an ode, towards the sea, towards the direction of heaven, to sober him up.
We still miss you.
To Tommy.
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