Broken time, eternal loneliness--on the movie "Broken Flower"--Written by Liu Ping
In today's film industry, violence and sensationalism have become a kind of market pressure, but Jarmusch is still Jarmusch, telling the story in the way he thinks is most comfortable with a persistent attitude. The master of minimalist abstraction, with a few touches of light color, outlines the spirit of smallness on the grand composition. If it is said that painting has changed from the complexity of classicism and Locke period to the simplicity of impressionism and postmodernism, then it is not out of reach for film to take this step. And the opposition between these two styles is like Angelopsky and Jarmusch in the video. If Angelopsky's poetry is to taste the eternal vicissitudes of life in complexity, then Jarmusch is to balance simplicity in simplicity Open the veil of life, and "Broken Flowers" examines the eternal loneliness of life through the flowers of life.
The movie doesn't seem to reveal much. The use of a large number of symbols makes "Broken Flower" full of poetic and implicit beauty - travel, letterhead, flowers, ink, typewriter, pink ribbon... Even the protagonist Tang sweatshirt on the body. These symbolic codes make the narrative system of the entire "Broken Flower" complete and rich, with the typical minimalist aesthetic characteristics of road movies.
The whole story begins when Don receives that pink email that Youko is 19 years old. In the first long shot of the film, the camera moves laterally with the postman. On the green-shaded path, the characters are always far away and sometimes they are near, as if time and space are zooming in and out. Jarmusch employs his signature minimalist long takes: simple, aloof, alienated, lonely scenes that pull out the plot and characters without any hesitation. The cold and deep world of Jarmusu always runs through a "walking" theme. He always likes to use the camera to follow the characters traverse, and the characters in his play always seem to be looking for something in an endless journey, such as "Permanent Vacation." The "searching" theme of travel is given multiple meanings in "Broken Flower": in the explicit sense and in the plot line, Don is looking for the woman who sent the letter and the child who is said to be him; and in the implicit sense, Don is looking for past lives and memories. However, the result of "seeking" is weakened and the process of "seeking" is magnified or even emphasized, implying that what he really wants to find is what is hidden behind his memory and life. He was going to find the facts, but from then on, he walked into the memory and walked back to his past years. I like Jarmusch's ingenuity, there are many forms of memories in life, most of them are just single-line still thinking flashbacks, there are few such vivid memories, memories become a road, a picturesque road all around, Such a memory is full of movement and color, like a dream, a dream that everyone looks forward to but rarely fulfills. The audience was as apprehensive as Tang, and did not know what kind of feelings he was greeted by. Is it to find a lost old love or rekindle a new love? Is it a prank or an unexpected family love?
Tang half-heartedly set out on the road, searching all the way and losing all the way. In order to find this unknown, he had to rummage through so many knowns. It turned out that the known is the burnout and loneliness hidden under the surface of life, and everything can no longer be hidden. Don's first visit is the beautiful and enthusiastic Laura. It was Laura's daughter Lolita who opened the door for Don. The girl was bold and open-minded, she stripped naked in front of him with impunity, and went her own way. This made Tang overwhelmed. Just as he was embarrassed to leave, he met Laura. When she appeared in front of Tang with charm, I could see in Tang's eyes that there didn't seem to be too many traces of time between them. After a sumptuous dinner, they returned to Wenrou Township, and everything was so natural and smooth, as if they were painting a painting that had been painted countless times . Maybe between men and women, there are some emotions that transcend time and responsibility, they are some diluted coffee, you think it has disappeared in the long years, but when you come back to those liquids, that dilute The familiar yet familiar taste will reawaken your palate. Jumping away from other intricate social relationships between the sexes, sexual relationships may be simple and pleasurable, like Lolita's sexual awakening, with childish straightforwardness, fresh and alluring, reflecting Don and Laura twenty Emotions from years ago. But time has changed, and there is still a big gap between the diluted coffee and the original flavor. Although they can have sex together, there is no place for Tang in Laura's heart. Passion has been gone for a long time, and the only thing left is melancholy and distance, the relived mandarin duck dream, it is difficult to travel through time to reach the original purity and sweetness of love.
The second woman was named Dora. Dora is an elegant and noble woman. When Tang suddenly appeared in front of her, she seemed restrained and unnatural. It could be seen that she did not want Tang to disturb her originally peaceful life. In the simple conversation, Dora's face was flustered and disturbed. This situation reached a climax when Dora's husband, a real estate businessman, came home. The three people at the table had their own thoughts, and Don and Dora were even more on pins and needles. , Tang hastily left after finishing the dinner hastily. If under Jarmusch's lens, Laura represents the sexual symbol between the two sexes, and the image of Mingla has a close connection with matter. Today's Mingla lives in a wealthy area with a wealthy businessman husband and a luxurious home. This brief meeting undoubtedly made her extremely uneasy. Although she was still wearing the pearl necklace from Tang, that past event was just a youthful dream for her, and the occasional recollection was okay, but it must not stimulate or even threaten her current state of affairs. Life. For material women, emotion is just an appendage of life. But gain and loss are always ups and downs. While enjoying a rich material life, Dora has to bear the lack of emotion, so she wears the pearl necklace given by Tang and keeps the photos that Tang took for her when she was young. Fill the emptiness of the moment with the sweetness of that moment. In reality, how many people are like Dora, living in a lonely today, recalling the empty yesterday, and then heading towards the still lonely tomorrow.
The third woman, Carmen, is a busy animal communicator. If the first two women more or less still retain a trace of affection and memory of Tang in their hearts, then this woman has completely forgotten him. After breaking up with Tang, Carmen changed her career from a lawyer to become an animal communicator. She never got married and devoted all her passion to animals. Facing her former lover, Carmen just talked a lot about how she communicated with animals, without much speculation. This awkward scene made Tang very depressed. In the end, Tang wanted to ask her for a walk, trying to bring back some memories of the past by changing the environment, but Carmen rejected him because he was busy with work. Tang had to go back to the car to leave, but Carmen's indifferent female assistant sent him away. The lilies that came were thrown back into the car. For a woman who no longer believes in feelings, beautiful and easily thankful flowers are like beautiful and fragile feelings that she can no longer have, so she can only abandon them and walk alone.
The fourth woman lived in the far country, and Tang picked a bunch of wild flowers in the wild in the countryside and gave this woman one by one. Penny lived in a dilapidated house in the country, with a wild beauty on her face, just like the wild flowers that Tang picked in the wild, beautiful and uninhibited, with sharp thorns. Penny expresses her hatred of Don with cursing and anger. In this world, men and women are entangled in love and hate, and they seem to be in a vicious circle of emotions that they can't get out of for a lifetime. The plants originally planted by love have mutated unknowingly over the years, and finally bear The fruit of hatred is more tragic than all the labor for nothing. Tang was beaten and walked away with the scar on his face.
The fifth woman has been buried in the ground, her name is Michelle. Tang bought beautiful chrysanthemums to Michelle's grave, quietly placed the flowers in front of the tombstone, and sat alone in the rain. The pain of life and death made the dying Tang hesitate. What did he want to talk about? The disappointment that came, the sadness after turning back, the beauty of losing so many times in my arms, the exhaustion and loneliness that could not be dispelled. Five different flowers, five different women. Those flowers are old, and their lives are some poor, some comfortable, some weird, some angry, some dead and silent. They seem to have not found their own happiness and contentment in the changes and changes. During the process of searching, Tang found that the original love was full of resentment and hostility. When they were young, they also weighed back and forth, looked at them repeatedly, and now they only have the same emotion of fate as they have seen through the heavens. In the blink of an eye for 20 years, we met again. It was the time when the beauties died of old age. At the same time, there was also the unresolved love and concubine. I help you? The meaning of Jarmusch seems to be that life is in eternal wandering, and the loneliness of the heart remains unchanged. Because of leaving, because too many years have passed, because he/she is cute and hateful. Seeing each other again after so many years, offering a pink bouquet, but being too unfamiliar to say anything. At this time, it is best to quote Byron's poem "How should I congratulate you if we meet again in many years?" Pu Shu's "Those Flowers", or the English poet James Blake's " The garden of former love has built a church, and the cold tombstone has replaced the green grass ". That is life, impermanent, and cannot be repeated Yes. Love has been lost, time has changed, personnel have changed, and Tang has left a deep-seated loneliness that sinks to the bottom of his heart. Seeing him sitting alone in the living room...so familiar.
The whole movie is full of such implication. Five women actually represent five periods of life and five stories, connected by this man. Like a magic jigsaw puzzle, five women are assembled together and flow through the river of time. Fragments of memories of the past appeared in front of Tang, and the scenery along the way seemed to be an ornament to decorate his memories, sewing the gaps between the images intentionally or unintentionally. It should be said that Jarmusch is careful in his handling of the term time-to-situation. He infiltrates the detached, bland plot line with a quiet sense of humor. Although the audience sees the casual narrative, the memory seems to be contained in the mouth. In it, there is a faint sadness. The circumstances of the five women are not the same, but in essence they are all just as lonely and tired as Don.
In this emotionally alienated society, the door between people is invisible, and you never know when to open it. The pink bouquet that Tang couldn't send, the delicate pink flowers that the delicate girls liked back then, no one cared anymore. It shattered on its own chest. If life is really a flower, then the graceful posture will eventually wither. Time is the most faithful executor of destiny. In life, time flies and flowers fall. Everything will be broken, not only the flowers, but also the lost time and love, and the eternal lonely life.
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