As a director, Clint Eastwood has always had the ability to interpret prosaic subject matter unforgettable.
The first frame of the film is a close-up of an old inbox. The Mr. and Mrs Richard Johnson RR2 written above has been a little blurry because of the wind and rain, but it can still be clearly identified. This is a family with a male owner and a female owner.
A car drives from a distance with a pile of dust behind it, turns a corner in front of the inbox trail, and drives into a farm surrounded by white fences with a small house in the distance, Iowa Common, three-story cottage. The car stopped in front of the hut, and an unremarkable man and a woman got off. He and the woman were greeted by a lawyer and his sister.
The story begins with a will. The lawyer reads the document, but the content of the will confuses the two brothers and sisters. After their mother asks for their body to be cremated, the ashes are scattered on the covered bridge not far from here. The two brothers and sisters gradually learned the whole truth behind the request through the letters and handwritten notes left by their mother.
As the letter left by Francesca wrote, "A mother's love for her child is always easy, but is the child's love for her mother just as easy?", the children found that the mother who devoted her life to the family had an extramarital affair, sister and brother. The reactions vary, but the first time it is always difficult to accept.
Perhaps many people will lose interest in watching or reading because the subject matter is old-fashioned and the story is unattractive. The great thing about this film at that time was that it described a seemingly ordinary peasant woman Mrs. Johnson in such a detailed and complete manner The entire mental journey in an irresistible, once-in-a-lifetime love is only a short, insignificant four days. It is not so much an extramarital affair story as it is a thorough and profound exploration of the relationship between marriage and love.
Mrs. Johnson, who was relieved from the drudgery of the family, was relieved that her children and husband went to an Illinois fair on Sunday to display Caroline's award-winning bull. The first scene where she appeared was preparing food for the family in the kitchen. With her slightly tired eyes, she still did not forget to hear the pleasant music while turning up the volume of the radio. She called out to the sons and daughters who were farming outside, The husband was eating, and the son who came in first casually slammed the outdoor door shut. Mrs. Richard rolled her eyes and asked him, "How did I let you close?" The son's insincere apology was not over yet. , the husband made a louder bang when he came in, an interesting detail that exposed the trivialities of married life and the unhappiness that always followed.
Then the daughter from the room obviously had different music tastes from her mother, and changed her favorite channel at will. Of course the mother said nothing about the behavior of her husband and daughter, all the details of the family relationship itself are reflected in this small dinner table scene, full of trivial sounds of the collision of plates, even the sauce has to be prepared That's right, flies are often seen in the film on the dining table, by the transparent window.
Our protagonist has to live with it because it's an integral part of married life, visualized through flies, and at that dinner table, it's still buzzing. She tried to communicate with them, but found that no one cared about the little thoughts in her heart. She twisted her hands together and gently pulled the ends of her messy hair.
She knows all the things in this house very well, knows how to open the drawer that her husband can't open, help him pack his luggage, and explain the little things in life. The details of the drawer may indicate that the connection between her and this home, this house is stronger than we imagine. more closely.
She has always been a very interesting person. She has planted several beautiful flowers under the tree in front of her door, enjoying her time alone, listening to operas on the radio, and being company with a dog she doesn't like very much.
When she met him to ask for directions, she was dressed as a peasant woman who was doing housework. She slammed the dust on the carpet on the pillars in front of the door. When she saw his car approaching, she drank a sip of black tea on the swing seat in the corridor, and kept her hands on guard. Putting the floor on her chest, leaning against the white pillars in the corridor, further symbolized her connection with the house.
The man was looking for a covered bridge, the woman said the name of the bridge he was looking for "Roseman Bridge", but could not describe the location of the bridge accurately, she offered to take him to the bridge, and slapped casually when putting on his shoes The dust on the buttocks turned to look at the man, and there was only a confused simplicity in his eyes.
Mrs. Johnson, Francesca's Mel Streep's posture and movements set a textbook example, and photographer Robert's Clint Eastwood also presented an extremely rhythmic and layered acting.
Robert obviously did not expect this result, and hurriedly threw the debris on the co-pilot into the trunk of the pickup truck, which also implied that what he had experienced was a long journey that belonged only to one person.
This kind of encounter only belongs to the era without GPS, elegant and romantic.
He talked about the fragrance of the land, but she who lived here was unmoved, simply chatting, explaining the background, he was from Washington, went to Chicago after marriage, went back to Washington after divorce, and she from Italy was going through For a long time, I don't remember how many years of marriage.
At that time, she found that he had been to the place where she was born, the small town of Bally in eastern Italy, and the awkward relationship between the two suddenly eased. This man went to Greece for work and went to Brindis through Bali, but because of the beautiful scenery of Bali, he got off the train and stayed for a few days. This completely shows his romantic, casual, yearning for freedom, and unrestrained character traits. It is also a trait that Richard, who has lived here for generations, because he owns a piece of land, has never had, the man in front of her, and her husband. very different.
Their first physical contact was when his forearm touched her calf lightly while he was holding a cigarette in the car, and she shrank back reservedly and defensively. And this habitual action of his, she also saw in the end scene, but the things she took out at that time already had moving emotional tension.
He is not filming today, he is just doing survey work before filming. She observes him curiously and observes this man who is staying in an unaccompanied town because of a beautiful scenery, and observes that this behavior is in keeping with her attitude towards the world. A man with conflicting ideas. In the hot summer, in order to thank her, he picked flowers for her, and she made a little joke like a naughty girl.
On the return trip, she found that he and she had more of the same hobbies, and they both liked to listen to channel 1410, which played the blues, but it was only a two-kilometer journey. When he got out of the car he thanked him again, using Mrs. Johnson, who corrected him and said Francesca.
What happened afterward proved that those were four days entirely her own. Every seemingly indecent and taboo relationship, as long as you make a delicate and complete foreshadowing of its initial stage, you will find that it is very easy to understand and fully identify with this relationship. It is not a mistake, let alone indulgence. . He could see that the pure dream of a young girl who had been consumed by the trivialities of her married life but remained, was the desire in her own heart.
Surely the life she had imagined herself would not be quite so dull and fixed. With husband Richard, a clean, hard-working, considerate, honest, gentle man from Italy to America, this man has also become a good father, and when the word clean came to her mind, we guess she had Flashed in the middle are the dirty clothes that the photographer haphazardly put in the trunk bag of the pickup truck, covered by life magazines.
Her home is complete, peaceful, and the people around her are friendly and connected, but dull and uninspiring.
She peeped at him washing his upper body by the well, began to dress himself up for him, and the two of them prepared dinner together instead of just working in the field like her husband did. After dinner, he talked about many interesting experiences in travel and also Always do the things you can "talk to the kids".
Through the transition of this sentence, the picture jumps back to the two parents who are reading the manuscript and have children in the family. The elder brother thinks that the photographer has drunk her next, but the younger sister can distinguish the nuances of emotions. Men are sometimes dull and black and white, while women always find layers of richness, and at that moment, my sister even understood her own terrible marriage, saying that her own husband, Steve, was "weak, immoral, lying, But still a good guy, he just shouldn't get married."
Because in the mainstream society, people always stubbornly and rigidly accept an ideology. After a man or a woman takes the responsibility of marriage, they must commit to their marriage for a lifetime. Even if it is full of pain and boring, it will not change. Of course there are It's time for children.
It's like my sister is maintaining a marriage that no one is asking her to maintain. She herself did not answer why she wanted to maintain it.
In fact, the answer lies in the attitude of the villagers towards cheating women. It is a suffocating atmosphere in which everyone is a potential perpetrator. The American town in 1965 also truly represents every Chinese town and village with close relationships.
The photographer offered a way of life that didn't require a family, which was out of tune with mainstream culture. People in the town thought he was a hippie, and even she, who sat across from him smoking a cigarette, thought he was "willful".
He opposes the traditional American family ethics, but we know that he is more responsible than most people and understands the deep meaning of love.
There are thousands of emotions. After getting along for a long time, he will always get tired. If he gets together less often, it is also the reason for his divorce, and women need a sense of security. In fact, in the relationship between the two sexes, I have always been the one with a sense of alienation. I feel that there is no need to live together between men and women, and it is enough to keep in touch with each other. Such a relationship may be the only way to achieve a lasting emotion.
This is also her disagreement with him. So when he asked that question, she was wary and offended.
When she came back, she was reading Yeats's poems in the outdoor corridor. She took off her pajamas on a sultry night and let her naked body feel the breeze, but her arms were pierced by the bushes. She was completely in love, she made a bold move, wrote him a note, invited him to dinner, drove to the covered bridge at night, and stuck the note on the covered bridge.
He received a note inviting her to come with him, and she bought a dress for her, which meant the same thing as a wedding dress, so she never wore it again.
Unlike today's increasingly open social relations, the story is set in a small American town in the 1960s. Through another woman named Lucy, after the extramarital affair was known to everyone, she was completely wrapped in hostility. A possible comparison is made in the life of the author, and a detailed description of the social state at that time and the horrific punishment that moral binding may bring.
He realized this, worried that his invitation would have a bad influence on her, she still drove to the covered bridge with him, leaving unforgettable photos, in such a small town, her whereabouts were easy to find, It is also very easy to cause criticism, and people know each other.
They danced together after dinner, kissed, and talked about her hometown in tenderness, the same place, because of him and had different memories.
They went to a seemingly unremarkable place that the villagers of the town would not go, and spent the day. And tomorrow, her husband will return, and she will return to her family, to all the trivialities.
She was afraid, she was afraid that she had invested in real feelings, and the other party just regarded her as a passer-by, just an affair on the road. Although she did not express it so straightforwardly, she embarrassed the photographer through almost neurotic questions.
He begged her: "Stop talking."
After he left, she could only spend the rest of her life here, imagining that he might be chatting with some Romanian housewife about her affair, including her.
He begged her again: "Please stop talking."
She hissed, cursing his hypocrisy.
"I don't want to have you, because I can't get you." In the darkest moment of the whole film, countless extramarital affairs are caused by bad memories of the embarrassing breakup.
Robert truly fell in love with her, and he gave her a choice. When you are faced with such a choice, you realize how difficult it is. Even in the face of the union of spirit and flesh that others cannot pursue in their entire lives.
“When a woman gets married and has children, her life starts in one way and stops in another. She builds the reality of life and sets aside her personal needs so that her children can When she grows up, when they leave, they also take away her real life. At this time, she can no longer live her own life, and she does not remember what kept her alive, because no one asked her for a long time, and she also She didn't ask herself, because she never thought, she didn't expect to meet such a wonderful love."
True love comes only once in a lifetime. Paradoxically, if she went with him, she would also lose that love. She has to pay the price of losing most of her life, plunging herself into painful struggles and moral condemnation.
The last time she saw him was a week later, she and her husband went shopping in town, it was raining heavily, she saw him drenched next to the truck, staring at her across the street, he wanted to say goodbye, but because of his husband At the intersection of the red street lights, he hung the necklace she gave her on the rearview mirror, and she did not rush out of the car in the end. They separated at the intersection. She burst into tears, and her husband accepted it silently and silently. took her.
She had a good husband, a good husband and a good father until her death. This relationship can be so beautiful and moving because it achieves a perfect balance between passion and lust. No one will condemn such a sincere emotion, and it will not hurt anyone in the end.
Not like her neighbor Lucy.
She became friends with Lucy because of this, and she could naturally think of him when she was by her side. In this way, Francesca also influenced her own children, giving them a deeper understanding of marriage and family, and finally reached a reconciliation, and the ashes were scattered under the covered bridge as she wished.
The dreams we once had were all beautiful dreams. Although they didn’t come true, we were fortunate that we had them.
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