I remembered the moment when my sixteen-year-old self held her breath and slowly approached her. Everything is untouched. The old piano room, the worn piano, the cold fingertips, the dazzling sunlight. If a thing moves faster than people can perceive it, it doesn't exist. So I couldn't hear my heartbeat, the frequency of my eyelashes vibrating, the vibrations of my hair and dust. We are so close, yet we are so far apart.
The story takes place in the misery of a rich lady who is about to be married away. In the days when the painter and the young lady first met, there was always a distance between them. The bright day, following behind you, peeking at you beside you, and having careful conversations are all just to keep your appearance in mind. In this way, at night, in the lit candle, by the burning fireplace, draw your portrait. I drew you just to deliver to your mother, and your mother just to marry you to a strange man, to entrust you to a predetermined destiny.
Freedom is the furthest distance between them.
The painter has a free life, painting, coming to the island to complete a short-term job, and can live a real life without getting married.
The young lady will eventually be arranged to be a wife, a mother, and a beautiful portrait. She was so infuriated when she saw the artist's first surreptitious portrait. She's not angry that she has earned her trust just to get the job done, she's angry that the person in the painting is nothing like her. She wanted a little freedom, a little bit of her true self.
The portrait of the burning woman crackled in the fireplace, as if the painter's cry for the freedom of Miss Chengquan was also a whisper of her own heart, her rising love.
The director gave the story a chill vibe. The painter jumps into the sea to retrieve his canvas, the light blue room, the linen sheets, the emerald green skirt, the lady runs to the cliff by the sea, the wind blows her hair and skirt corners. That kind of cold invades the soul and has nowhere to hide. The continuous burning fireplace, bonfire, candles, and the staring eyes of the painter and the young lady softened the cold soul.
They talk. She plays music for her. The music tells about the storm coming. Lightning flashes and thunder, and the wind and rain that is pressing step by step flow out from the keys. Black, blue, mud and cold rain filled the room. Orange flames rose in their hearts. In my imagination, the first time the lady wanted to kiss the painter was when this performance took place. An unexpected storm, a desire with nowhere to run.
She smiled at her who didn't like to laugh through the bonfire, she walked to her hiding under the boulder, and kissed her on the lips. The artist paints carefully behind the canvas, and it is not the lady who is really exposed, but the artist himself. The young lady has become a free soul, and the painter has entered a dream she has never seen before, the woman dressed in white and coming in the dark.
When reality came, the artist realized that she had never been free. Some things in this world are unspeakable, and she probably understands the situation of the young lady. She herself became the subject of the painting, engraved on the twenty-eighth page of the book.
It's a very personal film, but it shows me a big theme. Private is because the director's portrayal of a lesbian image made me see my bravery and humbleness in love, as well as my innate perception as a girl. Magnificent because it shows reality and dreams, love, friendship, women's status, oil painting art, symphony and more beauty that is hard to describe in words. It made me examine the freedom and shackles given to women by the society and era I live in.
In the end, a lot of things can't be said. It wakes me up that afternoon when I'll always have sixteen, the heartbeat that takes my breath away, my treasure, my burning girl.
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