"I Want to End This".
When I first saw the title, I had an urge to explore. (Probably because these words are not the original sentence in my heart, but in my mind, I have had similar thoughts countless times...)
I'm curious, what does "all this" that "I" refer to after being embodied? And why does "I" want to end them? Will "I" resonate with me?
With these questions in mind, I embarked on a movie-watching/exploration journey.
At the beginning of the story, the film sets an illusion for us.
The movie borrows the heroine's tone to make the audience preconceived that "I" is the heroine who speaks in front of me.
Then, borrowing the precarious relationship between "me" and her boyfriend Jack, a second shell is set up, making people mistakenly think that maybe the so-called "end" of the heroine may mean the end of this dislocated emotional state.
Judging from the known information at the beginning, "I" and Jack do not have a deep relationship, and "I" not only can't remember how long I have known Jack.
Even "I" was secretly figuring out how to end the relationship.
However, while letting his consciousness tell him that he should make an end, the actual action he made was to follow Jack to see his parents...
Judging from the picture, "I" and Jack are likely to be a couple, maybe they are about to enter the marriage, maybe the ordinary "make do" couple who will fall apart in the next second.
Along the way, the two talked about poetry, musicals, biology, philosophy...
Everything looks ordinary, is it the outpost of a romance movie?
However, as the story progresses, you will slowly discover that everything is not so simple.
Jack is not a regular "good guy", and since returning to his parents' house, everything has started to go awry.
After getting out of the car, regardless of the waiting of his family and the freezing cold, Jack insisted on taking "me" to visit the surrounding farm huts first.
There, "I" saw the flock of sheep in captivity, and the remains of rotting pigs that had been housed.
It is not difficult to see that "I" is a person who is keen to think. Seeing the smelly sheepfold, "I" began to think:
When the two returned to the house, there were more strange things.
First of all, Jack's parents didn't go downstairs to greet the two, and the two had to wander around the house awkwardly. "I" found a basement between the conversations, but Jack refused to let "me" go there.
When Jack's parents came downstairs, Jack's face became ugly.
And Jack's parents don't seem to be quite right, they seem to be a little bit mentally...
Jack seemed a little resistant to his mother's warm embrace. What's even more strange is that when my father shook hands with Jack, my father didn't even look at Jack directly.
However, in a blink of an eye, a table of dinner was ready, and the family was just waiting for "me" to be seated.
The whole dinner was basically spent in the embarrassment of the blockbuster, mixed with a few laughter, and strange things still happened during the dinner.
For example, Jack, who has always had a good temper, got angry because his mother always mistook the first version of the quiz game for the genius version, and kept repeating the narrative.
There was a scene when "I" was drinking, and the scene cut by the camera seemed to be the only "me" left in the audience.
When it was time to eat dessert, the appearance of mother and "me" changed significantly.
The childhood photos on the wall will even instantly change from "me" to Jack.
Later, "I" found that there were poems written by "I" in Jack's room.
The age of Jack's parents seems to travel through time and space, and they are old and young.
What's even more bizarre is that "I" finally walked into the basement, but found a bunch of janitor's tooling in the washing machine in the basement.
And a batch of paintings that were supposed to be painted by "I", but ended up with Jack's paintings...
Suspense... The rhythm of a suspense film?
Who is "I"? Is it Jack's girlfriend Lucy? Or Jack? Who is the protagonist of this film?
Back to the movie, since the heroine had said before that she was going back to catch up with the thesis, she had to go home tonight. So after some setbacks, the two finally embarked on the road back.
On the way, the two discussed many social and even life issues on the film.
Out of the blue, Jack said he was craving something sweet, saying it was the best time to eat shivering ice cream on a snowy day.
So Jack drove to the dairy.
The roles of the three saleswomen seem to have different meanings.
One of the female clerks with red rashes on her arms suddenly reminded the hostess when the two were leaving, that she could actually consider not going forward, after all, the front is very dangerous...
Weird, unstoppably weird.
The heroine finally left with Jack. The problem of throwing away the ice cream cups on the way, Jack proposes to drive to his former school, because there is a garbage can to throw...
By the time we got to school, things were going to the point of no return. Jack suddenly disappears and the heroine is forced into the school building, where she encounters an elderly cleaner.
The two started a series of conversations about Jack.
Suddenly, Jack appeared again. Jack and the heroine changed into two avatars respectively.
They began to dance happily.
This is probably the rare bright moment in the whole film
Just when the two in the illusion were about to get married, a thin version of the cleaner suddenly appeared in the middle of the road.
Soon, the cleaner threw the man down with a dagger, just like a stage play, the man began to spontaneously "spray blood"...
In the end, the old, fat cleaner took care of it all, after which he changed his clothes and returned to his car, which was parked off-campus.
On the windshield of the car, he seemed to see his past: the constant bickering of his parents, the anxiety of young Jack...
The images pained him, and he felt like he was on fire, shaking and hot.
So he took off all his clothes, as everyone is when they first came into the world - naked.
In a trance, he saw the animation of his favorite dairy shop again.
Then, the pig that was once covered in maggots appeared. It leads the old cleaner to the end of time and space, slowly "ending" it all.
At the end of the film, the scene turns, and the gray-haired Jack reappears. This time he won the Nobel Prize in Physics, and publicly published the most important "equation" discovered in his life...
It turns out that both Lucy (the heroine who has been mistaken for "I" before) and Jack are just two avatars imagined by the real protagonist of the film.
In fact, the "me" who really wants to end all this is not the hero and heroine who appears the most, but the old cleaner who pops up every now and then.
He is the real protagonist, the "originator" of everything.
In other words, a lot of the scenes in this film are actually just a fantasy (almost, everything is a surreal image of the old cleaning worker).
The story of this road + meeting my parents may have actually happened, or it may be just a fine moment after the cleaners have been treated by fantasy.
It's not hard to imagine what a boring and absurd life the cleaner has lived in the real world, in the eyes of so many people (including himself).
He was plain looking, and his family was ordinary. What his parents brought to him was either chattering quarrels or uncaring indifference. In short, the communication on the spiritual level must be lacking.
On the one hand, his external conditions are not outstanding, but on the other hand, he has a broad interest in literature, philosophy, physics, art...all of which are involved.
Of course, and eggs.
He is still an insignificant and unremarkable uncle cleaner in the eyes of everyone.
Perhaps, his emotional road has also been extremely difficult. Maybe his girlfriend had abandoned him, or maybe he hadn't started a real relationship at all.
Whether it was at school or on the roadside, no one wanted to pay attention to him, and no one even wanted to give him a second look. Although his inner world is rich, from the outside, he lives like a transparent person.
I can't tell if it's my own problem, or it comes from the eternal unsolved mystery in this world. Too lonely? Thoughts are out of tune with the people around them, and the situation has long been solidified...
Perhaps the way he proves his existence is to keep talking to himself. Because his world is too cold and lonely, his world is so lonely that only himself is left.
And the only things that accompany him every day are bowls, cups, mops... these cold and rigid objects.
Animation during his childhood was perhaps the only joy in his life.
Maybe a swing.
These are childlike things, and the care and warmth that can only be given to him by human beings are what he yearns for and longs for in his heart.
But just relying on reverie, is more and more unable to comfort myself. His spiritual world has almost withered into a desert.
He was standing on a vibrant campus, but it was as if he was in the middle of nowhere.
But on weekdays, he seems to be no different from ordinary people. Perhaps, the so-called ordinary people can't escape the inner loneliness.
No one has a moment of cold and fragility, it's just that the dose that everyone perceives is different.
Now, in his later years, he may have been bound by numbness for too long.
The mediocrity and indifference day after day made him realize that even if he continued to wait, there was a high probability that the hope he had expected would not appear.
Fields, snow, dead branches.
A desolate and heartbreaking beauty.
For this slightly abstract film, many people expressed obscure perception. But in fact, why doesn't real life also make us feel difficult again and again?
The film is trying to touch on some of the ultimate questions of human beings, about time , about self , about identity , about human beings ...
The life of a cleaner is like that of all living beings, mediocre, boring, ununderstood, and without light. (Of course these are just one of the longitudinal sections.)
In the face of movies, it is difficult for us to escape a problem. When talents cannot be realized, when worldly success and glory are always far away, when chaos, humbleness, and despair are all over the body, how should we deal with ourselves?
Or not only those who have ambitions but have not achieved anything, even if they are really worthless in the eyes of ordinary people, how can they save themselves in the face of the indifference around them and their alienation from the outside world?
Everyone knows that " oranges are not the only fruit ". However, in the human world, there always seems to be a unique measurement rule and standard scale.
What diaper to use, what milk powder to drink, what school to go to, how many marks to take in the exam, how many words to know, what kind of equations can you solve, what level of graduation certificate to get, to get into a hundred top companies, how much horsepower you drive, how old you are Getting married, how many feet of house to live in, how much milk powder money to save...
People are busy around these things, running around, calculating, comparing, and weighing. People spend their whole lives deepening the concepts accumulated from childhood , and then trying to arm themselves and identify others.
People no longer have the mind to sit on the swings and enjoy some kind of pure fun in complete ecstasy.
People began to draw boundaries in their hearts, and people chose to cast contempt and ridicule at some people. They also choose to project admiration and possessiveness towards a group of people.
Busy adults are always ignoring the "important" things that are important but "don't matter" for the "important things" that are not important.
Among them, I don’t know how many children who were originally innocent, just like the pig that was eaten by maggots. On the surface, they seemed to be well taken care of by the owner. .
Everything is transformed into symbols, signs, concepts, numbers.
After all, matter acts as an outlet for emotions.
Humans love making money. But in fact, is that money that people make? It is clear that what people make is the reference behind the money.
If money cannot be exchanged, and money is completely an empty concept, will there be anyone who will tirelessly crave it?
After all, what people earn is security.
In fact, what have we been pursuing for a long time?
Everything points to an inexplicable, extremely complex and even contradictory feeling, doesn't it?
Perhaps, people are probably living with one breath. It can also be said to live by faith. The so-called one thought of heaven, one thought of hell. If belief collapses, people are indeed prone to emotional collapse and collapse.
Inevitably, there may always be moments when we feel hopeless, mourned, and deceived. It was as if he was living in a wilderness, isolated and helpless.
But, " If you are in a bad mood, you will always get better ", right?
Maybe it's "there is nothing new under the sun", maybe it's "the posterity will mourn for the posterity", maybe everything is just the cycle of history, but there must be something "different".
It is this "difference" that constitutes the meaning of life for each of us, and it is this feeling of constant pursuit and relief that keeps us alive.
"History is as new as the future, and the present may be as old as the past."
In the movie, there is this poem:
"It's scary to come home, whether the dog licks your face or not, whether there's a wife or wife-shaped loneliness waiting for you at home. Going home is so scary that when you think back to that heavy air place you just left, take it with you. With some liking 'cause once you get home it's going to be worse and you think wistfully about pests clinging to straw poles long walks on the road roadside assistance and ice cream and certain cloud shapes and silence because you don't want to Coming home is... just terrifying and the silences and dark clouds of family life only add to the general discomfort such clouds are actually very suspicious of their constructs, unlike the stuff you left behind. You yourself are from another. Cut out of a cloudy cloth and returned, left unlucky to meet in the moonlight, unhappy to return to places that shouldn't be loose, cloth full of threads, sloppy and tattered like a rag, you come home like It was the gravitational pull of the alien Earth that reached the moon Now the force is doubled Pulling loose your shoelaces and your shoulders The verses of worry on your forehead are momentarily deeper You come home deeper A mouthful of connection to the dryness of tomorrow The well passes through a wisp of weakness so so so day by day you sigh long and sometimes people are so ok anyway, you're back the sun rises and sets like a weary prostitute the weather is like a broken limb There is no ups and downs and nothing moves except the ebb and flow of salt in your body Your vision is hazy You are unaffected by the outside weather The darkness like the skeleton of a huge blue whale You are back With the sight of X-rays Your eyes have become A kind of hunger You came home with a mutated talent Came to a house of bones And now you see everything and everything
It's all bones"
After reading it, there is a sense of powerless gloom, right?
But there is another song that has been sung like this:
"Even if the umbrella is broken, the body is soaked and there is no way to do it, even if the sneer is so cold that it doesn't taste good, even if I fly thousands of miles to the world and lose again, even if I fall a hundred times, I will look for the next heartstring. It's still like a poem, once imagined, too good, too many experiences, too many disappointments, loneliness, God knows, I know
If you are disappointed too much, try one more time. The days of insomnia are very beautiful
The sky is so tired that no matter how dark the night is, there are still stars ”
Even if everything is "bones", even if "the most important thing has been missed countless times", it is still necessary to "know the vastness of the night sky" , and still remember that "no matter how tired the sky is, there are still stars in the night".
After all, even if no one rescues you with the "mysterious formula of love", you can still "break out" of it all in a self-help way.
"'What is life? Life is a process before death.'
So what is there to forgive? "
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