Composer Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) and director Mick Boyle (Harvey Keitel) are old friends and relatives who have been together for many years. The two of them, who are older, spend a holiday together in an elderly health resort in the Swiss Alps. Fred has been retired for many years, and his daughter and secretary Lena Ballinger (Rachel Weisz) takes care of his daily affairs. Recently, he encountered the Queen’s envoy personally coming to his house, seeking him out to conduct a birthday concert for Prince Philip. He is most famous. The work "Jane Song". Mick is well-known for portraying various female characters. At this time, he is preparing to make his last film. He plans to have Hollywood legend Brenda Morel (Jane Fonda), who has collaborated with him in eleven films, as the role. Called a group of young screenwriters to polish the script with him. In this hotel, they also met Jimmy Tree (Paul Dano), a new-generation Hollywood star, Joyce Owens (Madalina Diana Ghenea), the newest Miss Universe, Diego Maradona (Roly Serrano), and many others. people.
"You Got The Love" by The Retrosettes Sister Band at the beginning of the film and "Simple Song #3" performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and sung by Xiumei Cao at the end of the film actually point to the same theme-love. In this regard, it can be said that Paul . Sorrentino took full end to end response. But what is interesting is that although it is the same theme, the inner taste is completely different from the beginning to the end of the film. The whole film is a return under the same theme of faint "love". This return route is not a straight line. It has crests and troughs. Emotions fluctuate and cognition fluctuates with it. But in the end it belongs to a simple song, a simple song.
After the opening song was over, the camera turned to the courtyard of the hotel, and the Queen's envoy asked Fred to come out of the mountain. While Fred declined, he used marriage as an analogy to ridicule the monarchy, "losing one person makes everything change." As soon as the camera turns, Maradona, who needs oxygen to get ashore, quickly montages Fred's dream. In the dream, Fred was walking on a stone path, and Madalina Diana Ghenea, the sexy Miss Universe, was walking sideways, and was even temptedly rubbed by the towering breasts of the other party. Then the water rose, Fred could not enter the painting with Jesus and The angel's sanctuary, exclaiming his wife Melanie's name, was already submerged by the water.
When facing outsiders with a clear consciousness, Fred seems to have reached a frivolous understanding of his own emotions, and can even be used to make jokes, but in fact, he is just like the King of the Ball who needs oxygen, his body is almost dead. Toward the dream of Fred, Miss Universe walking on the catwalk, seems to come from the gate of heaven, but is full of vitality that scorns the world, and the old and old Fred has not been unable to touch the gate of heaven, he will be boundlessly void. Submerged. Fred's fear is embodied here. In fact, he has clearly realized what aging means to him. Death is a fate that everyone can't hide, and he seems to be a few steps away from heaven forever.
When he woke up, he was still in the courtyard, and Mark Kozelek was sitting on the stage singing "Onward". Accompanied by the singing of "Onward through the night of my life", Fred sat down next to Jimmy and started a conversation with him about the work and levity. Jimmy believes that both Fred and him are in a similar predicament because of people's indiscretion: As an actor, he was praised for his role as a robot with an invisible face when he was young, and Fred's work is only " "Jian Ode" is remembered by the public. Fred told him that recklessness is a temptation that cannot be resisted, and it is also a misunderstanding.
The recognition of Fred and Jimmy's labeling is fundamentally a simplification. However, Fred did not use "simplification", but emphasized "levity". Recklessness is an attitude with an emotional basis based on "lev". The opposite of it is serious investigation and overall grasp, but it is obvious that apart from each other, almost no one holds such an attitude towards them. Jimmy, a young actor, resonated with Fred in his heart. He was young, but not arrogant.
Fred bids farewell, and on the way back, he meets the Tibetan monk, the legendary "The man who can levitate", who greets him "Tashi Delek". In the elevator, he met the woman who pulled the mask off, smiled, but didn't strike up a conversation-he was no longer "indiscreet".
Fred was walking to Mick's room when he heard someone practicing his "Jane Song". In Mick’s room, Mick told him that he knew that the two young screenwriters had fallen in love. Although they didn’t know it, Fred asked "how do you know". Mick said that he knew everything about "love", and Fred had already Too old to learn.
At this point, the title of the film appeared, and the whole film officially began.
After Lena arranged Fred’s stay in the hotel, he planned to go to Polynesia with her husband to bid farewell to her father. Fred said that he had been here so many times that the Tibetan monk had never floated, and Lena said that his father was too cold. After checking his body, Fred asked the doctor if he was really so indifferent, but the doctor smiled without saying a word.
The young screenwriters under Mick were brainstorming amidst the noise. Fred said to the meditating Tibetan monk, "I know you can't float in the air." Then when he was sitting on the bench and tapping with plastic paper, he heard someone contacting him for "Jane Song". In the supermarket, Mick bought a lot of things, while Fred only bought a band-aid.
"Levitate" and "levity" share a common root, and "indiscreet" has the vitality of "rising" underneath. Although they are similar in age, Fred and Mick are polarized. Mick is still working hard for his posthumous work "Life's Last Day", to come to the curtain call in the most gorgeous way. Fred’s enthusiasm for life has been dissipated. He is no longer "indiscreet" nor believes in the magic of "floating in the air." Jane Ode is his most important memory.
Fred and Mick walked on the gravel road and talked about Gilda Black, whom Fred had been obsessed with. They also talked about whether Mick had sex with her, and finally talked about memories. Memories are painful topics for Fred and Mick, who are now nearly old: Mick said that he can't remember them at all, and Fred said that he had made great efforts to hope his daughter could remember some moments, but the effect was not satisfactory.
Fred's indifferent self-licking is quite miserable. The path of his life is like his dream. It will be drawn into the void before he can touch the other shore, but his mark has hardly left any trace. If Jep in "A Beautiful City" is a self-willingly empty walking nihility, Fred does not want to disappear, but faces the nihility before and behind him but is powerless. Only in music, when he "directs" a group of farm animals, can he grasp the present and return to joy.
The ball king and the silent old couple walking in the restaurant, The Retrosettes Sister Band sang "Dreams are my reality" on the stage, Fred and Mick continued their gambling and hoped to pee a little bit tomorrow. Back in the room, Fred found that Lena had been abandoned by her husband, so he filed a complaint with Mick and agreed to come and explain things clearly tomorrow. The young prostitute walked out of a tenant's room, and the old man watched her leave silently. The next day, Lena's husband Julian explained his reason for abandoning Lena on the grounds of sex. After Fred was forced by Lena to give out this reason, he saw Lena leave with anger.
In the absence of youth, whether it is the mastery of things, the mastery of emotions, or the mastery of the body, there is a deep powerlessness that permeates everyone. This is true for everyone. Like the aging body displayed in the sauna, silent in the entanglement, like a corpse waiting to be judged.
Lena's outburst against Fred, literally she uncovered the fig leaf of Fred's long-term unfaithfulness to his wife Melanie, symmetrical that she is now suffering the consequences of her husband's unfaithfulness, and then after reading it carefully, she can find that the whole outbreak In fact, she claimed in Fred that he could understand her complaint: with Fred's vigor and indiscretion, how could she understand Lena's despair and powerlessness now-this is a person who used to have vitality and even caused people around him to suffer. The sympathy of the people for a person who is now full of death. He only understands weakness, but does not understand pain. His "understanding" is so hypocritical that it is unbearable.
However, the
ball king signed the fans, the rebellious girl rebelled against her mother, the silent wife in the restaurant slapped her husband with ears, and Lena in a formal dress came to the restaurant. The next day, Fred said to Mick, "I haven't been so happy for a long time." They discussed the moment when they first rode a bicycle, and then they found out that the old couple who had slapped their husbands in the restaurant yesterday secretly had sex in the forest.
Weakness is not absolute, people will recover if they are still alive.
In the courtyard at night, Laura Pierazzuoli sang "À ma manière (my own way)" on the stage. Jimmy talked about his experience in pondering the new role. Lena began to reflect on why he broke up with Julian, and Fred finally admitted that he was only Understanding music: music does not require language and experience, music is pure. Fred, who only knows music, doesn't know life at all; his mother Melanie knows his daughter Lena, but she is not here. She has to face the facts and digest them. The fact is Lena's nightmare: his husband just ran away with a sexy devil, so simple. No matter how ugly the facts are, only after facing the facts, Lena and his father can let go of the knots in the conversation: their father and daughter are not bad in bed, and if there is a father, there must be a daughter.
Facing the facts and letting go of the knots can we start again. Fred only knows music, so he followed "Jane Song" and began to instruct the young boy to play the violin. "Jane Song" is not only simple, but also beautiful, because it was the work of Fred when there was still love in his heart. And his explosion in front of the Queen’s envoy finally announced this. He poured all his love into his masterpiece. During his lifetime, after his wife, he did not allow anyone else to sing "Jane Song". .
"Jane Song" is his beautiful, he intends to guard it for his whole life.
It was the touch of the young masseur that first dissolved his mind. Touch is another kind of music that can be perceived without words and experience. Under her finger, Fred was like a piece of white paper. Through the indifference he couldn't express, she felt his deepest emotions, "You are not suppressing anxiety, you are emotionally mixed." Fred said that it may be because people are afraid of the joy of touching; and the girl said, if this is the case, this is the reason for touching more.
Embracing the joy of life is not a decision, but an attitude.
Without even thinking about the ending, Mick has already begun to celebrate the completion of his posthumous script. The whole world knows that Maradona is left-handed, and he still hopes to receive this special affirmation from others. In addition to career introduction and watch introduction, he couldn't say anything. The mountaineering coach Luca Moroder (Robert Seethaler) also began to use his extremely clumsy approach to pursue the goddess Lena in his eyes. Embrace life, anytime, anywhere. The king plays football, climbers climb, and Miss Universe participates in the beauty pageant. Everything is happy, “not at all stupid”. No one is prepared in advance, so there is nothing to worry about.
Frad, who had nothing to do, told Jimmy that his life was basically left to miss his wife Melanie. Jimmy quoted Novaris's sentence: "I'm always going home". On the rooftop, Maradona missed her childhood wearing the No. 10 jersey standing on the green field, but said she was thinking about the "future". In Mick's script, the last sentence of his deathbed is the heroine Brenda said: "I lost so much time because of you, I lost the best time of my life".
All the stillness is nostalgia; all the future is home; all the past is lost. In retrospect, in the dead, time is homogeneous.
Lena understood that Julian had only found the feeling of freedom of life, and she herself started to walk this way. Mick felt that the only person around him was Fred still trapped in the shackles he made himself, so he persuaded Fred to visit Melanie in Venice. Fred admits that he has never been so passionate about life.
Jimmy tried to play the old Hitler, reproducing a story that no matter how strong the will is, it will eventually be defeated by time. Jimmy decided to abandon this role and was among a group of dying people. He decided to give up the fear of death and chose the desire for life, pure, extreme, impossible, and beyond moral desire for life.
Jimmy said his choice, the miracle is on, the Tibetan monk is floating in the air, Miss Universe is out naked, and youth is a miracle.
Then embrace the ultimate debut of life's desire-Hollywood Queen Brenda. This actress, who has never read more than two books in her life, has climbed to the pinnacle of Hollywood on her own, but at the end of her career, she would rather choose to make more money by making TV shows in order to save money to pay off debts and buy the house she had dreamed of. She didn't come to support Mick's last bad film she thought was destined to save Mick's life and dignity by the way. After all, life will continue if there is a movie or not.
Everything is like a soap bubble on the stage. After the brilliance, it finally shatters, and all lives are extras. As Jimmy said, although Mick has won fifty actresses, he is not a great actress and director. He is a great director. All the female characters he creates are proof of this. He and him The characters affirm each other, he is his work. For Mick, his life will come to an end without the next movie. So he told Fred that emotions are everything in life, and he went down from the window sill.
The doctor told Fred that the results of the physical examination came out and that everything was normal, even his prostate was very good. Mick kept it from him all his life: he never slept with Gilda Black. Gilda was his first love, the one who walked hand in hand in the forest when he was a child, and it was the moment he "learned to ride a bicycle".
You will get old if you live for some reason, but youth is at the door, and you can find it when you go out. Fred finally went to Venice, worshipped his old friend Stravinsky, and liberated his deepest knot in front of his long-lost wife Melanie.
The perception of life has always belonged to the individual, others cannot know it, children cannot know it, and even loved ones cannot know it. Everything the other can know is distorted. Distortion will constitute misunderstanding, will be confined to chaos, will create conflict, will bring pain, but this is the nature of life intertwined. Fear of misunderstanding, confusion, conflict and pain is essentially the fear of death, and fear suffocates life. Faced with this predicament that can never be escaped, only love is the answer. Transcend fear with love, seek desire with love, life is complete with love, and love is youth. If love is endless, youth will never die, and life will never end. The return of the beloved to the original point is the simplest, like the same song "Jane Ode", a simple song.
Postscript:
Judging from the story, "Young and Vigorous" is far less obscure than "A Beautiful City", and the character settings are much clearer. If "The Beautiful City" is a waltz symphony, and all aspects of life are affected in one go, "Young and Vigorous" is a duo of two instruments, which is constantly responding to the final theme.
However, compared with "The Beautiful City", although the narrative content of "Young and Vigorous" is less obscure, in contrast, the narrative logic is scattered a lot, and the internal structure of the narrative is less sophisticated, mainly based on dialogue. It seems rather rigid, and the image language and character symbols hardly see much shine.
This brings about a series of problems: from the conflict caused by the indiscretion of others, to the hesitation of existence caused by the decline of one's own memory and the loss of common memory, the lack of coherent inheritance and transformation; the loss of control from all aspects brought about by aging And the feeling of powerlessness associated with it, to the self-understanding of facing the facts and starting anew, there is no corresponding basis for conversion. The guard against unraveling the "Ode to Jane" that Fred put up because of Melanie did not build a step-by-step decomposition process, and Mick's suicide made Fred instant enlightenment and cannot provide a reasonable explanation: after all, wrapping up feelings for eternity or dismantling Unlocking the shackles for immortality is still an attitude choice in the final analysis, and it is not inconsistent with the supremacy of emotion in life.
The most important thing is that "Young and Vigorous" is almost completely unrestrained in its value scale, and completely crushes all other life dimensions with a single dimension of sensualism. If you go all the way based on the mood of the movie, you can indeed achieve a high degree of viewing experience. The problem is that this hardly leaves any room for later speculation. As a life, the desire for real life is the foundation of everything; however, as a human being, there are many but not many but the basic characteristic of rationality. In this regard, in comparison, "The Beautiful City" is not a little bit excellent. Jep's seemingly aimless sway is actually a clear-headed observation and verification, and finally even knocks in front of the metaphysical dimension of religion. The door tries to transcend, and finally the return after all dimensions have been touched is more convincing.
In general, "Young and Vigorous" is still an excellent film. Whether it is the lens, the music, and the connotation, it is the leader of the same kind of film. It can also be the representative of the film list of Paul Sorrentino. live.
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