"Patterson": Poems of the Life of Ordinary People

You can't find a word to define "Patterson", just like you can't find a word to fix the director Jim Jamush, this old man with gray hair and sunglasses who often wears dark glasses indoors during the day, from shadow 32 Over the years, it has always been independent of American movies and even the existence of American independent movies.

But "Patterson", which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May of this year, scored the second-highest 3.5 points in the show, but still came home empty-handed. But it seems that Jamush’s films don’t use labels such as "Palmola" or "Best Screenplay Award". The three words "Jamush" alone are already the best publicity, and some people will be willing to do so. 'S standing and applauding, yelling "Bravo".

The story of "Patterson" couldn't be simpler. A bus driver named Patterson (played by Adam Driver) drove a bus in a small town named Patterson in New Jersey, USA. He worked regularly every day In his life, his only hobby is to take out pen and paper to compose poems between shifts. This is his biggest secret, and even his wife can't peer into his poems.

Let me say that Adam Driver is a perfect cast. This tall man with the surname "driver" has a unique, super-recognizable face, a long face, and a big nose, revealed from his facial features. The melancholy and decadence he has made has allowed him to frequently appear in various literary and grotesque roles in independent productions since his debut. From "Francis Ha" to "Drunk Country Folk Songs", to "Patterson", and Martin Scorsese ("The Silence"), Stephen Soderberg, who has not yet been released or even being filmed Ge ("Lucky Logan") new work. Adam Driver has always been the favorite of American independent film directors. In contrast, the role of Kylo Ren in the Star Wars series is more like he went to a big set to test the waters.

Coincidentally, similar to "Francis Ha", "Patterson" is also a nostalgic movie. In terms of the lens language of "Francis Ha", whether it is the black and white tones or the movement of the mirror, it is obvious that it pays tribute to the French New Wave period. Even taking the smartphone in the hands of the characters in the film is a vivid story that took place in Paris in the 1960s.

"Patterson" is not fancy and tribute in terms of lens language. Its nostalgia is reflected in the role in the film: Patterson works from nine to five every day, using pen and paper to compose poetry between shifts, and take it with him after get off work. His own bulldog goes to the bar for a drink and chats with the boss. Such a lifestyle is inevitably too old-fashioned and almost breaks away from modern society. He does not watch TV and refuses to use his mobile phone, so when the bus broke down halfway, he didn't even have a mobile phone to call the company to report. In the end, a primary school student lent him her iPhone with a huge cartoon mobile phone case. This scene The contrast is very funny.

Highly unified with the characters, the structure of "Patterson" is distinct and extremely regular: 8 chapters correspond to Monday to Sunday, and Monday of the next week. The story of the film also takes place during these 8 days. Every day, it is with his wife in bed. The overhead shot of waking up together starts, going to work, writing poems, getting off work, walking the dog, going to the bar to drink, and sleeping, like a robot, repeating from Monday to Friday, and then again and again. This is also the root reason why many people think that "Patterson" is boring, because its plot is so weak that it is almost non-existent. It is like a boring record of a boring person's boring life, which makes people sleepy.


But just in this seemingly unchanging stereotyped remake, people pay more attention to the subtle changes in the unchanging, which makes the details in the film seem incomparable. The job nature of the bus driver allows Patterson to meet different people every day, making the movie a "road film" on a non-geographical distance scale to some extent. Patterson likes to listen. The five big and three rough blue-collar workers talked about the girls they could but didn’t make last night; two adolescent boys and girls talked about schoolwork and complained constantly (surprisingly, these two little actors It is Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward who starred in "Moonrise Kingdom"); a poetry girl who sits on the side of the road and waits for her twin sister (Sterling Zhanlings, "The Soul", "Zombie World War); black young people who do not forget to practice Rap while washing clothes in the laundry room; these characters are all passers-by in Patterson's life without a name. In addition to the main and supporting roles, Patterson is no more special than them in the characters themselves, they are all part of the ordinary world.

When it comes to writing poetry, although this is Patterson's only hobby, to be honest, the level is really not flattering. It is different from the poems in "Yangtze River Map" or "Roadside Picnic" that "want to write well" but the end result does not seem to be satisfactory. The poems in "Patterson" are more like deliberately poorly written. Perhaps inspired by the poetry collection "Patterson" by William Carlos Williams, whom he admired, Patterson regarded writing poetry as his only hobby in life. But he lacks talent, and his poems are not even "not bad". A box of "Ohio Blue" matches can be turned into a poem in his hand, but the mediocre sentence pattern and lame Rhythm is really not flattering.

The same is true for Patterson’s wife, Laura. She doesn’t have a job, and her only job is to do housework at home, but she has one after another unrealistic fantasy: she likes interior decoration, and every day at home, she does everything in the house. Pretending to be a variety of black and white patterns; she likes to bake, and she likes to study all kinds of strange recipes that are difficult to swallow; she also said on a whim that she wanted to be a folk singer, and she ordered a lot from the Internet. A guitar, but no musical cell. Her dreams are like soap bubbles, appearing one after another, and broken one by one.

This may be the biggest commonality of all the characters in "Patterson". They all have their own pursuits and hobbies, but like 99% of the people in this world, they are born lacking talents, no matter how hard they work, they can only stay in The hobby stage.

Although the verses in "Patterson" can hardly be called poetry, the movie "Patterson" is like a neat, romantic, and interesting poem. The structure of the chapter body is like the sentence structure of a poem; the characters of "twins" that appear from time to time without explanation are like the rhyme of a poem; the poetic and smooth scenes are like flowing rhymes. Jia Muxu used the lens to compose poems. This "poem" is too charming, it sounds plain and boring, but it is clear after tasting it carefully.

Patterson's stupid bulldog took advantage of its precautions and smashed Patterson's poem notebook. Depressed Patterson went out for a walk, met a mysterious Japanese (played by Masatoshi Nagase, who once starred in Jia Mu Xu's "Mysterious Train"), and got a new notebook. At the end of the film, Patterson took out his notebook and resumed writing poems. Fortunately, it is still crappy.


Jia Muxu is like a master of Taoism. His anti-climax comes at his fingertips. The flat rhythm and the plot without dramatic conflicts make people willingly indulged. It is possible that no one can do the wonderful and interesting shooting of the ordinary and the mediocre, except for Jia Muxu.

In this world, talented people are always a minority, and more are ordinary people like Patterson, maybe you and me. But who says that ordinary people's lives can't be as exciting and interesting?


This article was first published in the Barcelona movie app, welcome to follow the Barcelona movie public account [moviebase].

View more about Paterson reviews