When it comes to the classic images of prostitutes on the screen, many people will list them from "The Blue Bridge of Soul Broken", "Beauty in the Daytime" to "Pretty Woman in the Moon" and other business cards. The actresses headed by Vivien Leigh are either glamorous and sexy, or charming and charming. They have both high-profile skins and rich stories because of their twists and turns, which are pityed by hundreds of millions of audiences around the world.
The prostitute Kabylia under Fellini's lens has no chance with such a temperament setting and popularity. She is petite in stature and not amazing in appearance. The director used her resentful words and deeds to disintegrate the fairy tale and dreamy tone, and instead used a frustrated and lonely brushstroke to outline the floating masses who were wandering between beautiful dreams and sobriety in that era, becoming the bottom of society. vivid portrait.
In Rome in the 1950s, after the war, the original cultural heritage was on the verge of disintegration, the gap between the rich and the poor was intensified, and the society became a hotbed of crime and lust for power. Along with the turbulent times, moral laxity and value vacuums have emerged one after another. People have to devote themselves to short-lived material pleasures or vain religious fanaticism to obtain satisfaction. Living under this cold current, Kabylia is like the epitome of countless little people, but her firm courage is enough to penetrate the strong barriers of the times, allowing people to see a different side from negativity and sinking.
Many times, Kabylia is like a replica of "Pine Nuts" half a century ago, living a fragmented life on the journey of chasing love, and is neglected and despised by everyone. We cannot infer whether Tetsuya Nakajima’s creations have hidden traces of paying tribute to their predecessors, but they have all created unforgettable losers. After being licked by the flames of life, they are still like a stubborn moth. A light source that shakes into the dark.
The difference between Kabylia and Matsuko is that she will not let her humble desires always hold her hostage, slip into the abyss of fate, and finally exchange an apology for a useless sigh. Therefore, compared with the desolate Matsuko, she is more like Chiyoko in a space suit and shuttles between the vast galaxy, "Anyway, what I really love is the journey of chasing him." every corner of the mind.
So what kind of spirit can she have in the swamp of life, and still retain the indifference to get along with herself? It must be the pure innocence of the heart.
This innocent personality is not fabricated out of thin air, but is revealed layer by layer in comparison with the people around him, and even with the insidious society. The fates of those wonderfully staged streets meet, and the ending is already doomed. From the veterans on the hunting field to the liar with rhetoric, the men's successive betrayals and blows actually symbolize Kabylia's weak position and the insurmountable distance between her and wealth and fame. Only the zealous philanthropist, as a projection of her beautiful personality, offered her a sincere helping hand. But this encounter itself is like a fantasy with a warm foil, even if she reveals her real name, she can't prevent this love meeting from being blown away quickly.
The camera zooms in sometimes, aiming at Kabylia's fresh and changing face; sometimes zooms out, watching the people and scenery around her, like a secret observation, following her through the day and night, through the surging crowd . The world is like a magical kaleidoscope, rapidly rotating and changing into irregular patterns, from which we can also glimpse Fellini's critical attitude towards social reality. From refugees sleeping in caves to hypnotism on the stage, when the influence of science and reason gradually ebbs, people are willing to be manipulated by illusions and deceived by appearances, but they are unwilling to face up to the fact of ideological crisis.
In contrast, Kabylia's simplicity is more romantic. By constructing such a shadow of an optimistic breath, Fellini completed his transcendence of neorealism and eulogized the truth, goodness and beauty at the bottom. Like in a crowded shrine, when everyone was kowtowing and begging for forgiveness of their sins, Kabylia just pleaded in tears: "Please let me change my life."
This may be the answer the director gave people in that era of desolation of belief: to believe in the power of belief itself, and to believe in the warmth of the world that will not be let down. Just like Kabylia, who kept getting up after falling, whether he was holding a hen in front of his shack, or hiding in the bathroom with a big star's dog, looking at the colorful world separated by thousands of feet through the keyhole , She is rarely shaken by the worldly vision, but will be alert to shout: "Our life has not changed at all!" At this time, she is no longer just a girl who relies on her skin to prop up her appearance, but more capable Indestructible dignity and poetry. At the end of the day, she just wanted a better life.
The repeatedly heartbreaking reality has not isolated the tenderness in her heart. In the end, with her boundless longing for a happy marriage and a fulfilling life, she returned to the maze of lies, as if being cast on an unbreakable spell, falling into an endless cycle of tragedy. Is such a woman hopelessly stupid? As I pondered this question, I was reminded of what the sly liar said to her as she strolled down the street:
The deep nostalgia for the purity and kindness of human nature is undoubtedly everyone's weakness. But perhaps, that is also the quality we should cherish the most.
In "The Road", another masterpiece of Fellini's "Loneliness Trilogy", Jesomina, a poor girl who was sold to a Jianghu artist, has the same infatuation and bitterness as Kabylia. Fellini blended the simplicity of his tough exterior into the joys and sorrows of little people, and handed it over to Giulietta Masina, a smart actor. Although she does not have a delicate and beautiful face, but with the innocence that is irreplaceable like an angel, she makes the famous director fall in love with her and become a lifelong soul mate with her.
Struggling in the bustling city, Kabylia is not destined to be a lucky Cinderella. She is just the lonely clown in the circus. Even though she is passionate, she still turns and drowns in the torrent of history. But I still admire her for daring to break through the mundane rules and regulations and abandon all vulgar and outdated concepts. The night of Kabylia, that is, in the nights when she exudes an evil and charming atmosphere, the weak light she exerts forcefully, like a swaying street lamp, lights up the era when belief was sleeping. When you have foreseen the ending of her falling from the cliff, she still returned to the carnival crowd, with tears in her eyes and a smile at the camera.
After all the fragments and moments have disappeared, only the unchanging persistence and pursuit of life has broken the boundaries of the world and time and space, and condensed into a splendid eternity in the corner of the slowly rising historical curtain.
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