Loneliness is the emblem of the Buendia family in the novel, so isn't it the fate of most of us? They are both isolated islands, and they have wandered and collided many times, thinking they have encountered another island, only to find out that it is the south wall.
The movie "Two Lives" is about the loneliness in our destiny.
1. The
film "Two Lives" begins with a little girl looking at the stars. This is the star she has been waiting for, because it represents the beginning of Christmas Eve. The scene that should have been warm was poignantly captured by the director: in the dark blue sky like a dense fog, only the buildings in the city shone with a little solitary light. This also sets a sad tone for the film.
In fact, the movie, like its first scene, should be warm.
Because everyone is lonely, but not alone, but exists in the two Veronicas in this movie. The two Veronicas in the film were not born to be islands, they have the same name, the same appearance, the same age, the same personality and hobbies - they are another self. Although one was born in Poland and the other was born in France, the two never met, but they could sense each other's existence in the vast crowd.
"I have a strange feeling that I'm not alone," Veronica of Poland told her dad.
I know, another Veronica feels the same way.
The story unfolds in this happy atmosphere. The first thirty minutes of the film are very beautiful, with warm tones, a touching soundtrack, romantic love, and a beautiful heroine's face that always has a sunny smile on her face. .
The director uses a parallel structure throughout the film, telling the lives of the two Veronicas separately, except for the one where the two lines cross: the Polish Veronica meets her alter ego in Krakow. At this intersection, Poland's Veronica was deeply shocked, she stood there in a daze, staring at the other self, her eyes blankly focused and eager. Time and space seem to freeze, and the flow of people behind them is blurred by the camera. There are only her and another she in the world...
But this intersection, no matter how shocking it is, is only a point between two lines. Their encounter is so short-lived. Veronica, who was already there, got on the bus and left before she could find the other one. They meet in a hurry and miss in a hurry. I thought that after this intersection, the two lines would begin to overlap, and there would be more encounters, collisions, and fusions between two not alone people, but this was the first and only time they crossed. Soon, Veronica in Poland died of a heart attack because of a high-pitched singing in a concert. This line ended, leaving only another line to move forward alone.
When Veronica of Poland died, Veronica of France was in bed with her boyfriend, and she probably also sensed her sudden loneliness. superior. When her boyfriend asked her what was wrong, she said lightly that she didn't know why, and felt very sad. The boyfriend is very gentle and said that I will accompany you later, but she said no. Because she knew it was useless, and the union with her lover could not relieve this lonely feeling, and her boyfriend's gentle caressing could not stop her tears. What she needs is another self, a self with the same soul as herself. And love is powerless in the face of loneliness.
So, she was not alone, but because she was never alone, she became the loneliest person.
So, this movie, which should be as warm as its opening, became the saddest movie.
2. The existence of the soul
Philosopher Liu Xiaofeng once commented on Kieslowski, believing that what he pays attention to and discusses throughout his life is the issue of the individual spiritual world. .
"Two Lives" is the director's 91-year work and was shortlisted for the main competition unit of the 44th Cannes Film Festival. Like most of his other works, the film is not easy to understand, filled with obscure metaphorical scenes. The drama of the movie is not strong, and it is more based on the idea and artistry of the movie to win.
A 15-year-old girl from Paris once told the director that after watching "The Two Lives of Flowers", she believed that the soul does exist. After hearing it, Kieslowski felt that it was worth making this movie just to make a girl believe in the existence of souls. In addition to the theme of loneliness, we can also experience the director's thinking on the issue of "whether the soul exists" from the film.
After becoming a loner in France, Veronica met a puppeteer and watched him perform a puppet show. This puppet show is as touchingly beautiful as the scene where the two Veronicas meet. The puppet show tells the poignant story of a ballet dancer who breaks her leg while dancing on stage and dies. An old woman covered her corpse with a white cloth, and the dancer wrapped in the white cloth looked like a chrysalis. And after the puppeteer lifted the white cloth that wrapped her, the ballerina actually grew a pair of wings on her back and became a fairy. The beauty was even more moving. At this time, she looked like a gorgeous butterfly. The apparent death of the ballet dancer is actually a cover up for her to turn into a butterfly.
It is not difficult to see that this puppet show, as a scene within a movie, echoes the plot of Poland's Veronica who died while singing a high note on stage. Although death made Poland's Veronica buried forever under the ground, death could take away her body, but could not destroy her soul. Her soul was separated from her body and sublimated to another world.
But after the soul is separated from the body, can it still be sensed solidly and concretely? I don't know what it was like to watch another French Veronica with her own soul sublimated off the stage, but after the death of the ballet dancer, her eyes no longer stayed at the puppet show, but turned to the puppeteer - she The person who is about to fall in love has deep and sad eyes.
There was still loneliness in her eyes.
Just as she told her father that she suddenly felt lonely not long ago, her father replied that because someone disappeared in your life: because her other soul disappeared...
3. The dream of yellow-green
Kieslowski, a director with a "deep ties" to color, has been hailed by intellectuals as a "deep-purple narrative thinker". And his works always pursue the ultimate in color. His famous "color trilogy" named the film after the three colors of "blue", "white" and "red" on the French flag. The colors of lights, filters and props in almost every scene in the movie are consistent with its title, echoing its title. It can be said that the combination of color and light and shadow has risen to an artistic unity.
Although "Two Lives" is not named after the color, the director still uses this extreme form in this film. If it is also named according to the color, then "Two Lives Flowers" should be called "Yellow Green".
Filters and lighting are used to create a yellow-green effect in most scenes in the film. In addition to yellow-green, red is also used in a few scenes in the movie, such as the red light hitting the actor's face, and the heroine's red sweater and red gloves become "a little red in the yellow-green bush", this red is two The embodiment of Veronica's passionate character, on the other hand, sets off the tragic and poignant sense of the film.
Going back to the main colors of the film, yellow is the color of sunlight and green is the color of leaves, all of which give people a feeling of warmth and hope. Light of this color rarely appears in reality, so the scenes of the movie look so unreal and unreal, as if they happened in a dream.
Why did the director use such dreamy colors as the main color of the film?
Combined with the theme of loneliness in the movie, this is actually a movie full of helplessness.
The happiness at the beginning made me think that the director wanted to tell us that each of us has another self in this world. It was not until the end when Veronica of France saw the other Veronica in the photo and realized that she had really met another herself and was so close. It was also at this time that she realized that the loneliness she experienced before was not an illusion, and that she would really be lonely forever in the future... She finally couldn't help crying, and the puppeteer who had become her lover beside her once again met her. Intercourse, the two become one, but as before, the fusion of the body cannot save her loneliness, what she needs is the resonance of the soul.
In the end, she left her lover and chose to go home. At this point, the director's hope of meeting another self has finally come to nothing, leaving only Veronica's powerlessness and disappointment: meeting another self is just a passing moment; Loneliness is fate and eternity.
Not alone, just a fleeting yellow-green dream.
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