Santa Barbara in 1979 was sunny, and the peaceful seaside town was not unlike today. Under the shadows, the dark tide of punk rock and the spirit of anarchism it advocates penetrated into the daily life of teenagers in all aspects. The second wave of feminists began to throw away bras and high heels, and the behavior pattern of first rebellion and then deconstruction became belief. Just as the first shot of "Women of the Twentieth Century" showed it - in broad daylight, a sudden fire engulfed the heroine Dorothy's Ford car, only burning without explanation.
This is the family car left by the ex-husband to Dorothy and son Jamie, and director Mike Mills uses the most concise way to hint at the complete absence of the father role in the film and the fate of all male characters as foils. Mills said it was a love letter to his mother, just as he dedicated "The Beginner" to his father in 2010.
Dorothy, a powder-free modernist who always wears a pair of Birkenstock slippers, was born during the Great Depression and developed the habit of lighting a Salem cigarette at every awkward moment. No one is better at interpreting the embarrassment and cuteness of a 55-year-old single mother than Benin. Her slightly frowning brows, her thoughtful expression, and each burst of open laughter were so disordered and natural. In the face of changes in social and cultural trends and Jamie's "fading", she tried to endure, listen, try to understand and reserve her views. On the one hand, she seeks the help of Abby and Julie, the young women who live at home, not only to bring Jamie closer, but also to integrate herself into the lives of young people (punk bands, underground parties); On the one hand, she empathized with the "crisis of confidence" in the country in Carter's speech, expressed dissatisfaction with the extreme feminist ideas Abby had instilled in Jamie, and knew that the punk movement would end sooner than people thought. "They know they don't sound good, don't they?" Dorothy asked Abby by chance, "yes, but your music explodes when your passion for creating art goes far beyond your skills. A near-primitive energy..."
Greta Gerwig's Abby can be seen as a parallel universe of Frances Ha. Originally pursuing her artistic dream in New York, she was suddenly diagnosed with cervical cancer and had to move back to California to recuperate. Unexplained illness and unfulfilled artistic dreams make her vulnerable and irritable and caring. Because of David Bowie's "The Visitor", she dyed her hair blood red; because of Susan Sontag, she carefully recorded every person and object around her with a camera; because of her own experience, she told Jamie " No matter how you envision your future life, it will never go in the direction you envision..."
Life itself is unpredictable, and that's what makes Twentieth Century Woman's fragmented narrative most fascinating. Under the schedule of the push-pull camera, we dance with the characters to the random rhythm of Suicide and Buzzcokcks, one moment is the present and the other is the future. And the whole movie is a complete memory. Even if the narrative at the end more or less reveals the fate of the characters, Dorothy and these lovely women remain a mystery to us. They are eccentric, stubborn, and live by their own philosophy, which seemed avant-garde in the last century but seems just right today.
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