In 1953, the Chilean poet and communist Neruda was forced into exile for propagating the revolution, and the Italian government placed him and his wife on an island called "Xiawan". The film "The Postman" is based on this background, telling the experience of a postman and an exiled poet. This exile was only an extremely brief moment in Neruda's life, but it completely changed the course of the postman's life, making his life sound, even if its length was very limited.
Fisherman
Mario is the son of a fisherman who lives on an island in the Mediterranean with his father. The island has beautiful scenery, but the material is poor, especially the lack of fresh water. The fresh water ships come only once a month. People here have been fishing for a living for generations, and Mario seems to be spending the rest of his life like this, and he is unwilling.
Mario couldn't put it down when he received a postcard from a friend from the United States, which made his expectations for the future more specific. He excitedly told his father about the star card he had received. It turned out that the car printed on the postcard was exactly the type of car his friend wanted to buy. Mario thinks this is simply a fantasy. In fact, he has no specific concept of how rich the United States is, except that there are jobs everywhere and opportunities. Father listened to Mario's narration while eating breakfast. He knew that Mario didn't like fishing since he was a child, and wanted to go to places in the United States and Japan where he could pick up gold. To his father's ears, Mario's ideas were also unrealistic. As long as Mario found a job steadily, he would be content. That day, they ran out of water again.
Mario met poet and Communist Neruda from a documentary. Maybe Mario doesn't even understand what a poet does and what it means to be a communist. What makes Mario envious is that Neruda is surrounded and loved by thousands of women. This is Mario's first impression of the poet.
On the way home that day, Mario saw a small sign hanging at the entrance of the post office, which read "Zheng: Temporary postman with his own bicycle". The next day, Mario rode his bicycle to the post office again, and also deliberately moved the bicycle into the post office. George at the post office told him that the job of the temporary postman was to deliver letters to Neruda, but he was paid meager wages and his main income came from tips. However, Mario has only one recipient, so his tip is at most enough for him to watch one movie a week. Mario didn't mind the salary at all, he finally got a job, and it wasn't the same job as the fishermen on the island. George sends Mario a postman's hat to start Mario's postman career.
As a defeated nation, the people of Italy longed for new ideas to revive the nation. At this time, communism flourished in Italy as an entirely new ideology. The Communist Party is an important force in Italian politics after the war, and it is also a party with a relatively long history, relatively large strength and relatively deep mass foundation among the Western European communist parties. The Italian Communist Party was an important force in the anti-fascist resistance movement. They advocated fighting for workers' rights within the legal scope of the bourgeois democratic system and expanding their political influence, reflecting the theory of the European communist movement. When Neruda went into exile in Italy, Italy was preparing for elections. The Communist Party and the Christian Socialist Party do not give in.
Postman
Mario puts on the postman's hat and gets to work. He rode his bicycle, pedaled hard, and over the mountains to deliver the letter to Neruda. Neruda lived on the top of the mountain, with a single family.
Outside Neruda's yard, Mario rang the bicycle bell. Neruda came out in response and opened the low iron door. Mario took out a lot of letters and packages from his bag and handed them to Neruda. Neruda took the things, signed them and turned back to the house. He suddenly remembered something, turned around again, and took out a coin from his pocket and handed it to Mario. Shy Mario smiled and thanked him. The first time they delivered a letter to Neruda, they didn't exchange much greetings with each other.
What Mario really envies is the poet's female predestined relationship. From the moment I saw Neruda's documentary. After meeting Neruda himself, many details were added to these admirations. When the first letter was delivered, Neruda and his wife, the couple who were over fifty years old, were still very sweet. The couple called each other "lover!" Later, he caught the Neruda couple hugging and kissing. Mario gradually noticed that most of the letters to Neruda were women, and Mario could guess nine out of ten from the sender's name. What exactly the poet means, Mario can't tell, but it is quite pragmatic to see that the poet can make women take the initiative to pay tribute.
In order to get close to the poet, Mario bought Neruda's poetry collection and asked him to sign it for himself. There was no letter from Neruda that day, and Mario was not afraid of the long journey, so he made a special trip to the top of the mountain to find Neruda. At the time, Neruda was peeling onions, and his hands were full of onion juice, and he couldn’t find anything to wipe them. Mario stretched out his arm, signaling that Neruda could wipe his clothes. Neruda hesitated for a moment and did so. Mario opened the book and asked Neruda to sign. Neruda held the half-sliced onion in his left hand and signed the pen in his right. Mario clearly told Neruda his name, hoping to write it in the book, but unfortunately Neruda did not pay attention to this, just signed it hastily. Mario was a little disappointed because it wasn't a friend's way of signing.
In order to obtain the charming temperament and charm of a poet, Mario insists on reading the poems of poets and savoring the beauty of words. The so-called "close to the water", Mario took the opportunity to send the letter to earnestly ask Neruda for advice.
"Metaphor," the first professional question discussed by the poet and the postman. From that day on, Mario walked into the courtyard of Neruda's house, and after delivering the letter, he chatted with the poet. Neruda told Mario that walking along the beach, the metaphors would naturally pop into his mind. Poetry, how can there be such a simple thing as walking by the beach and having a good sentence. The important thing is to have a strong desire to appeal to real life, and hope to awaken the greatest hope in the form of poetry. At the seaside, Neruda told Mario what it was like to write poetry, and Mario was mesmerized. He describes how he felt at the time as "a boat rocking on words." It was the first metaphor he ever created, and the verse came to his mind. Not deliberate, not pretentious. Neruda applauded the metaphor, and Mario was a little embarrassed.
Mario enjoyed the joy of writing and reading poetry, and he habitually walked into the tavern he frequented. The moment Mario looked up, a miracle happened: the girl in front of him made Mario fall in love at first sight. She is wild, arrogant, and charming. The girl's name was Beatrice, the niece of the tavern owner's wife. She obviously disliked this somewhat rustic guy, arrogantly teasing Mario without letting him succeed. Mario looked at her stupidly, not knowing how to pursue the goddess in his heart. So Mario ran to Neruda's house in a hurry to ask for help. He begged Neruda to write a poem for Beatrice, but Neruda refused. Mario's clumsy expression, Neruda did not fully understand what he meant.
Late at night, Mario decided to create his own. Under the sultry moonlight, looking at the small ball that Beatrice once held in his mouth, and thinking of Beatrice in a floral long dress with her breasts slightly exposed, Mario imagined. The next day, Mario changed into a clean outfit and sat in the tavern waiting for Beatrice to appear. When Beatrice walked in without squinting, he said affectionately, "Beatrice, your smile is like a butterfly spreading its wings." Beatrice ignored him and went to work on his own.
Neruda decided to go to the tavern to see Mario's beloved Beatrice in person. They walked into the tavern together, and everyone noticed the great poet's visit, and Mario felt himself a little brighter. Neruda looked at the beautiful Beatrice, wrote an inscription for Mario in the notebook, and gave it to Mario. Since then, Mario's inspiration spewed out and wrote many moving poems for Beatrice. Beatrice was deeply moved by Mario's metaphors and verses, and even disregarded the strong opposition of his aunt, and secretly ran out to date Mario. With the blessing of the fishermen of the island, they got married. Neruda attended their wedding as a witness.
The days passed like this. Mario and Neruda were more than just a postman and a recipient, they were friends. When Neruda couldn't think of an adjective to describe the fishing net, he asked Mario casually, and Mario said that the fishing net was "sad". In his eyes, the fishing net was like a cage that trapped him, preventing him from breaking free and seeing no hope. Sadness is his condensed expression of his state of life.
Since Mario knew how to express his subjective feelings in his own words, what he saw was no longer the sky in the four corners. Neruda didn’t just teach him how to write poetry, to express himself metaphorically. More importantly, Neruda opened up Mario's vision to the power of words.
When the people on the island were illiterate, Mario used metaphors to pursue happiness. Originally, such things as metaphors and poetry may not necessarily be related to the lives of ordinary people. But when Mario pursued Beatrice with poetry, he moved the girl's heart and angered his aunt at the same time. This is the power of poetry. Metaphor is as sharp as a dagger, it can sting, and it is provocative and maddening. Mario felt that "poems belong not to those who write them, but to those who need them."
Mario received his initial inspiration for democratic thought from Neruda. Politicians want to buy clams at a very low price from fishermen, and the fishermen have given the politicians a very favorable price, but the politicians are not satisfied and want cheaper. Fishermen are actually willing to sell at a cheaper price. Just like this vicious circle, the income of fishermen will be lower and lower. Mario knew that politicians were insatiable, and said a few words on the side. Unexpectedly, the fishermen lost a fortune for this. Mario knew there was a fraud, but he had no better way to help the fishermen, and himself.
On the day Mario and Beatrice got married, Neruda received an injunction that he and his wife could finally return to Chile. Mario had mixed feelings when he heard the news. It was because of Neruda's exile on the island that the
communists created a postman on the island.
Neruda's return to the country meant that the island no longer needed a postman, and Mario would be out of a job. The last time he delivered a letter to Neruda, Mario did not accept his tip. Parting is imminent, any language seems very cumbersome. They hugged tightly like old friends.
On the island, Neruda has two loyal fans, one is Mario and the other is George of the Post Office. George, a fellow Communist, collects all Neruda news. As soon as he saw news of Neruda, he would go to the tavern to tell Mario, and read the news to Mario out of breath. One of them was Neruda's recollection of his exile in Italy. Mario, Beatrice, and Auntie, they all hoped to hear Neruda write about them, and even George deliberately slowed down his speech when he was in Italy. It is a pity that Neruda only wrote about the scenery of the island, and did not mention his relationship with Mario at all. Everyone was disappointed. The quick-talking aunt felt that Neruda had long since forgotten about Mario. Beatrice remained silent. Only Mario was still making excuses for Neruda. He naively thought that Neruda had When I pass them there, I will definitely stop to see his old friend.
Life on the island seems to have always maintained a state of sunrise and sunset. But under the background of history, there is no place that belongs to the real paradise, which can escape the troubles of the world. Simple fishermen are also unable to escape the conspiracy of mercenary politicians. Fresh water is the biggest living problem for the residents on the island. The boat that sends fresh water comes once a month, which cannot meet the needs of life at all. Although there have long been rumors that the pipeline will be laid on the island, it has not materialized.
Gausso is a politician who promises to lay water pipes to get everyone to vote for him. At the same time, he also provided meals for the workers for two years in their tavern in Beatrice. It seemed like a big pie had fallen from the sky, and Beatrice's aunt was delighted. But when Mario poured cold water again, he didn't believe Gao Suo at all. However, Mario is unemployed at home and has to go to the kitchen to help. The construction site started, and the tavern was full of people and steam. But it didn't last long, and the Democrats won the vote. Gao Suo is defeated, and his work must be stopped. My aunt lost a lot of business and went into debt for it.
Mario was originally just a fisherman who was a little uneasy about the status quo, but Neruda's appearance made his life suddenly brighter. When Neruda returned home, Mario's life was thrown into confusion. Apart from following Neruda, he did not know how to confront life. So Mario decided to take his wife and unborn child to Chile to join Neruda. Only in this way can his life have a center of gravity that he can rely on.
Just as Mario was lost, he received a letter from Neruda. But this was just a letter written by Neruda's secretary. There were no words of greeting in the letter, and only asked Mario to send back what Neruda had left on the island. When Mario went to the hut to get something, it seemed like he was back in the days when Neruda was on the island. He remembered the tape recorder, Neruda had asked him to talk about the most fascinating thing about this country, and he was at a loss for words and said nothing. In order to make up for this regret, he and George took the tape recorder and microphone to start recording. George also personally modified the microphone and extended the microphone cable to better record various sounds. They recorded the most beautiful life on the island with sound: the sound of the waves, the sound of the loud waves, the wind on the cliff, the wind through the bushes, the sad fishing nets, the church bells, the starry night sky, the future The heartbeat of a born child... In fact, some things cannot be completely recorded by sound, but Mario and the others don't mind, and they still record everything with their voice, hoping to maintain their emotions and a high degree of persistence in their beliefs.
Years later, Neruda and his wife returned here. Not much has changed on the island, and neither has the Bistro in Beatrice. A little boy with a similar name to Neruda was playing. This boy is Mario's child, and he has never met his father, Mario. That year, when Beatrice was pregnant, and the calls for communism were growing, Mario went to Rome to participate in a parade, but was violently suppressed by the police. The only thing Mario left behind was the tape, which Beatrice had been reluctant to send to Neruda.
At the end of the film, Neruda wanders by the sea, as if seeing Mario participating in a Roman procession. Under the blue sea and blue sky, the poets who have seen all the scorching world, and Mario, who clumsily broke free under the anger of the crowd, appeared in the picture. The poems written by Mario and dedicated to Neruda were scattered on the ground.
The Postman is a very simple movie. The little smile at the corner of Mario's mouth, the momentary loss in his eyes, and even his clumsy tongue impress the audience. Uncut fisherman Mario meets poet Neruda, who has lived through vicissitudes of life, at a special moment. The poet appears in the image of an invincible father, with a strong struggle between the ideals of communism and reality, and poetry is his weapon. Lost in real life, Mario is a son who needs a light to guide the way. He has been searching hard and waiting for his father to appear. In the endless waiting, he learned to think independently and pursue ideals. His life came to an abrupt end when his son realized he could be desensitized. Only the father was left alone. The film gives the viewer a rather obscure ending.
In a sense, Mario is also Forrest Gump.
(In "Watching the Movie
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