Don't waste your life on unimportant people and things.
"The Beautiful City" is undoubtedly a shocking movie. It wants to say too much content, the core is complicated, almost more than any film about the city of Rome so far, so the space for thinking is infinite. You can say that this is a "Reminiscence of the Water Years" of the city of Rome, you can say that this is an Italian version of "The Great Gatsby", or you can say that this is a "Faust" written in Italian Germany.
Under the enchanting infinite scenery of the city of Rome, there are concrete souls.
The young man who always thinks that "the god of death is watching him affectionately" lost himself in the city, and committed suicide while worrying his mother; the middle-aged advertising star was blessed and abandoned himself, indulged in dancefloor and drugs all day long, and despised by others. The eyes of the sexy movie actor were tired of the glitz of the show business, and they kept talking about "writing a novel like Proust's "Reminiscence of the Years"" all day long; a middle-aged man with a successful career Men act in a playful manner, and his wife who is incapable of failing will turn one eye to him, but she always likes to gossiping about other people’s lives and enjoys it; the daughter of "prodigy" is a money maker, forced by her father to perform avant-garde paintings in public, lost When she was a child, she cried and painted; the stripper who was over 40 didn’t care about the eyes of others, she would rather be single than enter into marriage, and hurriedly passed away after a night of ecstasy with her lover; in the eyes of everyone, the highly powerful and sacred cardinal archbishop He is a very tacky person, who talks about cooking all day long, and is very enthusiastic about killing and eating meat... These people are Roman cells, and the bird's eye view is full of modern Roman ukiyo-e paintings. So it is only natural that the Hong Kong version of the film is called "Rome Ukiyo-e".
Under carnal power and material desire, the soul is completely lost.
In the film, these Roman living beings are all naturally connected by an old writer's seeing and feeling. Although the old writers haunt the colorful Vanity Fair, the scenery is infinite, but they are full of disillusionment in life. He gained fame and fortune when he was young, respected, and handsome. There is no woman who doesn't want to sleep with him. He seems to have a perfect life in his life, and he seems to be the "uncrowned king" of the Roman literary circle. And he is indeed unruly. He went to bed with various women for sensory stimulation. He laughed at himself and said, "I didn't start taking drugs until I was 65, and my life was a failure." He has been very arrogant. He has struggled for many years in Rome and finally realized his youth. The moment Hongyuan came from a small city. He wanted to become the literary king of Rome, and he really did it. After soaking in the glitzy Roman fame and fortune circle for many years, he had already smiled and looked at the situation calmly, and there was almost nothing he could not do. It was Rome who made him, but it also made him completely lost and could not find a way back home. So the old writer's feelings for Rome are complicated. He thought, what can I do if I get a lifelong pursuit? He even feels that he is not as free and unrestrained as the elderly in those poor homes. Although they have no money and no name, they don’t have to smile every day and don’t have to say insincere. They can also run trains in ragged clothes and mouthfuls. They have never lost themselves. So it is always happy.
After his 65th birthday, the old writer suddenly made a decision- no longer wasting his life on unimportant things.
He must stay away from those who are hypocritical and empty, and no longer continue to live like others in a hypocritical and flashy life. Instead, he should express his bluntness, ignore the face of others, not be lured by money, or be deceived by authority or even theocracy, but should If you criticize, you must criticize, and the satire must be sarcasm. As a result, he disregarded his friendship for many years at the party and severely humiliated a hypocritical female writer who was very self-respecting and talkative, and even mocked the superficial and vulgar cardinal archbishop in public. And since the sudden death of his first love girlfriend, the old writer was even more upset. He began to investigate why she had to abandon him in the first place. The reason may be in the diary of his girlfriend. The diary was gone, and he knew it now. What's the point? Everything is over. Only the happy old days of the two at the beach when they were young are so unforgettable. At that time, she looked at him affectionately, while his back turned to the sea looking forward to a bright future. Now he is a 65-year-old bad old man and no longer has any expectations for life. When a person reaches a certain age, he will naturally be nostalgic and feel lonely inexplicably. He always looked at the ceiling and imagined the blue sea, as if his youth hadn't gone far.
The flashy thousand sails have passed, and the past is left in the heart.
Old writers always talk about Flaubert, but they are also talking about their own experiences. Flaubert wanted to write a book that said nothing all his life, but failed. In terms of a realistic and powerful life, art is too illusory and powerless after all. Probably every writer will experience some self-doubt and spiritual crisis. They feel that the world does not need a literati all day long to narrate and sublimate. The absurdity of life itself has long exceeded the fictional scope of the novel, this cold glitz The world has almost completely shattered all the soft and purely sentimental things of literature and art, and literature and art can at best be reduced to a tool for the entertainment of the upper class. Instead of this, it is better not to write a word and to sit on the sidelines and let the world fall into chaos. Only in this way can literature and art die. Yes, for a writer, not writing is much harder than writing. It is not easy and pleasant to give up the words that you love all your life and the weapons you rely on against vulgarity. Life seems to have reached an unspeakable level, and the perplexed old writer has almost lost his creative motivation and inspiration. He has always said that he is an inspirational writer, but facing the drunken but empty Rome, he feels so powerless and exhausted.
August is not over yet,
September has not yet come,
And I'm so ordinary,
But it doesn’t matter,
everything will be fine.
...
This is a fragment of a poem by an obscure screenwriter. After successfully recite the poem in public, he made a decision-to leave Rome. At the end of summer in Rome, and autumn is about to debut, the old screenwriter rushed to say goodbye to the old writer. He said sadly that he had lived in Rome for 40 years, but he never really understood the city until he was about to leave. The only one who really wanted to say goodbye was the writer. Finally, the writer who is always on the sidelines also wants to leave the city. It seems that he has something in his heart, so he temporarily decided to make a long journey. For him, a person who doesn't like to travel far, even he doesn't know what this means. However, after he had closed the pen for many years, he suddenly smiled mysteriously in front of the camera and said that he had already thought about the beginning of the novel.
The joy and sorrow are gone, but life is vast and boundless.
So we seem to see the recovery of a troubled soul at the end, but feel a trace of sadness for unknown reasons.
The impression of Rome was mostly from the movie "Roman Holiday", which was an ideal city where romance and pure beauty were mixed. Audrey Hepburn became a princess here, and Gregory Pike was crowned the temple here, and she was a beautiful girl. Coupled with the magnificent and exquisite architecture of Rome, everything is perfect. However, in this "Beautiful City", Rome has another face, and this face cannot even be penetrated by people who have been in it for many years. For this face, I am more willing to believe that, apart from not being built in a day, Rome is also one of the countless cities on the earth. It is elegant and secular, solemn and coquettish, silent and fearful... and because of this, I suddenly wanted to go. Get close to it and touch it.
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