The sunlight from the gaps between the branches, the blooming flowers on the bushes by the hedge, the country house as elegant and beautiful as a fairy tale, the priest and his wife sitting in the afternoon yard chatting, then looking up and smiling at their daughter returning from their walk---The picture belongs to the South. However, when the bright colors faded away with the moving train, the scenery outside the window was gradually shrouded in shadows, and the monotonous gray and brown filled the streets and alleys of the city. Low factory buildings—this is the north.
The difference between the south and the north represents the difference between the countryside and the city. It can also be seen as a confrontation between agricultural civilization and industrial civilization, or a traditional way of life of men farming and women weaving that has been carried over from the Middle Ages, and as society is moving towards industrialization, the opposition between the new rhythms of life created by urbanization.
For the audience, the choice between north and south should be obvious: no one does not want to rest in the lush green space of the south, smell the fragrance of grass sap, walk through the vine-covered path, and walk into the sun-drenched church. The grass grows and the warbler flies, the years are quiet, and the world starts from the "south". However, the world is not only the "south". The rise of science and technology has made industry gradually replace the agriculture that people have relied on for hundreds of years and also made human beings move towards modern society. Before the arrival of a better era, we have to step by step. We need a transition period so there is a "north".
The film mainly focuses on the north. What kind of scene is that? Just like in Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, the best and the worst coexist gentlemen in suits and leather shoes; staggered dinner parties; well-behaved and submissive servants; expensive imported wallpaper in the living room of the factory owner; women capitalists; and shrewd men. Speculators tie the knot; ragged workers, silent and depressing slums, malnourished children, unemployed people who can’t feed their wives and children, wandering the streets and finally drowning in despair, drenched in blood-red from the wastewater of dye factories and suffering from lung disease. Female workers exhausted their young lives by coughing; behind the dreamy vision of white cotton wool flying like snowflakes in the workshop, there are dangers and dangers. It may destroy the health of innocent workers; they beg for a meager salary and dare to go to the streets to protest, with great momentum and indignation. Once they go home, they have to worry about the family's dinner that day. to be shattered...
As a fictional microcosm of the times, the film allows me to glimpse into the lives and psychology of people in the past. In the rumble of the machine, we ushered in the liberation of our hands and the liberation of our spirits, so now we have time to read Plato. I secretly guessed that, as a strong and independent woman, Margaret Hale's body and mind would not be bound by love, and "North" was her choice, and it was the choice of the times. However, when the old order is gradually crumbling and the new ones are not yet adaptable, we can still keep a "south" in our souls forever. Here is a famous quote from Holderlin: "Man, full of merit, dwells poetically on the earth."
View more about North & South reviews
