four Seasons. Friendship. Love and support. Joy and pain. Hope and disappointment. That's what "Another Year" is about. It uses four chapters of "spring, summer, autumn and winter" to describe the life of ordinary people in London. Jerry and Tom, an old couple who live a peaceful life and are kind to others; a middle-aged Mary who always indulges in a failed marriage, has unrealistic fantasies and self-pity; Wait.
"Another Year" really touches the loneliness of the elderly. Contrasted with the loneliness of youth, loneliness is rare in youth, and the loneliness of the elderly must be confronted and cruel. At this time, what they have to face is the departure of their old companions, the absence of their children, the estrangement in their hearts and even more distant ones, and there may not be even a talking dog by their side. This is what the people around the old couple in the film are experiencing. The intake of the camera is quite realistic, and people can't help but imagine whether this has the shadow of their own old age in the future. In order to avoid this kind of loneliness, those who are approaching old age desperately want to grab the tail of happiness is stronger than the mentality of desperately trying to grab the tail of youth when they enter middle age.
There is no doubt that the life of the old couple Jerry and Tom is the envy of everyone, and it may be a specimen of the director's inner happy life. They are not very rich, but they have a house and a car. They go to the orchard to pick vegetables in their spare time, and occasionally listen to their friends' talk and nagging, and comfort their widowed elder brother and frustrated and sad old friend. Although their son only met his girlfriend in his 30s, the communication between father and son is quite good. The things we don’t care about when we are young are actually the greatest happiness weights when we are old.
"Another Year" is a film that carves time and digs out human nature in ordinary life. This is Mike Lee's consistent forte. Mike Lee has always emphasized the tragedy of everyday life. The film embodies the master's unmarked superb carving skills, such as the guidance of actors and the scheduling of scenes, all of which reflect the exquisite quality of a master's work. Some British netizens said that watching it is like watching the life of the people around you. This may be an extreme. When an actor performs well, you will feel that he is the person around you, not the actor.
In the cracks of everyday life, tragedy takes root. Among them, the neurotic Mary is the most successful character. This character has a similar taste to Blanche in Vivien Leigh's "A Streetcar Named Desire". On the one hand, Mary's tragedy is caused by the limitation of her character. She always regrets when she is drinking. She married in her twenties, but she met the right person in her thirties, but they couldn't be together. . She always imagined the man "staring at her," categorically rejecting Ken who might bring him happiness, but fantasizing about the old couple's son, Joe. Of course, this kind of tragedy also reflects the fact that society is spinning too fast, and you can't keep up with its pace in the wasteland.
After the hope of spring, the bloom of summer, and the harvest of autumn, the loneliness of winter is rather cold. The loneliness that Mary, who doesn't even know what the displacement of a car is, and Tom's eldest brother, who had a conflict with his son after his wife's funeral, became more and more irrelevant in the warm chat and laughter of the old couple and the family of four. Remedy.
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