When I was a freshman, I took the initiative to meet a pen pal. On his recommendation, I went to the University of Science and Technology of China to sit in on an art history course. His ex-girlfriend showed me the way. Was late, can't remember if it was because of me or her. As soon as I entered the classroom, this movie was being played. Of course, it was already the second half. Later I only remembered the scene where the poet shuffled forward in the cold wind with a candle in hand. Didn't understand anything.
M said in class that you should watch every Tarkovsky movie, and I remembered this one. In the same class, he also talked about "Walden", how the scene intention of this work, together with that era, shaped the European concept of "contact with nature". I bought this book when Teacher Xie recommended it in elementary school, but I couldn't read it.
At one point I thought I didn't like watching so-called art films.
It's Dominic, the crazy local with an engineering degree, who thinks the world is corrupt, but as long as someone can walk through the entire hot spring pool with a candle and let the candle burn Stay immortal and the world can be saved. He was banned from the hot spring pool for his insane behavior, so asked the poet to do it. Later, Dominic went to the square in Rome to give a speech, saying that you open your eyes and look at this terrible world! Then set yourself on fire with a ready-to-play Beethoven symphony that fails. At the same time, the Russian poet, who wanted to return from Italy, stayed one more day for Dominique's faith. After the first two candles were blown out by the wind on the way, he impatiently walked back to the starting point, and finally succeeded in escorting the candles to the other side, and at the same time suffered a heart attack. He can never go back to his Russian homeland, or he has already.
It's a strange obsession to walk through an entire hot spring pool with a candle in hand and keep the candle burning so the world can be saved. Similar strange obsessions frequently existed before my 16-year-old, the age when I always thought the world was wrong. Later, I discovered that it was not the world that was at fault, but only me, and all my obsessions collapsed. And then I realized that the world and I, they are both wrong, or they are not wrong - it's the exact same thing.
The meaning of "being saved" in Dominic's mouth is to return to the past, when the rivers were not polluted, and people and nature could maintain a close relationship. He said, "We are going back to the source of life," but what is the source of life? Europeans have a very short history of understanding nature. Before the 18th century, they still followed the teachings of the Bible and believed that nature was the embodiment of evil.
If you know more, you will find that the end of obsession is absurd, and the absurd has no end. Do you want to save the world, save everyone? Your beliefs actually mean reshaping human nature, and this is arguably the greatest madness in the world.
I like the three plot arrangements at the end: First, after Dominic stood on the sculpture and spoke impassively, he took out the draft from his pocket and read it, and whispered to himself, ah, I forgot to mention it here; second, at the end Playing the failed Beethoven symphony, Dominic's heart was accompanied by the heroic music burning himself in the flames, and finally accompanied by the sound of the tape being damaged; the third is that at the end the poet endured the severe pain of heart disease and placed the candle carefully, Then fell to the ground.
I can't remember what I did when I was a kid for those weird obsessions, but I got one thing: I used to be a man of faith.
I don't think I'll ever do that again.
What does Tarkovsky miss? Childhood hometown, mother's arms, the Russian sky or a bygone era?
What about me, what do I miss? The clear world I'm thinking of, memories that I haven't set foot in or haven't happened?
View more about Nostalghia reviews
