why this world
different from what we thought
When I went to Maoshan in 2017, I saw that the old road in the mountain used a pole to pick things up and down the mountain, like a leisurely stroll. Auspicious clouds are blooming above the Taoist temple with blue tiles and red walls. I touched the boulders around me, and I was born to practice here.
The next second, he secretly scolded his selfishness. There is still a girl waiting in his hometown. You don't have to go too deep into the mountain!
It was only from then on that I understood: a single thought brings up thousands of mountains and rivers, and a single thought destroys the vicissitudes of life.
In 2020, at a low point and alone, I began to seek solace in Buddhist scriptures. After reading the entire "Altar Sutra" by the sixth patriarch Huineng, I could sum it up in only eight words: "But with this heart, I will become a Buddha straight away."
But what is this "heart"? But to no avail.
I began to think about how the past 27 years have come to this day step by step? How will the future be spent?
At this time, "One One" "breaks into" my life, and in the 173 minutes constructed by Yang Dechang, I seem to have finished my whole life.
one
Nagisa Oshima once said: The time for a creator to create a fictional work that is meaningful to an era is no more than ten years at most.
Therefore, many directors will fall into the predicament of self-imitation, and it is difficult for later works to surpass their predecessors. Of course, the long-lived Rohmer is an exception, and Yang Dechang seems to be an exception. He has been silent for more than ten years, and after "Terrorist" and "Guling Street Teenage Murder Case", he has made his masterpiece "One One" in the film world.
If I had to use one word to describe the feeling of watching "Yiyi", I would choose "melancholy".
Not sad, not angry, not happy, not sad, just a touch of melancholy.
Maybe around 30 is the best age to watch this movie.
You've been fighting for a few years, and you have an ex or two, and that experience should withstand the trivialities of the movie.
Too early, you will feel that these three hours are very long, it has no heroes, and it does not create romance. The life inside is not as surging as imagined, but more like a trickle in a mountain stream.
We young people will not like this kind of small thoughts.
It is too late, and you will feel that the movie is terrifyingly real. When the ideal disappears and the belief is gone, we are left with only a body. The slow flow of time is precisely the unbearable weight in life.
Inadvertently, you may burst into tears like Minmin.
Yang Dechang drew a circle with film. The wedding at the beginning of the story was the center of the circle that was frozen, and then radiated outward through this point. When the story ended, people sent away death at the end and ushered in a new life.
This circle called "reincarnation" is finally complete.
I'm actually very curious, how can the fierce artist Yang Dechang, who takes Cao Nyima as his catchphrase, interprets the concepts in Dharma so well?
Maybe this is just cultivating the heart and not cultivating the mouth.
two
We can think of "Yi Yi" as a personal story, or as a family epic.
In this family, everyone is complaining to the mother-in-law for their troubles, but the mother-in-law never speaks. The setting of her vegetative state is to tell us that life is full of hardships, and the only thing you can do is to pass it by yourself.
Tingting echoed her feelings with the sound of the piano. She had never liked someone like this before. The boy wrote her a love letter. She was about to fall in love, but the other person was the boyfriend of the friend next door.
Is this really possible?
Adi thought he could control his life. He was newly married and had money in his pockets. He could handle family problems, career problems, and even all kinds of fetters with his ex.
But he is also doubting himself, can I really?
When a person reaches middle age, life becomes more and more complex, with fatigue on the one hand and powerlessness on the other, mixed with all kinds of depression, melancholy, bitterness, and anxiety...
So Minmin cried, five minutes can sum up my day.
In her life, today is no different from yesterday, this month is no different from last month, and this year is no different from last year. Life is like a blank piece of paper, and the blank space is terrifying.
So she needs to go up the mountain and find the meaning of life in her faith.
However, Jian Nanjun complained in fatigue. Most of his life was gone. He had a family, a company, and a child. However, he found that there were fewer and fewer things to be sure of, and his life was uncontrollable.
So he wants to try, is there any other possibility in life?
three
On the streets of Tokyo and Taipei, father and daughter hold hands of their first lovers at the same time. In one person's story, I can't even tell if it's a retrospective at the end of a life, or a love that's happening right now.
A Japanese businessman said to Jian Nanjun's first love: You are his Music.
I was so moved, yes, first love is a tenderness that none of us can let go.
They ride the subway in Tokyo, hold hands, hug, watch the sea, and climb mountains.
They are doing all the things that first love couples should do. I was disgusted with Ari's obsession in the plot. As two middle-aged people who have established their own families, it is shameful that they can't let go of their previous feelings.
A qualified ex should be like dead.
The next second I overthrew myself again.
No matter how old you are, you can't stay awake when you meet love.
Because it is love.
I thought Yang Dechang was gentle enough to give Jian Nanjun a chance to come back, no matter how the world defines a scumbag and a scumbag, let him go with the feeling of true love and live a serious life.
Unexpectedly, people who go up the mountain will eventually go down the mountain. The lighting of the hotel restaurant on the streets of Tokyo is so beautiful, the atmosphere is so romantic, and the time is so quiet. Only the escalator is small and only one person can pass by.
It turns out that we all have a sea in our hearts, but the road in front of us is getting narrower and narrower.
wantonly
Jian Nanjun said to his first love: I have never loved another person in my life.
He said to his wife: While you were away, I had a chance to spend some time in my youth. Originally, I thought that if I lived again, there might be something different, but the result was still the same, no difference. I just suddenly felt that if I lived again, it seemed that there was really no need for that.
There's really no need for that!
This is Yang Dechang-style candor, and it is also the cruelty of life itself. It reveals the incomprehensible predicament in front of us and forces us to move forward.
Life is like a one-way street, how can there be time to turn back? Even if you don't give up, you can only accept it.
If there is a concept of "freshness" in "Yiyi", then it must belong to the child Yangyang, because he has no predicament, all he has is trouble.
Others bear shackles.
I very much agree with a point of view: Yang Yang's camera is Yang Dechang's camera.
Hirokazu Kore-eda said: Movies should have a certain weight. I think this weight lies in the reflection on "people". Through the concept of "back of the head", what Yang Dechang wants to convey to the audience should be a glimpse of the other side of life.
That's why people see themselves in movies.
Explaining the world with a movie, Yang Dechang did it.
Wu
If "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" is about feeling the pain of drowning in the river of time, then "One One" is about feeling the shackles in the journey of life.
Almost every shot in 173 minutes can be deeply interpreted.
The great thing about Yang Dechang is that he incorporates strong philosophical ideas into the story, including the "oneness" of Taoism, and the "reincarnation" and "emptiness" of Buddhism.
The concept of 11 is not only the half and half of the front and back, but also the whole world behind "the Tao produces one, and the life two".
The baby is at the beginning of life, and the mother-in-law is at the end. The former is the center of the world, enjoying everyone's love, while the latter silently receives all the confusion and fatigue.
This process is the suffering of reincarnation, birth, aging, sickness and death, separation of love, meeting of hatred and hatred, inability to seek, and the five yin flourishing.
Minmin came back from the mountain and said that there was no difference up and down the mountain. The monks talked to her the same thing every day, just like she talked to her mother every day, but the seats were changed. How can it be so complicated?
This is the concept of "emptiness", the self-nature of Bodhi, which is originally pure.
It was not necessary for Jian Nanjun to live again. The first love left without saying goodbye. Instead of letting go, they understood the calmness of Taoism and turned around.
Turn around and see the difference.
Through "Yiyi", you can see the director's pattern and thinking, the sky, the sea, the crowd, and the lights of thousands of houses. This is the world of fireworks derived from "Dao Shengyi". People practice in reincarnation with shackles on their backs.
Regarding life, 53-year-old Yang Dechang has no answer. He just tells you that without a tree and without a cloud, it is not beautiful.
It's just the process of life in full bloom, and self-transcendence is the only way.
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