Roman Polanski, the director who escaped Nazi persecution and Manson's murder, seems to have turned his life's ups and downs into film, showing doubt, anger, panic, black, Lies, despair... alone can't find hope.
But "Tess" seems to be different. It seems to reflect the most subtle ray of light in Polanski's heart, and it seems to cater to Lu Xun's incisive overview of the tragedy, allowing us to see this precious light being ruthlessly destroyed After that, Polanski's inner temperature gradually extinguished and slipped into a dark pathos.
For Hardy, "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" itself has two meanings: first, it is the decline of D'Urberville's life, mourning the collapse of the pastoral era, and indicting the insolence of capitalism; second, it is to return Tess A lofty reputation to soothe her flawless purity. However, Polanski has declared his break with Hardy from the beginning of the title. He avoids the "Tess" of Deborah's attributive declaring that he will return Tess's autonomy and freedom - she can no longer be Deborah Tess of Vail, no more Tess of Derbyfields, no more Tess of Alec, no more Tess of Angel, she was just Tess and belonged to no one.
Just as the former glory alluded to by "Debo" is long gone, the beginning of the pursuit of the name "Debo" is destined to be the trigger for this tragedy. Hardy seems to imply that in an age of capitalism where chivalry and idyll have long since vanished, the noble integrity of honor and nature is futile from the start. Alec bought the Tess family's real name with money, a wonderful metaphor for how capitalism replaced and eroded the ethics and way of life of yesteryear.
When Tess is forced to make a living and goes to the imposter Aleks' family, Polanski echoes Tess's youth and purity with spring strawberries and roses. Yet Alec's ensuing picking also hints that Tess will eventually relinquish his fate. Here, Polanski presents Tess and Alek's previous relaxation of power in superb audiovisual language. During the day, when Tess was undefended on the grass, Alec was a hunter who hid in the grass and was ready to go; at night, when Tess looked at Shengping singing and dancing not far away, Alec's "magic claws" "And you can rush into the foreground of the picture by surprise. In front of Alec, who symbolizes money and power, Tess, who has nothing but nature and purity, is just a lamb without the power to bind chickens. There is no other choice but to go into the tiger's mouth.
In the first quarter of the film, in Tess's narrative from "leaving home" to "coming home," the hat becomes a hidden symbol of the crown, or glory. From Derbyfield to "Derberville", Tess's hat fell on the way; after losing herself in Alek, she put on a new hat given by Alec; she did not lose it until she escaped from Alec Put the original hat back on. Polanski seems to be judging repeatedly like this, even if her virginity is taken away, even if her dignity is trampled on, Tess still uses her own choices to regain her own glory.
Subsequent work in the countryside is reminiscent of Miller's simple and lovely peasants. Tess went back to the old time she was familiar with, filled with the natural atmosphere of sunshine and earth, the last hallucination before the collapse of the simple age.
The death of the child gave Tess another heavy blow. The pastor's approval of the baptism gave Tess a glimmer of hope, just like Mrs. Xianglin who donated the threshold, but the pastor's refusal of the funeral also became the sentence "leave it alone" that broke Mrs. Xianglin, which made Tess Gao Jie, the Virgin Mary, was vulnerable in the collision with reality.
In the middle of the film, Angel's appearance seems to bring a twist to Tess's fate. In Tess and Angel's brief obsession with each other, Polanski hints at the characters' psychological trajectories and future situations with masterful mise-en-scene. On the surface, Angel is indeed a new human being who is close to the working people, but in fact, he always eats and hangs out by himself, maintaining an insurmountable distance from others. To emphasize this point, Polanski even used a separate window to separate Angel and the girls who adore him at the two ends of the sun and the shadow.
The scene in which Angel helps the girl cross the water is full of cleverness of interpretation. When Angel picks Tess across the pond, it seems that Tess will overcome the difficulties of life under Angel's guard, but she turns around and is hidden by the trees in the distance. The light exit below is still a dark road - yes, Angel will give him hope, but not her true light.
Angel is idealistic, or rather, utopian. His "sympathy" is romantic and unrealistic with self-indulgence, and his "equality" contains innate male dominance and condescension. Therefore, when Tess confessed everything to him on the wedding night, he naturally linked Tess's "infidelity" to the decline of the family, and personally extinguished Tess's renewed hope.
This sudden transformation is vividly portrayed. Polanski first sent a letter from Tess, explaining his humble gesture of asking for forgiveness on the positional relationship between the steps. Later, in the passage in which Tess confessed everything to Angel, Polanski kept Angel out of focus, implying that the two were not of the same mind, and the positional relationship between Tess in the front and Angel in the back also implied that Angel was in love with Tess. Silk's active distancing. When the focus returned to Angel again, he had changed from standing to sitting. On the one hand, he is crushed by the fact, and on the other hand, he also occupies a larger frame space, symbolizing the power to dominate Tess's destiny. From Angel's stern expression, it was obvious to us that the answer in his heart was not fair to Tess. Afterwards, Polanski magically "instructed" Angel to fiddle with the firewood, and then exposed Angel's psychology to the raging jealousy with the rising flame.
Flower branches go from fresh to dry in just one night, and jewelry goes back and forth from the top to the bottom. In just a few shots, Polanski made it clear that the marriage was dying, and Tess also entered the harsh winter from spring and summer. Polanski uses the changes in the environment to reflect the ill-fated fate of the characters.
It is worth mentioning that after the hard trek, Tess came to Angel's hometown, put on clean shoes, rang the doorbell of hope, but in exchange for a closed door. Innocent and affectionate are regarded as if they are bad, and the embarrassment is hard to describe.
After her father's death, the Tess family finally lost the last straw. In the church in the hometown, in the coffins of ancient times, in the difference between the glory of the past and the absurdity of today, Tess made a complaint against the capital age and the patriarchal society. It's just this accusation, and it's nothing but the silence of the dead souls.
Subsequently, the operation of the farming machines intensified the exploitation of the lower classes by the capitalist society. Tess's next encounter proved that the glory of the past, or the noble quality, was no longer worth a cent in the industrial age. The "Angel" of the pun was silent, and she could only succumb to the times.
In the last quarter of the film, Angel went through pain to make himself stand on Tess's level. The reversal of the upper and lower positions of the stairs echoes the previous feelings. It is the moment when the two finally complete their humble hand in hand. A journey of escape from strangers made the two finally complete the most beautiful and most desperate wedding night after a few years. I think Polanski must have fantasized this last bliss as a long farewell to Sharon Tate. Tess, or Sharon Tate, inlaid purity and glory into her body, and constantly used modeling elements to strengthen the mapping relationship between her and the Virgin, so behind the mosaic glass, there was finally a holy dove fly over.
However, just as the glory of d'Urberville passed away, Tess and the purity she symbolized could not escape the struggle of the capital age. In the altar dedicated to the sun, she became the last sacrifice of the natural age. Eternal recognized her purity, and let her, together with the rising sun, bring a touch of light to the world. Just hoping it will follow? Polanski replaced silence with fog.
The film begins with the wedding and the previous generation entering history, and ends with the sacrifice and the next generation fading out of sight. In addition to the short lives of two generations, there is only daylight, which is older than the Derberville family, and a broken wall. Hardy criticized the ugliest generation, Polanski offered the most noble sacrifice, but will the world be purified by tragedy? The answer disappeared in the morning fog before Hardy and Polanski could see it clearly.
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