As a former socialist country, this Romanian film is considered a very Chinese film, because the fate revealed by a certain life segment of the film's protagonist is very similar to that of a group of Chinese people: ideals make him full of innocence, but desires Let him choose to be stubborn. The elegant boy who used to be pure love turned into a wretched uncle in front of reality. People who criticize corruption fiercely are actively involved in corruption in reality.
The protagonist of the movie has a very romantic name, Romeo. During the period of upheaval in Eastern Europe, with the ideal of building the motherland, he and his wife returned to their motherland from Western Europe where he studied abroad. After returning to China, Romeo lived a "noble" life and became a famous local doctor in a hospital, with a car and a mansion. It's just that his wife is still engaged in the hard work of a typical intellectual, working in a library. Although he has a successful career and a peaceful life, Romeo is not satisfied with his situation in this country. He hates corruption and despairs of the current state of the country. Therefore, he regrets his impulse to return to China for his ideals, and he is determined to send his daughter. to the UK. However, on the eve of the graduation examination to decide whether his daughter can get a scholarship to go abroad, a series of events happened around his family: his daughter fell in love with a car mechanic, and seemed not to have much enthusiasm for going abroad; his own extramarital affair was discovered by his daughter , facing a showdown with his wife; his car and house were vandalized from time to time, but no trace of the vandals could be found; his daughter was almost sexually assaulted on the way to the exam and was admitted to the hospital. In order to ensure that his daughter can go abroad, Romeo, through one of his patients, the local deputy mayor, used his power to unite with the principal of the school to let his daughter pass the exam by cheating. The daughter pretended to agree, but did not actually do what he asked. Fortunately, although his daughter failed to go abroad, the fact that she did not cheat saved him from being implicated in the corruption case of the deputy mayor.
In my opinion, this film raises a very worthy topic of discussion, namely: how a person who flaunts his ideals can stick to his principles in the face of the temptation and pressure of reality.
Temptation and pressure are the reasons or excuses why everyone chooses to give up self-persistence. But keeping words and deeds consistent is not only a moral imperative, but also a prerequisite for keeping oneself free from anxiety. The more people who value their inner world, the easier they will be challenged by consistency; but the higher the status, the more easily they will be tempted by interests. The setting of the protagonist's high-level intellectual identity highlights this challenge and makes us face it more clearly.
In my opinion, in this film, which is only told for a few days, at least the inner conflict caused by the three inconsistencies of the protagonist Romeo is displayed.
The first inconsistency is whether the process and the goal match.
Romeo and his wife are undoubtedly a pair of revolutionary companions. They left Romania to study together, and then return to the motherland together for their ideals. As intellectuals, they share common values, ideals and morals. Obviously, a series of behaviors such as taking advantage of power and corruption, letting their daughter cheat, cheating and having an affair did not conform to the ideals they once adhered to. Rather, eliminating these phenomena may still be part of their ideal.
They also instilled a lot of ideas about a society of integrity in their daughter in the process of raising her. Therefore, when Romeo proposed to let his daughter cheat, he was opposed by his wife and daughter. The wife objected that doing so was not in line with the ideals they once pursued together, and it also confused the daughter's values and looked down on her father's image. She spoke wearily and sadly of their youthful pursuits, as if singing an elegy. Romeo asked back, what hope is there for this country? He explained that he didn't want his kids to cheat either, but it was the safest thing to do.
There is a common concept behind Romeo's remarks: as long as the goal (going abroad) is correct, the process can do whatever it takes (cheating); anything can be done for the ideal. In fact, Romeo's rhetoric is just a self-defense under the pressure of his wife. As an intellectual, he will not be unaware that this concept is very dangerous.
If the process is part of the goal, then the immorality of the process means the immorality of the goal. Moreover, who can prove that their goals must be correct? How can Romeo guarantee that the goal of sending his daughter abroad is pure? The wife's sigh has already explained the problem. Didn't they return to China to build their own country? If you are dissatisfied with the status quo in this country, then the right thing to do is to stay and transform it, not turn your head away.
Immediately afterwards, Romeo encountered a second consistency conflict. I think the inconsistency this time is the inconsistency of whether the ideal conforms to morality. That is to say, an ideal is a noble and pure feeling. If it is not noble and pure, an ideal is not worthy of being called an ideal.
My daughter fell in love with a car mechanic, so she asked him to take her to school every day, and she planned to stay in this country for him. Romeo thought that his daughter should not be like this, he took so much pains to send her abroad, she should not return his love with this attitude. This is Romeo's direct dissatisfaction.
The dissatisfaction Romeo indirectly expressed was his discrimination against the mechanic. Obviously, Romeo thought that a low-level person like a car mechanic was not worthy of his daughter, but as an educated intellectual, he did not say so directly, but made two tortuous arguments to persuade his daughter to leave the car mechanic: the first First, the daughter must go abroad, which is the consensus of the whole family and will not change, so they have no results together; second, he tried to prove to his daughter that a person with the status of a car mechanic has no morals, implying that his daughter encounters a problem on the way to the test. Zed was actually her boyfriend's arrangement.
This time the conflict of inner consistency is not as straightforward as the first one, but it is more ambiguous and more sinister. If letting her daughter cheat can be justified as a helpless choice, then this time it has the meaning of taking the initiative to harm. In order to prove that his opinion of his daughter's boyfriend is not discrimination but fact, Romeo resorts to moral slurs. In this story, he moves further and further away from the naive idealistic passions.
The third conflict of consistency is the story of his cheating on being exposed. The inconsistency this time reflects a contradiction between ideals and desires.
The movie has already stated that Romeo and his wife were once very in love, like-minded revolutionary companions. They returned to the country with the enthusiasm of building the country, but they drifted away in the process of building the country, and finally parted ways. Very dramatic is that the object of Romeo's affair is the teacher of his daughter's school, a single mother with a boy.
The story is also rich in details. Romeo didn't hide his identity from his lover, he told him about his marital status; but apparently he didn't make any promises to her in the first place. In effect, he hoped that by such a confession, his relationship with his lover would be limited to that of a sexual partner. So we see the movie where they first meet is straight to bed. Perhaps, through such a demarcation, Romeo can interpret his infidelity as stealing instead of cheating. He showed the opportunism of a man in this matter, that is, to have both. He hopes to maintain a stable life, while still having fresh excitement. The film shows Romeo's embarrassed and stubborn side in this story of stealing love, and designs several plots of his awkward relationship with his lover's son: how they avoid the child to have sex; how she introduces Romeo to the child; A colleague introduces the child, and so on.
In fact, there is another reason why Romeo restricts his relationship with his lover to a sexual partnership rather than ending a broken marriage because he wants to preserve the idealistic history of staying together with his wife. As long as what he stole is fishy and not love, then love is still there; as long as love is still there, the memories that were once full of ideals will not collapse, and he can still feel at ease that he is a member of the intellectuals and is qualified to talk about it. own ideals and feelings. This may be a plausible explanation for Romeo's attitude towards cheating.
Compared with Luo Miluo, his wife is a person who insists on his original intention and keeps his words and deeds. His wife's pain is mainly due to Romeo's change, his change shows that their common allegiance ideal has been bankrupt, which makes the wife lose the spiritual motivation to continue to inspire her life, and she falls into a deep depression, in the middle of insomnia and death. wandering between. Romeo struggles with lust, love, ideals, and family, while hurting his wife, daughter, and lover, as well as himself.
As an intellectual, Romeo's dilemma underscores the extent to which one can remain true to one's own values despite the lure and pressure of desire. As a mortal, Romeo's problem has presented the answer to his predicament: that is, to give up the particularity of the intellectual in him, not only to give up the ideal of the intellectual, but also to give up the power of the intellectual. The internal reason that troubles Romeo is actually because he can only accept the superiority of intellectuals in the crowd, the material, power, and spiritual superiority, but does not accept the need to resist the temptation of this identity. cost.
If a person wants to enjoy both a high spiritual life and a dirty erotic life, the end result is to become dirty and become the person he once hated, which may be the effect of gravity.
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