The biggest feature of the film is that through the exquisite lens language design, the stories that happened in two different time and space are narrated independently and interrelated in the form of juxtaposed clues. The most breathtaking of them is the opening set of double shots: the first shot, close-up, the actress Anna dressed as the heroine Sara turns her back to the audience, staring at her face in the mirror, looking at and thinking, the director asks Anna to prepare Okay, Anna turned around and nodded, and then the camera zoomed from a close-up to a full-view, and then Anna walked into the performance area; the second shot, a close-up slate, 32 scenes and 2 shots, Anna in the long-range slowly walked towards the camera, passing by the noisy scene. Staff, we can clearly see that the prop master is creating the morning fog, and then the director ordered a "following shooting" order, the real ambient sound from the first shot to this point gradually faded away, and Sarah, who appeared numerous times in the following text, gradually faded away. The "exclusive music" gradually sounded, Anna walked out of the noisy living environment of the modern staff, and slowly walked into the staged coastal embankment where she was alone, walking slowly, walking slowly, accompanied by Sarah's exclusive music all the way into the sea The depths - at this time, she is no longer the modern actor Anna, but the Victorian woman who is as mysterious and profound as the sea, Sarah. At the beginning of the film, a time-space transformation is completed through these two shots, leading the audience into the narrative with gentle and progressive brushstrokes, and at the same time completing the atmosphere creation, emotional rendering and the foreshadowing of emotional tone. This group of shots, especially the second shot, can be called a "magic stroke", which is a sublimation of the mirror language of montage: montage is not only a technical means of operation, it is not only reflected in the assembly between lenses, but also It is an idea of combined arrangement, which can be embodied in the internal scheduling of the shot, and complete the transformation of time and space beyond reality in a long shot that is completely coherent and tends to record objective reality.
Such a freely retractable time-space transformation scene appears frequently in the following films: for example, Charles proposes to Tina in the garden, and suddenly Mike answers the phone on Anna's bed; Anna and Mike meet in the rehearsal forest. The scene suddenly turns into a date between Sarah and Charles. Although the freshness of the movie viewing impression brought by these scenes is not as strong as that of the opening shot, it is also a kind of clear and smooth transition through the strong audio-visual symbols of the times such as telephone ringtones and cars, and the similar movement trends in the shots. The refined and ingenious design makes the whole film compact and concise.
In the film's characterization, Sarah is undoubtedly an idealized symbol incarnation. Sarah in the film has her own music, which is low, gloomy, deep and mysterious, just like her own character. Most of the scenes where Van Sala appears are dim, crowded woods or night environments. Her black-clad look is a stark visual difference from the other female characters (the soft and bright Tina, the warm-toned Anna). Especially when Charles saw Sarah for the first time by the sea, turned his back to him, turned slowly, a beautiful face was revealed in the tightly wrapped black cloak, and suddenly appeared in the surging waves and the morning fog that filled the surrounding. Flickering, this scene is in stark contrast to Mike and Ana sleeping in a naked embrace in their first appearance. It can be said that Anna is the body and Sarah is the soul. Mike easily got Anna's body, and Charles couldn't beg Sarah even at the cost of ruin.
People at that time thought that Sarah was a crazy woman, but in fact, Sarah's madness was not only reflected in her dedication and pursuit of love. What is very puzzling about the character of Sarah is her "mental masochism" tendency, such as deliberately spreading rumors of her own misbehavior, making herself criticized by the ethics and morality of the time, spurned by others, falling into the fringes of society, and passing This self-inflicted injustice allows one to obtain a freedom from the moral shackles of society. When she got the unrepentant love and the chance to escape the fate of being blamed, which Charles had bought at a huge price, she made a more puzzling choice: she gave up love, and at the same time gave up the chance to live again, she chose disappeared alone. Yes, for Sarah, she really fulfilled the concept of "life is precious, love is expensive, and if it's freedom, both can be thrown away". At the end of the film, Charles finally found Sarah after three years of hardships. In the scene where they reunited with each other, Sarah, who appeared in white for the first time, stood behind the cage-like stairs and looked at her. Charles walked towards him, and the two walked around the cage into a spacious and bright room. This is a very interesting scene. Is the director using this to express that Sarah, who is plain white, has found a way to release herself, and uses the hint of passing through the cage to show that Sarah's heart has been sublimated again? Does her understanding of freedom no longer mind being bound by love? Has her pursuit of freedom reached the realm of "little hidden in lewdness, middle hidden in singleness, and big hidden in love"? The last shot of the film seems to give us an affirmative answer: Sarah and Charles rowing from the dark and closed bridge to the vast bright lake.
Looking back at Anna, at the beginning, Anna started an incestuous affair with Mike in the image of a female body that can easily get close to men. With the development of Sarah's story in the film, we gradually discovered a bright and spacious modern time and space. Low-key, cool-toned pictures also began to appear, with Mike staring out the window when he got up in the middle of the night, and even the exclusive music that belonged to the Victorian Sarah played. In the last scene, in the same scene where she reunites with Sarah Charles, the crew holds a celebration dinner, Anna invites Mike to meet in the dressing room, and finally Anna sits in front of the mirror on the dressing room dresser and stares at herself "Anna's face"—like staring at "Sarah's face" in the mirror in the film's opening shot—makes a different decision. When Mike made his way through Charles and Sarah's cage up the stairs to the dressing room, all he saw was the empty dresser, and Anna wasn't there. Mike rushed to the room that was dark and cold at the moment - while in Charles Sarah's fashionable and bright warm tones -, jumped to the window, and shouted "Sarah" at Anna who left downstairs, Sarah's exclusive music was once again in Modern time and space sounded. At this moment, the audience knew that Anna, who seemed to be easily accessible, could actually leave as easily as Sarah. Perhaps Anna also has an understanding of freedom and self that transcends emotions. And Mike, even after a few centuries, his pursuit is not fundamentally different from that of Charles. What he longs for is "Sarah".
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