In 2020, when the film festival was shut down, "Fragment of Woman" won the title of the Golden Lion at the 77th Venice Film Festival, and the heroine Vanessa Kirby won the crown of the actress. The honor seems to have proved the success of the film itself. The plot of the film is very simple. The young couple Martha and Sean living in Boston decided to give birth at home, but unfortunately died after the baby was born, and the two were quickly overwhelmed by pain. Shaun got into alcoholism and cheating, and finally chose to leave. Martha faces the anger and pain alone, while dealing with the complicated relationship with her husband, mother, and midwife being sued. In the end, Martha rebuilt the order of life and reached a reconciliation with herself and others.
The pain of female childbirth and child loss, the superposition of the two themes alone is enough to arouse strong emotions in the audience, whether this emotion comes from experience or imagination. It is precisely because of this that people who have never experienced childbirth and have not been parents (regardless of whether they are men or women) are always considered to be a little bit suspicious of "watching fire from the other side"; and those who have been parents or have experienced similar misfortunes to the evaluation of the film. , But it is also inevitable to bring the play of "borrowing others' wine glasses to pour one's own block". However, whether you have the qualifications to evaluate films is actually a false proposition. If death can be told or discussed only once, then most of the great creations in the history of human civilization are questionable. Nevertheless, observing the film from the audience's evaluation is still an interesting channel.
The disagreement in the audience's evaluation is highly concentrated on the long shots of the heroine giving birth at home close to 30 minutes at the beginning of the film. The disagreement is not only about the degree of restoration of Kirby's performance, but also about the necessity of the scene. The disagreement on necessity reflects a different understanding of the suffering of the protagonist Martha: the belief that the record of the long and rough production process is necessary, which means that the recognition that the birth of life is the beginning of all "broken"; that it is unnecessary, It is generally agreed that "fragmentation" begins with the death of a newborn. This difference in cognition further affects the understanding of the theme of the film: the former means that Martha symbolizes the universal situation of all women, while the latter refers more to a special situation. After all, women who have lost children are relatively speaking. Minority. However, no matter which way of cognition or evaluation, the film itself has shortcomings that cannot be ignored.
Audiences who think it is unnecessary will generally also think that the film presents the physical and mental conditions of Martha after the death of her new life very delicately. The long silence, lonely walking, and almost numb demeanor truly and accurately restored the state of "walking dead" after overstimulation. Such a quiet and restrained performance and camera language not only echoes Martha's mental state, but actually also builds a psychological line of defense for the audience and avoids sadness. But the adult diapers taken off when going to the toilet and the milk naturally secreted when going to the supermarket, these silent marks engraved on the flesh, still make the audience pierced and stabbed by pain when they are unprepared, and they have also caught a glimpse of Martha. Under the calm tide. However, it was precisely because Martha's one-man show after the tragedy was successful and very sufficient, it made the delivery long shots suspected of showing off. In other words, even if the childbirth scenes are performed using split shots, or not so long, it will not weaken the film’s performance of Masha’s pain, nor will it alleviate Masha’s pain itself.
Going along this line of thought, there is a high probability that the film will end with a little girl climbing an apple tree as a failure. On the one hand, the almost uniform narrative time of the film is suddenly broken. In October, November, January, February, March, and April of the following year, the time marked deliberately in the film is balanced, and emotions are released with a strong force but a slow speed. The little girl at the end is obviously already four or five years old, and the sudden change in speed makes the film seem to fall into the timeline of fairy tale legends from the realism. More importantly, the healing of the tender pulses deliberately displayed by this sudden increase in speed, under the rugged childbirth and long pain, seemed too easy, even revealing false and suspicious. It is inevitable for the audience to question here: can time really heal all wounds? Can another new life really replace the dead life? Aesthetic preferences are different. Some people like a warm and beautiful happy ending, and some people enjoy "looking for abuse" in literary works; but no matter which preference, you probably don’t think that the mutual dissolution of "pain" and "healing" can be seen. For a complete creation.
Starting from the starting point where the long shots of childbirth are necessary will also encounter contradictions. Thinking that it is necessary, naturally does not think that the difficulty and pain of childbirth will affect the mother’s cherishment of the child, thereby affecting the degree of pain for Masha to lose the child; but that the hardship, pain and risk of childbirth symbolize women’s Living conditions, losing a child is just the saddest piece of Martha's broken life. As mentioned above, from this perspective, what the film wants to focus on has transitioned from a special situation to the general situation of women as a whole.
From the sidelines of the plot, the film does have this intention: the cross-class marriage of Martha and Sean’s "high women and low boys", the conflicts between Martha and her mother that have accumulated for many years, the conflict between Martha, her mother and the midwife, and the lawyer. "Women's War" and so on, these are very typical plot settings that show women's living conditions-focusing on the relationship between women and others. However, the film failed in the portrayal of Martha's relationship. The failure was rigid, simple, and abrupt in change. The husband, a construction worker, is rough and rude, self-anaesthetizing in sex and alcohol. This is the most rigid image of the working class and the most empty imagination of the breakdown of marriage. The relationship between Martha and her mother is even more routine. The strong mother hopes that her daughter will live in the way she expects, and her daughter is unwilling to succumb. From the daily trivial matters of dressing up to the major choices of marriage and childbirth, it reveals resistance to her mother. Martha's reconciliation with her mother began with her mother's affectionate recounting of the past, and Martha's forgiveness of the midwife was expressed through generous submissions in court. These sudden climaxes all rely on the screenwriter's golden fingers and lack sufficient grounding.
However, from the perspective of storytelling, these simple and rigid characterizations and plot arrangements constitute the integrity of the story-the broken Masha completed self-healing by repairing the relationship with others (including the dead child). It is precisely along this line of thought that the little girl and apple tree at the end of the film can also be regarded as necessary, and the rebirth and healthy growth of a new life is the real "healing".
It may be said that the crux of the film is precisely the attempt to express women’s broken emotions in a complete form, which ultimately leads to its tearing apart as a work of art: when Martha is alone, it is a cold and repressive realism, when other people When it appeared, it instantly switched to the eight o'clock gear of the city-level satellite TV. A slight comparison of the film with "Manchester by the Sea" (hereinafter referred to as "Manchester") that many viewers have also mentioned may be a better way to see the problem. The two films have the same theme "The Pain of Losing a Child" and have the same working-class father; the boat, sea, ice and snow in "Manchester" and the bridge, apple, ice and snow in "Women's Fragment" also constitute similar metaphors. . Lee Chandler, who lost his child due to his own negligence, was appointed by his deceased brother as the guardian of his nephew Patrick. The main line of the film is Lee's contact and communication with Patrick when he returns to his hometown. "Manchester" is truly broken. Lee's language, behavior, and consciousness are broken, his relationship with others is broken, the structure and timeline of the film are broken, and even the final ending is largely broken. of. Lee gave up the custody of Patrick and handed him over to his brother's friend for adoption. He confessed to the 16-year-old that "I can't stand it"-the "paternal position" that fell on him again did not repair his wounds. Of course, the relationship between the two uncles and nephews is slow and difficult, but they are still gradually approaching, suggesting a better future. At the end, Li's departure expresses the possibility of the beginning of healing rather than completion. When the film does not try to maintain the integrity of the story, it presents the "fragments of men" more satisfactorily; when the film does not try to tell the general situation of men but focuses on the special experience of a certain man, it reveals more Sincere and solid care.
My personal regret is also here, why the pain of men always has a more sophisticated, full and complete expression, while the pain of women is always suspended in the contradiction between expression and resolution. According to reports, "Women's Fragment" is related to the personal experience of the director and screenwriter couple, and is a self-healing work. So here it is naturally a sinister conjecture to say that the film is a topic of consumption of women, but it is still undeniable that the film describes the situation of women who have lost a simple shortcoming. Of course, I think "Manchester" is better, maybe it's just because being a woman doesn't really understand the pain of men. Distance produces beauty. I hope this explanation is true.
Note: This article has been published in "Beijing Youth Art Review", and it was deleted and revised when it was published.
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