Two years ago, I wrote a film review about "Lies and Lies". So I will definitely write this drama that has just been broadcast.
Oh my god, where do you start? This story is ordinary and ordinary, but in the author's writing, it is a layer of metaphors and revelations. I have a hunch that this will be a long film review.
This play is adapted from the 2017 novel of the same name by Chinese American writer Wu Qishi (the author of "Silent Confession"). Although the book has not been finished yet, after watching the play, it has confirmed that the author is very good, and the director and screenwriter are also very good.
Wu Qishi's identity and growth environment probably allowed her to see a lot of collisions between different cultures and classes, so she focused on digging out the tense swords hidden in daily life. It is said that the author is great because she writes the daily life of ordinary people with the weight of poetry and history. The reason that the director and screenwriter is so good is because the play completely inherited the author's style, so that I can see the original writing from the play. I think the play completely shows the attitude and writing style of the original author. Yes, you read it right, you can see the writing from the shooting. Such a team is really powerful. Not only do they fully understand the author's intention, but they can also translate and express this intention through adaptation and use of lens and music. This is the type of director I personally admire most and want to be. I don't express it for the sake of expression, but express it in a way that is most in line with the core of the story.
This mini-series is not perfect either. The part I noticed is that the person in Pearl is a little thin among the many three-dimensional characters, probably because of the time limit, some behavioral motivational displays have been deleted. But this does not prevent it from becoming an American drama that I am willing to give 9 points, because the rest of it is already amazingly wonderful.
I’m not going to summarize the story. It’s just finished broadcasting and everyone still remembers it.
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The United States has become the most "complex" country in the modern world because of its short and special history. People who come from different environments, have different skin colors, speak different languages, and have different histories come to the United States, and they all want to realize their "American dream", dream of freedom, and dream of success.
In this illusion, everyone, regardless of origin, has the right to dream and the opportunity to succeed. It is a pity that human nature determines that no matter what the original intention is, class will exist.
However, this kind of "complexity" in the United States has caused huge differences between people, some of which are background differences and ideological differences, and some are regenerated class differences. The two heroines in this story represent two of them (four types to be exact), completely opposite Americans. One is Elena, (1) grew up in a wealthy white family, and there were not too many ups and downs in her life, (2) but her family education was very strict and her parents had high expectations. The other is Mia, (3) growing up in a black middle-class family, she will inevitably face racial discrimination as she grows up, (4) she chooses to express herself in art, and speaks of freedom with her own “freedom”.
But these two seemingly disjoint people have another very important point in common. They are both "mothers", and both are worried about their puberty daughters.
The story takes place in a community called Shaker Heights in Ohio, USA. It is said that this community is the first pre-planned community in the United States. The houses, streets, schools, shops, everything was designed to perfection before construction began. This is modern A microcosm of society and a representative of people like Elena. So when Mia, who could not wait to write the word "freedom" on her head, traveled here, she happened to rent a house under Elena's name. The collision of two families and two different ideas started, sparks splashed everywhere. The author regards this place as a model, describing the various contradictions that exist in the "complex" environment in the United States.
Chapter 1: Trial
Elena grew up in a wealthy white family, but she is not a pedantic person. She is willing to play a role that accepts everything. She is accustomed to bringing satisfaction to herself by helping the weak. She likes to intervene in other people’s affairs. This includes renting a house to Mia’s mother and daughter, as well as Linda’s family. Linda is a rich white like her. Although she is not a weak person in terms of money, in this matter, there is no child compared to Elena IV. The state of a child is indeed considered weak. Although Elena is happy to help others, due to her background and social status, she naturally can't really appreciate the feelings of a wandering black artist, so her kindness becomes an insult to Mia.
On the other hand, Mia sees Beibei, a Chinese wage earner who has lost her daughter, and thinks of herself and her daughter. She feels guilty and wants to help Beibei to gain a sense of justice. However, she did not hesitate to sell her most precious work to help Beibei, who had only just met, just to make her act of stealing other people's children appear justified.
Beibei gave birth to her daughter a year ago, but she was placed in front of the fire station because she had no money to feed her, but she has always regretted it. The Linda family has been unable to leave a healthy child after several miscarriages over the years. They have queued for a long time on the adoption list. But I got a surprise from the sky, saying that there was an abandoned Asian baby girl who could try to adopt them. However, when Linda's adoption application was finally about to be approved, Mia accidentally learned about it from Elena and eagerly told Beibei. So Beibei suddenly broke into Linda's house on the child's first birthday.
Elena and Mia were already very dissatisfied with each other’s ideas at this time, so the next thing intensified under the control of the two people. Both parties had compromised, but because of the fanfare of Elena and Mia, they got into trouble. court. So here is the scene where Elena and Mia confront each other through these two parties.
But back to the parties. In that tit-for-tat trial, can Beibei and Linda really tell who is right and who is wrong? Maybe everyone will have different opinions from different positions, but the two parties clearly have the original intention of loving their children and want to give her the best, whether it is blood relationship or material security.
Meiling and Mirabelle are just two different languages praising the same child, so the author deliberately made these two names have a lot of connection in pronunciation and meaning. "Bell" means bell, and "Mira" and "美" have similar pronunciations. Mirabelle's Latin original meaning is beautiful, and it has the same effect as the word "美".
Beibei and Linda are just intuitive endorsements of Mia and Elena. From the perspective of the idiosyncrasy and superego of psychology, I probably understand that Beibei is Mia's ego, and Linda is Elena's ego. This is what they look like under the guise of the superego under the restraint of social morality.
And you said why Elena and Mia have been diametrically opposed? It is precisely because they have seen from each other the things that they least want to face, that they have been avoiding for half their lives. For Mia, it was the fact that her daughter did not belong to her, so she kept emphasizing the phrase "She is mine!" For Elena, it was the fact that others were willing to give up a stable choice for freedom. These two extremes had already splashed out sparks of destruction since the first collision, so the fire had already foreshadowed. The two of them are constantly colliding with each other in the contradiction, but they are constantly attracted by each other's life, dreaming about what would happen if they had gone the opposite way. They can't understand each other's way of life, they can't understand each other's ideas. Just to prove that their original choice was correct (this is the core starting point for the two of them to make all the decisions in the play). In fact, it is jealous and unwilling.
Chapter 2: Mother
After graduating from college, Elena and her boyfriend went to live in France for a semester. After leaving her ex-boyfriend, she decided to stay for a while, but Elena chose to give up the New York Times dream and go back to live the life arranged by her parents. Newspaper work. Mia graduated from high school and went to study art despite the opposition of her family, and fell in love with her female teacher. She originally planned to help a couple with surrogacy to make money to support herself, but accidentally fell in love with this child and decided to stay.
The two women now have a daughter. For Mia, it is the pearl she gave birth to but not related to her. For Elena, it is the youngest and most rebellious Izzy of the four children. The two children were both dissatisfied with their mothers, but fell in love with each other's mother. The two raging mothers played with each other's house on their backs.
"Once a young bird is touched by a human, its mother will reject it for life." Izzy always has a fateful sympathy for the bird rescued from childhood. She feels that her mother does not respect her, and the facts are true. That's it. She is an accidental child, and what she does keeps interpreting the word "accident". The other three children are all planned children. They are also very well-behaved and carefully follow the strict rules of the mother. , The daily behavior plan is accurate to the minute. But Izzy kept rebelling and overthrowing, trying to fight her mother by all means. When Mia, who has never followed social conventions, appeared, she felt that this was the mother she wanted.
As a control freak, Elena's inner collapse can be imagined. This can be seen from the constant crying and crying when Izzy was born. The director did indeed shoot that kind of irritability, that kind of being constantly being taken every day. His crying was tortured close to a state of mental breakdown. The other three children are very well-behaved, and she doesn't understand what's wrong with this one. Deep down in my heart, I even felt that maybe I had written all the planned life in the original script, and everything was ruined by this little daughter. Like the last fire, everyone's guess was Izzy.
Pearl is the child born by Mia for a surrogacy for a couple. The child is not hers, but it does grow up in her belly. When she was pregnant, the only brother who unconditionally supported her died in a car accident, and her parents refused to let her go to the funeral because they disliked her for carrying other people's children. Then the child was just born, and the woman he loved so much died of cancer. Before his girlfriend was alive, she knew that she wanted to keep the child, and the last gift left to her was also a photo of her pregnancy. Everything is like an arrangement from heaven, let her keep this child. Of course, this can be regarded as an excuse for the decision she made long ago. For more than ten years, she drove the broken car of her brother before his death, taking her daughter around the country to stop and go, using art to fill the time, trying to forget that her child does not belong to her. But her daughter secretly yearns for someone else's big house, a happy and stable family. When I saw Elena, she arranged everything for her children. The child-centered appearance of everything made Pearl feel that this is what a mother should be.
As mentioned earlier, Beibei and Linda are the selves of two women, so the two daughters are their selves. That is, I don't even want to face it, and I have been trying to conceal my desire to erase my heart. Again, they doubted their original decision, what would happen if Elena and their handsome ex-boyfriend stayed in Paris to live the life of an artist? What if Mia had returned the child to her original parents and finished college safely? These two people are like a mirror of each other, reflecting the most unbearable and least wanting to face their hearts.
Chapter 3: Right or False
This drama is also the most exciting part of this book. It has a rather three-dimensional portrayal of each character. She succeeded in showing that both Elena and Mia have their own choices from the perspectives of both parties. Hardship. And not only these two protagonists, but even every character in the story, every participant has taken care of them. From the perspective of any one person, their behavior is reasonable and in line with their logic.
Lexie got pregnant by accident, but sneaked off to get an abortion in order to maintain the image of the perfect daughter in her mother's eyes. But at the same time, she has never been able to tell her boyfriend about it. Black boyfriends have a say in the issue of racial discrimination, but Lexie has a gender disadvantage. Moody thinks he is a cultural man. He is completely different from his pedantic brother and mother. He loves reading and is in love with the thoughtful pearl, but as Izzy pointed out, his identity as a rich man makes him feel that Everything came as it should, so when he found that Pearl was with his idiot brother, he felt very betrayed. Trip is a typical American high school football quarterback, a "handsome guy" who is always surrounded by girls in the school. Most cultural people look down on such people, thinking that they are uneducated and bad, but when he is with Pearl, he shows amazing tenderness and love. There are Linda and Babe, Elina’s husband, Mia’s dead girlfriend and brother, etc. Everyone in this story can stand up unless they are purely supporting roles. Can reflect their own growth and living environment.
I know that many Chinese readers and audiences support Elena and Linda's views very strongly, which are related to our culture. But I guess that in the American cultural circle, there may be more people supporting Mia and Beibei. As I said, there is no right or wrong. If you can read this book or play, the author is expressing this view. Everyone feels right and wrong when seeing things, because there are always right and wrong answers to the test. But if you consider from the perspective of the parties concerned, many things are reasonable and even last resort.
The two people's difficulties shifted to their children, causing another kind of trouble. Why do Pearl and Izzy like each other's mother more? If they really grew up in each other's family, would there be no conflicts and dissatisfaction? The truth is not, but both mothers did ignore the point that what they want may not be what the child wants. Once Izzy, who desperately wants to integrate into the white family's pearl and hopes to escape to black artists, does it, and really appreciates the other's life, can Izzy endure the kind of wandering without a home? Can Pearl bear the powerlessness of being controlled by her mother?
The issue of racial discrimination is even more complicated. In China, because the vast majority of people are of the same race, such issues will not be sharply displayed. However, whenever it is involved, everyone can find two sides in the discussion. The clues of the point of view.
In the United States, a country with a very complex ethnic composition, the problem becomes impossible to ignore. Everyone has a different understanding of racial discrimination. Some people think that deliberately emphasizing race is discrimination, and some people think that it is discrimination not to emphasize race. There is no answer to this question that satisfies everyone. In fact, most things are like this.
There is no absolute black or white, and there is no right person or absolute bad person. Everyone's choice, no matter how unbearable, has his own difficulties. This difficulty may be due to the pros and cons seen from his perspective, or it may be due to the difference in cognition caused by the different living environment. A plant can be a medicine in certain situations and a poison in others.
In today's impetuous Internet age, everyone is eager to label and draw conclusions, but who will take the time to consider each other's starting point and other people's difficulties. Tolerance does not mean to tolerate what you think is wrong, but to recognize the difference between others and you, and try to understand the difference. From another perspective, perhaps it is a last resort. What you think is wrong is not wrong. But when every keyboard man who casually accuses others on the Internet, when he speaks quickly, he has never thought about how sad the person who saw it would be.
Recently, I have also felt the pressure of minor misunderstandings due to various reasons. My friendliness towards others is regarded as stupid or hostile, and it feels uncomfortable. Misunderstandings and beliefs are unwilling to believe in anyone. It is difficult for us to change the stereotyped perceptions of others, but trying to understand others by ourselves is at least the beginning. I have always believed that kindness can be exchanged for kindness. Although I often make big faces, I still believe that this rule is applicable to most people.
The prejudice of most people makes them naturally refuse to see things that are different from their own experiences and opinions, so misunderstandings large and small arise every day. These misunderstandings have drawn the distance between people farther and farther, and then evolved into greater contradictions.
After the last thorough showdown, both Mia and Elena finally had nowhere to hide under the dazzling mirror of each other. The firefighters who arrived said that there were small flames everywhere in the house. All the problems accumulated for many years suddenly broke out. The children who were stolen, the mother and daughter who left overnight, the daughter who ran away from home, and the husband who couldn't bear it were the perfect children. These little flames were finally connected together and decorated for Christmas. The glamorous big house collapsed, and the raging fire swallowed everything. It turned out that it was not the rebellious girl who burned down the house, but the other three "good children" who could no longer tolerate this mother.
Just as Mia saw the fire on the grassland, the land showed an ugly black color.
But this story is not a tragedy, because in the end every girl found a way home. They did not belong to each other's family, because it was their mother who made who they are today. It was not only the two little girls who found the way, but also the two older girls. As the Pearl Diary says, only when you see the railings around you can you see the door, and then you can go out. For the first time Mia let Pearl decide her destination, and Pearl chose Mia's parents' home. Although genetically unconnected, for her, that is the family. Elena finally fought arson for the children. At the end Elena took out the feather from the cage, letting go of Izzy and herself.
After the fire is over, the land becomes more fertile, and new life can grow again and vigorously, in the way it should be.
Many people may still firmly support one of the views after watching the play or reading the original, and everyone still feels that the other's views are completely illogical. Just like the friend who misunderstood me, trying to understand the other party based on his own values is not working, because the other party and you grew up and lived in a different environment and experienced different experiences. Of course, the conclusions reached are based on all their experiences. of. So when she tolerated others on the surface, all her disapproval of her views in her heart was regarded as hostility. I guess she thinks everyone is human. How could it be possible that I think you are hostile to me, but you treat me as a friend?
In fact, every person with a different personality grows from a different environment, and the perspective is indeed quite different. In any matter, someone at every node will make a diametrically opposite choice to you, and their choice is inevitable to them. No one can be right forever, but everyone likes to pretend that they are never wrong.
I have never understood why people cannot maintain the simplicity when they first saw it. After Elena and Mia spoke frankly for the first time, they also had a pleasant conversation.
Of course, saying this does not mean that there is no heinous evil in this world. In fact, there are many more. Of course we have the right to disagree with the opinions or practices of others. After all, there are indeed different factors in each person, and some people's maliciousness is indeed greater than goodwill. Here I just hope that when you look at others, you can remember that there is no simple thing that you are right or wrong. Human beings are complex. Please understand the complexity of others while understanding your own complex nature.
Because no one thinks before doing something, "Well, I'm going to do a bad thing."
That's it for today, and we'll see you in the next one.
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