Friday: Maybe some pure art does not need to be interpreted, just use ears and eyes and other organs to feel it. For example, a painting, a piece of music... but a movie can’t be made, because it is a comprehensive art and a comprehensive product. The factors that it relies on to complete are the coexistence of creation, experience, technological equipment, and funds! Let's leave aside those external factors (funding, review, star effect, etc.) today, and discuss the direction and possibility of interpreting a movie from the inside of the movie.
The film we selected is the Italian film "Io sono l'amore" (Io sono l'amore) which premiered at the 2009 Venice Film Festival. I chose this film because, in my opinion, this is a film that cannot be understood without understanding what the director wants to express (it would be biased to simply define it as an erotic, love, or marriage genre). Furthermore, by combing the interpretation methods of this film, perhaps we can apply it to more and more extensive film interpretations.
Of course, there are many starting points for interpretation, and they vary from person to person. However, film interpretation has a prerequisite: that the viewer must achieve a certain level of energy concentration, if possible, watch it more than twice, and not miss any shots. And lines. We can't make any comments when we are short on the movie!
Okay, let’s stop talking nonsense, let’s start with the story frame of "I Am Love"——
(Note: 1. This article needs to be read before reading the film, otherwise it will seriously affect your thinking space and movie watching pleasure; 2. In order to facilitate communication and learning, the video and torrent file links are specially posted at the end of the article for download)
1. Interpretation in the story frame and movie paragraphs The first step in interpreting a movie is to divide the entire movie into paragraphs and refine the story frame after watching the movie. In layman's terms, we have to know where the turning point of the movie is and what the movie talks about (note: what is said and what topic is said are two concepts).
I divided "I Am Love" into two major paragraphs:
★ The first segment is the first 20 minutes. It is about a family dinner of the Rich family (a textile company);
★ The second paragraph is 100 minutes from the end of the dinner. It is about the triangular emotional entanglement between two men and a woman.
(The second paragraph is the main body of the story, accounting for 80% of the time; the first paragraph is called the beginning of the super long time for the time being.
The basis for this division and summary is obvious, and the director could not have explained it more clearly at the turning point of the two paragraphs. What is this handover point?
It's the plot point of " Grandpa the president asks his grandson to get two bottles of wine."
After this plot point, the three protagonists, or the pivotal characters of the entire story, appeared on the screen at the same time. Since then, the story with the three protagonists as the axis has unfolded.
Well, sum up and extract the above two things, what are we going to do next? In my opinion, you have to follow your doubts and proceed with the interpretation.
★ my first doubts from two paragraphs (ie "family dinner" and "emotional story of two men and a woman") and its relevance repulsion logical -
At first glance, these seem to be two very different things. At least, the 20-minute family dinner scene at the beginning was a certain resistance to the subsequent emotional scenes, because its shooting method was "group play", scattered, and non-protagonist, and it attracted a lot of audiences. I can't find North, and I can't even distinguish the face and name. It is by no means a foreshadowing of a "three emotional drama", on the contrary, it makes it more difficult for the audience to enter the subsequent drama.
In a word: the strength of the two stories is the opposite. ★ My second doubt come from the relationship between three people (two men and a woman). To be precise, it is the relationship between two men. The other two levels of relationship are obvious: one is the relationship between the mother and the son, and the other is the relationship between the mother and the chef lover. The key issue is the "friendship" between the two men! Whether there is a concept of "love" in this friendship, this is also the key to interpreting this film.
★My third doubt comes from the end of the story. This should have been a conclusive tragedy. Just imagine: the son died, the family business was sold, and the mother left the family in grief. It was miserable enough! However, the inexplicable triangle-shaped expression sparring and cutting in the ending, and the inconceivable passionate music on the outside of the painting, make the viewer feel uncomfortable. What is the director's intention?
With these questions in mind, let's try to find a breakthrough in the interpretation of the film in another direction.
By the way, I have to remind everyone that the ending of the story mentioned just now does not represent the ending of the movie, because after the movie is finished with the cast and subtitles, the following picture appears again.
Combining the exciting original soundtrack of the movie and the big drama of leaving the family, to be honest, I am reminded of the scene in Kubrick’s "2001 A Space Odyssey" where the ape man throws his bones into the sky, and the director's "Zaratus" for this scene. What Terra said").
2. Interpretation from the relationship between characters
Grouping the characters in the movie is more troublesome than dividing the movie into paragraphs.
First of all, because of the 20-minute "group play" shooting technique in the movie, people can't find the subjective perspective and axis;
Secondly, there are indeed a lot of people in this family. The seven aunts and eight aunts can’t pull ten fingers together, not to mention those Italian names with big tongues;
Again, this is a typical anti-genre art film. It has no specific events, and the writing is like prose, and it is prose that people can't find the North. It wasn't until halfway through the movie that we could vaguely see that the heroine fell in love with her son's friend. The main storyline gradually became clear, and the contradictions and conflicts became looming.
Fortunately, the director left us a lot of traces. These traces are enough to allow us to draw the key points from the messy relationship between the characters and separate the groups. And in these groups of key figures, we may be able to interpret more things. According to the priority, we make the following groupings:
1. Son (Ido), Chef (Antonio), Mom (Emma) 2, Mom and Dad 3, Mom and Daughter (Beta) 4. Mom, Grandma, Daughter-in-law (Eva)
"Attention": There are "mothers" in these four groups, so it is understandable to say that "mother" is the first protagonist of this play; this grouping gradually weakens the contradictions and conflicts between each other from top to bottom, and the role of the drama is gradually reduced. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that the son, the chef, and the mother are the main body or axis of the story.
Let's look at these four groups of characters separately. It can be said that the director almost clarified the relationship between them with the simplest and most straightforward scenes and the most direct and crude composition——
★ Son (Aido) , friend (Antonio) , mother (Emma)
The above picture cannot be better clarified the relationship of the three-mother loves son, son loves cook; son trusts mom, mother loves cook (son's friend)
The contradictions and dramatic tensions are self-evident.
★Mom and Dad
▲Even if the two of the couple leave, the camera will stay under the empty camera for a few seconds to strengthen the sense of alienation
The relationship and conflicts between the couple are also obvious-indifference, alienation, indifference... This is straightforward enough in the visual composition. ★Mom and daughter
The relationship between mother and daughter is very interesting. There is no contradiction between the two. If we really talk about their relationship in the movie, I think the daughter is more like a mother's enlightenment. What kind of enlightenment? Let's look at the progressive relationship of the three scenes-the first one is when the mother accidentally found the CD that her daughter gave to gay lovers and walked aimlessly in the urban buildings and thought;
In the second scene, the daughter and mother revealed their lover and invited her to go to Nice. The mother seemed very nervous and excited because it had to go through the residence of the chef Antonio;
In the third scene, the mother played the CD in her daughter's room and looked at the photos of her daughter and her lover. The camera flashed, and the mother happily drove to see his son's friend Antonio.
Obviously, the daughter played a vital role in the mother's "infidelity", which is also the daughter's value in this movie.
★Mom, grandma, daughter-in-law (Eva)
If you can compare the expressions of the characters at the end, you will find that the symbolism of this group of characters is very important to the interpretation of the whole play. Yes, these women represent the family members of the Ricky family. In this sense, they are attached to this family like a vase. Therefore, the director specially set up a dinner scene for the three women.
▲Through the conversation of the three, you can know that grandma and unmarried daughter-in-law are conservative, which is in obvious contrast with mother
So, apart from character relationships and emotional conflicts, do these groupings and characters have any other intentions and symbolic meanings of the director? Let’s change our thinking and try to regroup the characters by their personalities. You may find some unexpected things. Let’s look at——
1. Father, grandmother, daughter-in-law 2. Son, mother 3. Chef 4. Daughter (Beta)
Can you see that: the people in the first group follow the old ways, work hard in the family, and have the same mindset; the daughter in the last group, Beta, is headstrong, unfettered, and good at breaking the stereotypes; people in the middle two groups (sons) , Mother, chef) indecisive and uncertain.
If you think about it according to this kind of thinking, you will find that almost all the characters in the play are classified according to this "conservative, uncertain, free and easy" level, with strong symmetry. This is certainly not my own words, and of course it is not a coincidence. Obviously, the director hides themes other than love under this "symmetrical character classification".
In this way, this is not only a love and family ethics film, but also a film about freedom.
Speaking of this, we seem to have revealed a set of character relationships. Although this set of character relationships are obvious, they are easily ignored by us. The key to ignoring or not lies in how we look at the relationship between them. That’s right. It is the relationship between his son Edo and his friend Antonio.
If there are ambiguities (the former versus the latter) and utilization (the latter versus the former) in this relationship, then the director's handling can be said to be extremely obscure. That requires us to continue to find evidence from other aspects to interpret the movie.
3. Interpretation of lines and text
Lines are more likely to be ignored by the audience, because a good director will hide what they want to express in the casual conversation of the actors. For example, when your mother asks how the party is going with the son and fiancee, the servant says The following sentence:
-"Eduo stayed with Eva all night. He only left Eva when he pulled the chef out of the kitchen."
When the servant left, he added another sentence:
"Have you seen the delicious dishes your son's friend served you?"
This seemingly casual chatting hinted at a triangular contradiction in the audience's hearts-the son was thinking about the chef's friend, but the chef was thinking about his son and his mother.
So, does the son's mother see his son's "love" for his chef friend?
Unexpectedly, look at a conversation between Mom (Emma) and Dad:
-Mom: I don't think she will return to Gugliet, she doesn't love him. -Dad: What does that mean?
...(After that, the two switched to chatting about their son and his chef friend)
The above statement refers to their daughter Beta. Obviously, my mother is a well-informed person (she knows that her daughter likes women), but my father is the fool who is kept in the dark.
I personally think that the meaning of the drunkard in this drama is not about drinking, it clearly implies that the mother does not understand the heart of the son, and that it is also a fool in the dark. My reasons are as follows:
First of all, according to the principle of artistic symmetry, the main body of the story of this movie is the emotional entanglement between mother, son, and the chef. Then other people and scenes usually serve the main characters and events. They serve as explanations, hints, and foils. The role. Looking at the whole play of "I Am Love", you will find that the character "Daughter Beta" is set up to serve the protagonist. She doesn't have any need to stand side by side with the three protagonists. Therefore, in terms of shooting techniques, the director did not use any subjective perspective to express Beta, nor did he highlight Beta's personal emotional experience too much. He only selected those parts that are related to the three protagonists.
Secondly, in the play, the director used several scenes to remind us more than once: I have something to tell my mother, but my mother missed it or lost the following. Naturally, it was because my mother was thinking about the chef lover. , I can't take care of my son at all.
Again, this kind of suggestion method is not the first time that this kind of suggestion has appeared in a movie. In 1992, "Damage" (Damage), its story frame, character encounters, and surrounding sub-characters play a role in reminding, suggesting, and foiling the protagonist. "I Am Love" is similar to the same work, it is just a script carved out. (Even the two films that differ by nearly 20 years are the same in film tone. I wonder if the director has the meaning of paying tribute to the former).
To sum up, I think the two men have an ambiguous relationship. To be precise, it is the son's ambiguous relationship with the chef. Some people will question: If a son likes a cook, why is he still so blatantly revealing his relationship with his fiancée to the cook. The reason is simple. This is due to the unequal social status of the two. Obviously, the son is more confident in front of the chef.
Some people may ask, since the son is ambiguous with the chef, the chef will not fail to see it! But he obviously likes women, why didn't he openly refuse to love too much? This is a better explanation: because the chef wants to curry favor with the family, he sent it to others. (As for the later the chef fell in love with Ado’s mother, this is another matter)
In this case, the behavior of the three people and the psychological contradictions shown in the play are fully understandable.
Finally, let’s look at a text message. It was when Aido came back from London and asked the maid to give a message to his mother on his behalf. Then he threw himself into the maid’s arms and started crying.
I know a few words in Italian, and I can barely recognize some of the writing above :
Io sono l'amore...To Anto...
The above are just some of the lines and words related to the three protagonists. Of course, they cannot be used as absolute arguments to determine the relationship between the son and the chef, but at least, these lines can make the audience have an "ambiguous" daydream about the relationship between the two. This is what we can interpret from the lines.
Of course, there are many other lines that are similar to the interpretation of the relationship between the two, such as a sentence said by another son of Emma at the beginning:
"It's snowing, grandfather's birthday, love lost more games, three things happen in one day!"
This seemingly inadvertent irony, on the one hand, hints at the final tragedy of the family and Edo, and on the other hand, it shows a major theme of the movie (business, the family's imprisonment of people), and it can kill two birds with one stone.
Of course, putting aside these obscure lines, those purely visual things cannot be ignored in the interpretation of the film. After all, the film is led by visual and auditory art.
4. Pure visual interpretation of sex and food
"I Am Love" can of course be called a "erotic film", the reason is not the size of its sex scene, but the role and symbolism of "sex" in the whole movie.
In this film, the sex scene or "bed scene" is more like a means to win the audience's sympathy and resonance with the protagonist. It symbolizes human instinct and stands against ethics and morality. In other words, if you look at it from the perspective of social ethics, then mother Emma's behavior is undoubtedly derailment and betrayal. From the perspective of natural nature, it has become a pursuit of freedom.
★ Let’s look at that "field battle" scene:
The director cross-edited the two people's passionate play in the wild with the same group of insects playing in the plants with super wide-angle shots. Coupled with the natural scenery of Wushan, sea of clouds, and sun-drenched nature, it is simply a pair of Adam and Eve having sex.
This is a typical montage. The director binds the three things of sex, instinct, and nature together.
I have mentioned in a previous article: "Sex" in erotic movies has a twin brother, that is "food". If sex plays the role of subconsciously imposing and stimulating sympathy and sympathy among the audience in this film, then "food" is the medium and catalyst of this film.
Let's repeat those food scenes along the timeline of the movie-
1. At the beginning, Antonio entered Aiduo for the first time. The three met and he carried a cake; 2. Aiduo went up the mountain to meet and chat with Antonio, and the two ate the food (eggplant) cooked by the latter; 3. Emmadi The first time I had a good impression of my son’s friend was cooking a Russian dish in the back kitchen; 4. The first hint between Emma and the chef was established through the tempting seafood dish; 5. The two were on the mountain After making love, Emma made the "fish soup" dish for Antonio;...
You will find that food runs through almost all of the "three people"!
Why use food as a catalyst and use sex to resonate with the audience? It’s very simple. You can refuse cheating and incest, but you can never refuse food, and you can’t hide your physiological reactions. The director naturally uses food and sex to achieve the audience’s goal. Yes, and this trick has been tried and tested repeatedly.
(By the way, the two countries that are best at using food and sex to make things in movies. In my opinion, one is Japan and the other is Italy. It just so happens that these two countries are both delicious countries:)
5. Interpretation of other props and the scenes involved in the props
Props, scenery, lights, and animals are not wasted in an excellent art movie, which is typical in "I Am Love". Therefore, the interpretation of the props and the scenes involved is also vital to our understanding of the entire movie. Let's take an example:
The action scenes of opening and closing doors and windows appeared many times in the movie. Because these scenes have the same visual characteristics, they have attracted my special attention:
It can be seen that the light scenery outside the door or window has a strong contrast with the color inside the house. Of course, these commonalities are not coincidences in the shooting, but are carefully arranged by the director and deliberately. So, what is the intention of these doors and windows?
The church scene near the end of the movie revealed the answer for us-
▲This picture shows a bird that wants to fly outside the church window
▲Emma walked toward the church door after her husband broke up
That's right, the protagonist wants to break the shackles in the room and rush out the door. Here, the director formed a strong contrast with the Ricky family indoors through the doors and windows and the strong light outside the doors and windows, thus completing this metaphorical suggestion.
If we can see this, we will be ready for the ending of the movie!
6. Interpretation of movie endings
Usually, a commercial film director will tell the audience a clear answer or conclusion at the end. The art film director will clarify some of his views at the end and leave enough room for the audience to think.
The ending of "I Am Love" is like this: the love affair between the heroine Emma and the chef Antonio led to the accidental death of her son. (This is the opposite)
As we mentioned earlier, the director inexplicably used triangular expressions between the characters in the scene where the virgin escaped at the end, and the unbelievable exciting music was added to the outside of the painting.
We also mentioned the scenes in Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey. The similarity between the two scenes lies in the theme of "consciousness awakening". Obviously, this is the awakening of some people who are tied up in the Ricky family. Of course, if you regard Emma as the protagonist, you can also say that it is the awakening of feminist consciousness.
In short, the moment when mother Emma "leaves" is awakening and passion, not despair and collapse.
The movie also has an end to the end, which appears after the film is over after the cast and subtitles list-we see a film like a watercolor painting-Emma and Antonio seem to be living in a cave, interdependent-and then the movie Completely ended.
These visual metaphors are respectively saying: Two people finally put aside the world and returned to their original instincts for love.
Well, let's stop here for our interpretation. The above interpretation is enough to prove the meticulousness and exquisiteness of this "I Am Love". This kind of film requires us to be careful, slow, and repetitive before we know its attractiveness.
Of course, attraction is only one of them. Our thinking process induced by interpreting such movies is even more precious!
★ Attached "I Am Love" resource Baidu cloud link:
https://pan.baidu.com/s/1AkWBdAEssItEHWLeb2Y3JQ extract taken Code: V QX0 contains a video file (the seed document, the text subtitle
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