"Mystery Train" was originally called "Mystery Train" in English and translated into "Three Blue Moons" in Taiwan. I like these two translations very much. Although the mainland translation is literal, it is also very appropriate; the Taiwan translation is completely incomprehensible at first glance, but people who have watched the movie will understand the essence of this translation.
Of course, the premise is that you will not associate a certain laundry detergent product by "Blue Moon". Otherwise, there will be no artistic conception.
The "Blue Moon" in the movie comes from Elvis Presley's classic love song, written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart in 1934. The lyrics are actually derived from an English idiom "once in a blue moon", which means "once in a thousand years." If there are two full moons in the same month, then the second full moon is called the blue moon.
The lyrics are very simple and can be understood at four levels; the song is also very short, only two minutes, but the artistic conception is profound. This song is also worth listening to again and again.
Blue moon
You saw me standing alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own
Blue moon
You knew just what I was there for
You heard me saying a pray for
Someone I really could care for
Without a love of my own
The moon is a magical thing. It seems that no matter which country people like to entrust their love and the moon, the Chinese are even more important. Regardless of homesickness, thoughts about family and country, or difficult mood, you can use the moon to compose poems. The three blue moons in the movie refer to the protagonists in the three stories hearing Elvis’ "Blue Moon" at the same time. This makes the three stories in the movie have some mysterious and fascinating connections.
Jiamuxu's movies are always very special, and he has introduced his maverick life and movies before. For him in the movie "Mysterious Train", there is a very appropriate statement: Jia Muxu = Wang Jiawei + Cai Mingliang-Jimmy; for the movie, it is: "Mysterious Train" = "Chongqing Forest" + " Long Live Love"-"Go Left, Go Right".
Similar to Wong Kar-wai's two stories in "Chongqing Forest" that have little connection but not much connection, this movie tells three stories. These three stories happened on the same night in the same place, and there is a slight connection between the three stories, but they do not affect each other.
When telling stories, many directors are accustomed to looking for the lives of different people to intersect because of some accidental or inevitable opportunities, so that sparks can be collided and a wonderful and moving story can be completed. But Jamusch has never been superstitious about such accidental or inevitable opportunities. For him, after all the characters pass by, they are still strangers. Their lives have not changed because of this.
As mentioned above, the mystery of the train is that you don’t know who it will take where it will go, and you don’t know who it will take here. So the first shot and the last shot of this movie are both a silver train. The only difference is that the previous train is coming and the latter is leaving.
The story of the movie takes place in the town of Memphis where the train stops halfway. As we all know, Memphis is the hometown of Elvis Presley, which is why there are a lot of Elvis elements in this movie. It is said that Jamusch chose Memphis as the filming location because he felt that "there are many ghosts here."
When looking for a location, Jamush once drove directionlessly. He inadvertently came to the intersection of the abandoned train station, the Akade restaurant, and the disrepaired Akade Hotel. The latter is in the film. The place where the three stories took place.
In an interview with Spin magazine in 1990, Jamush recalled: “There are too many memories left at this crossroads. The legendary blues master Robert Johnson appeared on this street, which influenced the history of blues development. Muddy Waters (Muddy Waters) also stopped at this train station."
The first story in the movie is called: Far from Yokohama, which translates as: Far from Yokohama. It tells the story of a couple from Yokohama, Japan who was obsessed with American rock music in the 1950s and came to Memphis on a pilgrimage. This is also one of my favorite stories in the whole movie, and this couple may also be one of my favorite couples in all movies.
The man is expressionless and hardly speaking, while the woman is funny and cute and chattering; the man is in a suit and the airplane head of the rock youth, but the woman can’t wait to wear 100 T-shirts with various patterns; the woman is very fond of Elvis Presley Slee, the man insisted on liking Perkins at the same time, and even kept arguing about it.
Although they have so many differences, they can still listen to music together in harmony and love, using rock, paper, scissors to decide who to listen to their album; they can also smoke the same cigarette in silence and pass the lighted cigarette in a tacit understanding.
The man said: This is very similar to Yokohama. After 60% of the buildings in Yokohama are removed, it will become the same as Memphis; but the woman disagrees: This is the United States, and Yokohama does not have Elvis Presley.
The second story is called: A Ghost, translated as: ghost. It was about a woman from Rome who had to transfer at the local airport to consign her husband's body. She had to spend one night in the town, but she met a local woman who was arguing with her boyfriend. The two of them decided to spend the night together.
The psychedelic part of this story lies in the story the little gangster told her. In the small town of Memphis, countless people claim to have driven a car for the ghost of Elvis. And on this night in the hotel, she really saw the ghost of Elvis. The ghost was confused about why she appeared here, and then left.
The third story is called: Lost in Space. It tells the story of a man from the UK who looks very similar to Elvis was unemployed and fell in love at the same time, and the girlfriend who left him was the local woman in the second story.
The man, friends and brother-in-law spent time in the bar to relieve their sorrows. After being drunk, he even took out a pistol and accidentally shot and killed the owner of the convenience store. A tense group of three drove the car and drank wine and wandered the town, not knowing where to go. Finally came to a small hotel and asked to hide for a while.
In addition to the above-mentioned connection, these three stories have some things in common: they stayed in the same hotel, but they arrived at different times; they all heard the same broadcast in different places at the same time. The same song was Blue Moon; when they were about to leave the next morning, they all heard a gunshot. Of course, the gunfire came from the three people in the third story.
Jia Muxu is a director who likes to use symbolic language in movies very much. In his movies, not only scenes and costumes have meanings, even the name of a character, the name of a song, or a bar shop passing by the roadside has its own unique meaning.
In this movie, Jia Muxu arranges three pairs of characters with different relationships to stay in a hotel. But if you look closely, you can find that most of these three pairs of people are actually outsiders. They are Japanese couples, Roman women, and English men. These people gathered in a small hotel in a foreign country one night and heard the same song representing American symbols.
And this is exactly the charm of the "mysterious train" in the movie's name. They are all transported here by a certain train, and one day they will be transported by a certain train. Perhaps one day in the future, these people will gather again in some other place, but they will not know all of this themselves.
As Wong Kar-wai said: Sometimes I met someone yesterday, and I felt that he was very interesting and impressive. But then I never met again, life is like this.
Life is like this.
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