"The Story of Stories" directed by Matteo Galloni is adapted from a collection of fairy tales "Five Days" written by Jim Badesta Basil. The so-called "Five Days" must have five days. The story can be told, but the film only uses the first day of "Flea", "Old Woman Revealed" and another story about "Queen" in the first day of "Five Days." Between the three countries, members of the royal families of these three countries are used as the protagonists to speak. Although this film is a fairy tale, it is an adult fairy tale. The profound philosophy contained in it is not just to teach children what "good" is? What is "evil" again? Rather, it warns adults: sometimes in fate, it must be there, and there is no time to force it in fate. Of course, this is not to let people passively accept fate, but to urge everyone: don’t force too much for what you can’t get. If you are too obsessed, you have to sacrifice. If you don’t have the courage and consciousness to bear the sacrifice, it’s better as soon as possible. Good to give up. Story One: The Queen's Paranoid Love
In the splendid palace, the "clowns" of the circus used all kinds of ridiculous actions to entertain the group of graceful and noble royals, but the queen's cold expression seemed incompatible with the laughing crowd. Until one of the clowns accidentally rushed cold water onto the belly of another female clown, and the other's pregnant belly was exposed to everyone's eyes, the queen couldn't restrain herself any more, and quickly got up and left angrily. Does she think everyone is too distracted and sympathetic to the clown? From the back we can know that this is not the case. She is in love with the scene and feels sad for herself who has always been infertile. It is this obsession to have a son that makes her do everything she can to force her by all means. One night, a wizard came to the palace. He told the king and the queen how to get a son, but he warned them: if you gain, you must lose, and you must be prepared to sacrifice. The queen insists on wanting a son, so the king who loves the queen dearly decides to personally fetch her the heart of the monster to satisfy her wish to have a son. In the end, the water monster died and the heart had been gained. The queen finally got her wish, but the king sacrificed for it. Chillingly, the queen picked up the heart of the monster on the river bank, but did not look directly at the dead king. On the day the king went out for funeral, the queen sitting in the sedan chair was just immersed in the joy of getting a child. The king’s many years of company are not as good as this newly born son, because this is what the queen has been looking forward to finally get. The more rare things are, the more cherished, but it is often at this time that people are the easiest. Ignore the people who have been with you after you fall away. Unexpectedly, the heart of the water monster not only made the queen pregnant, but also made the maid who cooked the heart pregnant. Together, the two gave birth to a pair of pale-faced and snow-haired teenagers. These teenagers have similar faces. For twin brothers, feelings are getting better day by day.
The queen's paranoid love finally wanted to sweep everyone who wanted to get close to her son. For this reason, she regarded the maid's son as a thorn in her eyes, a thorn in her flesh, she wanted to get rid of it at all costs, and even once again asked the wizard to use the power of magic. In the end, she died tragically at the hands of her unknowing son as a monster.
As the wizard said: if you want to gain, you must lose something. It didn't matter to the queen to lose her husband, but in the end, even her own life was also entrusted to her. I am afraid she never expected it. The queen died of her reluctance, her overly paranoid love for her son. Story 2: The youth that the old woman insists on keeping-adapted from "The Old Woman Revealed" In another neighboring country, there is a king who is indulging in beauty. Every day, he is licentious and desperate to obtain one. A beautiful lady spent a good night together. One day, when he was drunk, he accidentally heard a beautiful singing voice, and fell in love with the singing mistress. For this reason, he gave away the jewels just to get the beauty back, but how did he know that the other party was over seventy years old? old lady. The old lady delusioned that the old sparrow would become a phoenix because of this opportunity, so she squeezed her shrill voice to deceive the king, and fascinated the king even more with her younger sister's often sucking fingers like bamboo shoots. Under the king's persistent courtship, in order to satisfy her vanity, she promised to spend the night with the king, provided that no lights were allowed at night. When the morning sun shines through the window, all lies and hypocrisy are illuminated. The king was furious, and the crowd threw the old lady who was disgusting him out of the castle. The old lady wrapped in bright red sheets was hung by the dense branches, and she was lucky enough not to fall to her death. Her cries drew the passing old witch, who sympathized with her, rescued her from the tree, and made her suck her own milk. A miracle happened. Deep in the dense forest, on a boulder covered with green moss, the bright red bed sheet is like the most wonderful silk in the world, wrapping a sleeping woman who is as beautiful as a forest fairy.
The hunting king accidentally ran into this unearthly woman. Her long brown hair wrapped her naked body, making the king fascinated for a while. The old lady who regained her youth changed her destiny as she wished and became a nation.
However, as metaphorically at the end of the film: Everything needs to be balanced. The balance of one party is broken, which will inevitably lead to the tilt of the other party. The elder sister turned into a phoenix overnight, but the younger sister continued to dye cloth in an aging appearance. She couldn’t do without her elder sister who had depended on her for many years. She admired her sister’s deeds even more. For this reason, when she tried her best to ask her elder sister how to do it. When regaining the secret of youth, because of my sister's angry words: I peeled my own skin! But believing it was true, hired a butcher to skin himself.
When the sister’s screams stung the eardrums of the audience time and time again, and when she was so bloody that she walked tremblingly to the out-of-reach castle, what remained in the audience’s heart was nothing but creepy grief. It is a reflection that is still unfinished.
Why did my sister end up in such a way? That was exactly what he said: Sometimes life must be there, but life cannot be forced at all times. If you insist, are you ready to sacrifice? Perhaps, the result of the forced will not let you get what you want. My sister ended up like this, what about my sister? Do you want to live your life in peace? When the ending came, everything disappeared, dust returned to dust, soil returned to soil, youth was perishable, and appearance was hard to find. When the shelf life of youth had passed and the delicate skin faded away, she finally had to become an old man again. Weeping desperately, away from the king, away from the rich life. Story Three: The Broken Dream of the Princess-Adapted from "Flea" Compared with that sentence: Sometimes life must be there, but life is always necessary. I think this story puts more emphasis on resistance to fate. The king of the third country does not do his job every day, but is fascinated by a flea.
When the daughter played the music for her favorite king father, the father's attention was actually on a flea that couldn't be patted, and what's more pathological was that he actually started to feed the flea. No one knows what to keep a little flea. It wasn't until one day that the king brought the raw meat that his daughter didn't eat back to the bedroom for a strange creature to eat, and the audience was shocked to discover: God, that flea was so big! Forget it if it's too big, the key is dead. Forget it if you die, the key is to trigger a "blood case." The king's deeds had risen to a certain level, and he actually started to use the skin of the dead fleas to entertain the people. In addition, he sacrificed his daughter's happiness.
He couldn't imagine that someone would guess that this skin was "flea skin". This man is a savage who eats raw meat for a living and accompanies fleas every day. Therefore, he took his daughter's entire happiness into it. At that time, the princess was full of fantasy and longed to marry a handsome prince. When listening to her mother reading stories for her, she loved to listen to that romantic love story, and longed to be led by such a person who moved her. She looked at the outside world.
However, the reality tore everything to pieces and exposed it to her bloody, she had to be dragged by the savages to the cave on the top of the mountain to live with the ugly, fierce and crude savage in front of her.
Why did she leave the castle? Why agree to the father's decision? It must be more anger with his father. At that time, she wanted to kill her father by committing suicide, and when her father categorically refused, she was angry at marrying again. At that time she was still a little girl spoiled with princess disease. However, I went outside for a while and saw the broken love, the fall of life, and the death of benefactors one after another, so I felt calm.
When she faced the circus family that saved her and died for her, she was terrified to the extreme of the cruel savage in front of her. Perhaps because of the extreme, she calmed down instead, for the first time to show her good to the savage, the first time she knew how to go, and the first time she took a knife and cut off the savage's throat decisively. Then, she went home covered in blood, threw the savage head in front of her father, and said coldly: This is the husband-in-law you chose for me.
It was so still for a second, the king cried bitterly, and she cried bitterly too, for what happened to her, and for the self that she has grown up now. When the princess was crowned as queen, members of the royal families of the other two countries came to congratulate. We saw the protagonists of the three countries gathered together in the story. They each have their own experiences and their own gains and losses. When the acrobats in the sky walked the tightrope with bamboo poles in hand, we saw the princess's smile after a brief pause. At that moment, there was both indescribable touch and suddenness.
At the end of the story, the acrobat walking on the hollow dome castle stopped in the middle of the steel wire. The picture was symmetrical, and the harmony and balance were indescribable.
The film ends at this moment, meaning: everything in the world is in balance, and gains and losses. Obsession is too deep, gains and losses are already doomed.
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