In my opinion, this scene can be regarded as the most important one in the film. If you understand it, you can understand this incomprehensible movie. My analysis needs to use a little Jungian theory. It is not difficult, but it is the most basic. s things.
Jung believes that the cause of the child's illness in the family is not necessarily organic (that is, a problem with an organ), but may also be spiritual, mainly dominated by the unconscious. Sometimes by observing the child's family environment, the cause of illness can be known. For example, the indifferent parental relationship, the totalitarian education of the father or mother, the overly anxious parents, etc., children's unconsciousness can continuously collect this kind of information in daily life, and it will be manifested through physical discomfort when it accumulates to a certain extent. In this case, treating the child is of no use, and treating parents with psychological problems is the key.
Specifically in the film, the child’s problem is that his legs lose consciousness and cannot stand. Combining Jung’s theory, let’s see what kind of psychological problems his parents have. The image of the father is not many, judging from the few confessions, he is portrayed as a serious but careless person. The mother is nervous and has obvious psychological problems. So the conclusion is that the cause of the little boy is mostly from the mother. So where is the mother's psychological problem?
This is the key point throughout the film. The character that Antonioni focuses on is this woman. She has much more roles than the male protagonist, or we can call her the only protagonist of this movie, and the other characters are just supporting roles for her. For nearly 2 hours, the director has said a lot of things, and it is difficult to generalize. However, according to An’s habits, there will always be a sublimation scene in the film. These seem to be out of touch with the film, but they are actually the key to understanding the director’s intentions. .
This key is the story the mother tells the child. Let's briefly describe the content of the story first:
A little girl didn't want to grow up, and even hated the behavior of boys imitating adults. She enjoyed being alone and found a small bay where the beach was pink (note this) and the sea was crystal clear. She swims in the sea all day, or wade to spend time on the beach. Suddenly one day, she noticed a boat appearing on the sea level. It slowly approached. The little girl found that it was a sailing boat. She swam towards it and found no one on the boat. Soon, the ship turned and sailed into the distance. The little girl was very lost and swam back to the shore. At this time, singing sounded from nowhere. She looked everywhere, but did not find the singer. But it was found that the rocks on the beach looked like human bodies.
At this time, the little boy's voice entered and asked: "Who is singing?" The
mother replied, "Everyone." The
story ended.
Everything that seemed incomprehensible became extremely clear after replacing the little girl in the story with the heroine. The little girl who doesn't want to grow up is the projection of the heroine herself. She expresses the most fundamental psychological contradiction in the story. One side of this contradiction is a young age on the psychological level, who does not want to get out of the comfort zone created when he was a child, and the other is a desire for others driven by desire. It can also be expressed as a child psychologically, who enjoys being alone, and an adult physically, who needs to interact with others to satisfy oneself. This contradiction gave her a sense of division, which led to the incomprehensible scenes in the film.
We start with the analysis of the pink beach in the story. This is the place to point the question, and it is also the embodiment of the film's visual advantage. Red (in the broadest sense) is always associated with the little girl in the heroine's heart. It can be said that when red appears in the picture, it is when the little girl in the heroine is dominant. Under the dominance of the "little girl", her behavior manifested as withdrawal, helplessness, and tension.
Sailing boats represent the adult world, or the way to the adult world. In the story, the little girl finds that the sailboat is very clear and beautiful when it is far away. This is also the reason why she swims towards the sailboat. But when she swims closer, she finds that there is no one on the boat. She retreats at this moment, not knowing what's on the boat. , At this moment, the ship sailed away from her. Putting it in reality, it can be expressed that the heroine used to work hard to grow into an "adult", but the influence of the "little girl" in her body was too great, she withdrew, and therefore never got on the boat leading to the adult world. , Keep the contradiction in my heart forever.
The rock like a human body represents the heroine's desire, which is also a major cause of pain. If you can't be an adult, then it's okay to return to your own little world and be a child. But the problem is that the physical needs urge her to interact with others, get married and have children. It is mentioned explicitly or implicitly in the film, such as openly requesting it from his husband in Max's home, and so on. This determines that she must connect with the adult world. In fact, she must have contact with everyone in the society. This is why she answered her son's question at the end of the story: "Everyone". She cannot be separated from them, nor can she exist independently.
This analysis can explain almost all the scenes in the film. I dare not say everything in an absolute sense, nor do I dare to say that this analysis is the only correct answer. What I want to do is logically self-consistent, at least in the scenarios I think of, this method is applicable. Take two scenes that occurred at the end of the film as examples for analysis.
In the first scene, the heroine ran to the hotel to find the hero (that is, her husband’s colleague). Anshi spends a lot of time on details, such as the intermittent noise alluding to the heroine's frantic heart, the two bright red colors that appear in front of the heroine, and so on. The appearance of these two colors both appeared when physiological needs were dominant, suggesting that the "little girl" in the body had regained the lost ground. After repeated iterations, it was the sudden resistance or obedience of the heroine that we saw. At the same time, the line ("I'm afraid of all this") also expresses his fear of the adult world, which makes the hero completely confused.
The second scene immediately followed. The heroine walks across the dock full of machines and walks towards a ship. At this time, the background to set off her was a large piece of red, suggesting that she was a "little girl" at this time, walking towards the unknown, that is, the adult world (ship). After climbing up the suspended ladder, they met a crew member. The two said a few words. The heroine expressed her intention to leave by boat. The crew member asked what (I saw the version as a translation. It should be a question: Are you sure? Something like that.) The heroine hesitated and said that she hadn't made a final decision, then turned and went down the suspended ladder. After reaching the ground, I said a few words to the crew, such as this I have a family and I cannot make this decision entirely by myself, and for example, everything around me is my life and so on.
At this point, the heroine has actually overcome the psychological barrier. When she said those words to the crew, the background was no longer a large area of red. At this time, red and other colors coexist in the picture, which means that the heroine’s heart is already Reconciled and the contradiction disappeared.
The evidence is in the last scene of the film. At this time, the heroine put on a green windbreaker again, which obviously echoes the first scene of the whole film. It's just that her expression and behavior have become normal, no longer so trembling. This is the first evidence. She led the child on the field around the factory again. The little boy pointed to the chimney with yellow smoke in the distance and asked why it was the color. She said it was probably poisonous. The little boy asked if the bird was going to be poisoned, and she replied that the bird had learned to avoid danger. This is actually talking about myself. She has learned to allow the two forces in her body to coexist with each other, instead of two extremes taking turns to rule. (This is also the reason why she didn’t get on the ship in the end.)
Returning to Jung’s theory at the very beginning, combined with the boy’s specific illness, we can come to the conclusion that the “little girl” whose mother does not want to grow up is caught by the boy Captured by the unconscious, this weak, unsupportive consciousness eventually makes it unable to stand. Perhaps the mother’s recovery was attributed to the little boy. At that moment, she might understand that she should accept everything in life for the sake of the child.
View more about Red Desert reviews
