Kovra, the exile, it's too late!

Fog, ocean, water, snow, and drenched moisture constitute the amazing consistency of Angelopoulos' film images: style is created by repetition, and repetition is not necessarily linked to monotony. An Zhe’s highly stylized poetic images have long won the reputation of "Poetic Movies" for his works. In "Eternal Day", he simply went straight to the theme: not satisfied with only presenting poetic movies, but more The image conveys the birth of poetry. "Eternal Day" seems to cancel the anxiety expressed by Wenders in "Until the End of the World": the contradiction between image and language. The classical ideal of the unity of poetry and painting has always been an obstacle in Wenders's film concept. The enlightenment of "the beginning of Taoism" made Wenders believe that language is superior to images. He always reflects on the legitimacy of image expression while making films. But the sense of competition between poetry and painting does not exist in An Zhe's films. He uses images as a bridge to lyrically visualize the entanglement between poets and language.

But what is poetry? This kind of questioning is either ignorant or arrogant. In the film, An Zhe gave the poem new meaning through "purchase". The film tells about the last day of the poet Alexander's life. His past regrets and unfulfilled poetic ambitions tortured him. For poets, poetry has become a war of words. When the poet's inspiration dried up, the inner impulse could not find the outer form, and the deep sadness caught him. His life all became a deep mourning, and he had to travel and search for it. The rich metaphor of "purchase" opens up a kind of arbitrary and decisive force. Although purchase does not guarantee the enjoyment of something, it makes us own. The meaning of language to poetry here is not communication, or even confession, but torrential possession.

Alexander bought three words from a boy: Kovra, the exile, it's too late. The boy is an illegal crossover from Algeria who happened to be rescued by the poet, a little adventurer and a wanderer. The poet and the child formed an intimate friendship in one day, and the conversation with the boy also prompted Alexander to constantly reflect on himself: he ignored the sincere love of his dead wife, and the gap between him and his daughter was erected like ice, while visiting his mother in the ward. Deplore the loss of the ability to love-is the unforgettable regret all due to the greed for words? But the entanglement of language, homesickness, national borders, and history is even more of Alexander's unspeakable hidden pain.

The three purchased words possessed the power of a spell and became the key to dismembering Alexander's poetic art: When words meet us, what else can they hold besides perceiving the gentle warmth of the lips? "Kovra", the beautiful flowers and syllables, the signifier of the poem, points to the shining that never arrived; "The exile", the state of exile shared by the old and the children, the poet is anxious in the language, and the child wanders in a foreign country; "Too late There is no pretentious time and the footnote of "Eternal Day", just like the time when the shadows go by and will kill people all the time. Therefore, "Language Brings Us Home" has naturally become the center of the film. This familiar expression is still inexplicably trembling every time it is mentioned. The connection between language and homeland is the day when there is an "eternal day". .

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