Mike Lee’s movie is just such a cup of black coffee. The first sip of this authentic black water is suffocated in the mouth and stays in the mouth for a long time, you There is no choice but to swallow it, and what follows is the bitterness that lingers in the chest. The mellow and fragrance that you are trying to feel does not seem to exist. When the first long-shot scene appears in front of you, you are working as a cleaner in a nursing home. Rachel’s daughter, Rachel’s long narrow walkway, was repeatedly mopping the ground mechanically in the passage. The faint violin and guitar sounds seemed to bury the viewers into the long and narrow abyss. The alienation in people’s hearts was once again avoided by the old woman. Rachel Elicited by the subtle movements of the helping hand.
To a certain extent, "understanding" is to distort ourselves as much as possible to be in harmony with the other's spirit, and only in such a distortion process can we find a commonality. Drinking black coffee feels about the same, when you Seeing a middle-aged obese man who is always staring and staring blankly in front of the camera, when the mother's anxiety and the son's decadence and irritability recur in a long and exhausting episode. We seem to be able to understand the way Mike Lee wants to control the plot. He used a deep and depressive lens to slice a thin layer on top of the human portrait, like the invisible bitterness of coffee, supplemented by the long and melancholic string and slowness. The sticky narrative is like the black layer floating above the glass.
This is undoubtedly unpleasant. When Hollywood’s fast-paced narrative methods became mainstream beverages, what happened every day in this world --- poor and lonely taxi drivers, mothers who hate iron for nothing. , The irritable cocoon son, the fat and inferior daughter, the couple arguing about unexpected pregnancy, all the sticky, warm and entangled but boring things, when they are brewed into a cup of turbid coffee, are placed on us What is in front of us is the pain that we do not want to face but cannot ignore, and this pain is something we dare not express to others in our lives. The dazed protagonist Phil gets only loneliness from the guests coming and going and driving, Penny’s anxiety as a mother, the irritability and decadence of her son, Donna and her boyfriend’s quarrel about pregnancy and abortion, if we put ourselves in the place, we will How to tell others about this anxiety? As Mike Lee said in the interview, "We are destroying this planet and destroying each other"
With all the suffering, Mike didn't continue this gloomy plot all the way. The heart attack of son Rory was an opportunity. The pregnant girl Donna wanted to keep her baby, and she was finally able to open her heart to live with her mother after repeating her mother's fate. Penny, who only complains about her son and husband, burst out with amazing maternal love after learning that the child was ill. The slutty girl Samantha showed decisiveness and courage in front of the cowering and incompetent alcoholic mother. In the second half of the film, this cup of black coffee finally reveals a different taste.
In the movie, the quarrel between Phil and his wife is the climax of the plot. Phil is not without pain and conveys the deepest fear in his heart to her: "You do not love me, my life is like an old tree in dry water!" Attention was paid to another detail. When the boy who was always observing the stray girl Samantha pulled off his jacket and exposed the bloody "S" (Samantha) on his chest in front of her, he couldn't help but ask: Why do we want to be like this? Only by hurting yourself and each other, can others understand the thirst for love in their hearts?
The British drink black tea, and the lazy afternoon tea is supplemented with desserts and milk sugar cubes, which constitute the core of the idle lifestyle of the upper class and foreigners’ consistent impression of life in the UK. Mike Lee seems to enjoy the bitter black coffee. "Naked" tells the story of the trash tramp, "Vera Drake" tells the story of the underground Guanyin-abortion in the 1950s, even the heroine in the most flamboyant "Carefree" Three young women with no savings, no marriage and no future.
In this film, Mike Lee pays attention to the blue-collar class, unemployment and low occupation, alcoholism, unexpected pregnancy, loneliness, and the consequent loss of self-esteem. While describing a state of existence, he has been exploring the relationship between people. Everyone in the film who has a family as a group seems to wander between fear of communication and desire to communicate. In Sartre’s [Confinement], because three people do not understand each other, they constitute a tortured and hostile "other hell". The family members in this film also seem to constitute an embarrassing situation where they do not understand each other. Without the illness of his son Rory, can the end of the film be flooded with sunshine? If there is no conflict, will Phil lose his last life like an old tree in the dry water? As a mix of playwright and director, the fuse used by Mike Lee is intriguing. Will the obese teenager who will take medicine for the rest of his life and the family who love him be due to the suffering of life? Losing love, fighting spirit, happiness and the like again, and falling back to the way the movie started? The dark side after these movies is left to the viewer to imagine. He just left us some intriguing pictures and words. For example, "Lonely birth, lonely death, really fucking lonely"; For example, the smiles of the couple Phil and Penny at the end of the film that opened and retracted seem to be the sweetness of coffee, which seems to be expressed from the pain of the whole movie. A little bit of fragrance.
Imagine the old man Mike, who has always been known for his pessimism, drinking a sip of black coffee, like the protagonist Phil, saying "Lonely birth, lonely death." The smile on the corner of my mouth opened and disappeared.
Originally published in MOVIE VIEW BY JABBERWOCK
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