Like the Japanese films "The Burial", "The Life That Time" and the Austrian film "Breathe", the Italian director Uberto Pasolini went to the UK to shoot "The Silent Life" (also translated as "Continue to Live" 2013). Videos directly related to the deceased. Death is always the theme of human immortality, but the time and space are different. The "silence" and "quietness" in the film are like two tombstones lying in front of the viewer. The yin and yang are separated by an invisible stream of forgetfulness and the underworld.
Modest John May (Eddie Marsan), a minimalist, eats blandly, desires nothing, and lives a lonely life. His job is just a community service in the London borough of Ningkenton. To put it bluntly, it is to organize relics, find living relatives, and organize memorial and funeral ceremonies for those who have passed away alone.
Just looking for the relatives of the deceased is an extremely difficult task, and often nothing is found. He often stood still, noncommittal. Wandering, standing still, and firm, constitute the reality of his exhausted life. But for more than 20 years, he has never complained, silently and diligently.
Even so, Pratchett, the person in charge, told him that the unit would lay off staff. Before he left, he only had three days to work to find a relative of the deceased named Billy Stock to work. Knowing that she has been "resigned", May still spares no effort to find Billy's survivors. I just don't want Billy's funeral, like his solitary life, to be left alone.
In other words, Mei has organized too many deserted funerals, and he feels that he has a great responsibility, and it is his mission to seek evidence for the deceased. Let them in the spirit of heaven feel that even if they were penniless and did not spend their whole lives in vain, they still have relatives and friends who remember them. He wants to hold tight on the mortal rope that connects heaven to reality.
But the old man Billy had a turbulent temperament and had few relatives and friends. He could only look for traces of life through an album left behind. For this grandfather who was "violent and refused assistance" during his lifetime, it can be said that he has no relatives, at least the superficial impression and available clues are like this. But Mei, who is calm on the outside and firm on the inside, believes that Billy must have someone he cares about.
Hard work pays off. He found "Mary's Restaurant", the proprietress Jones, who was Billy's lover during his lifetime, and gave birth to a daughter with the hot Billy, and this daughter was married and had a family, and also had a lovely daughter. But Jones said Billy didn't know about her daughter and refused to attend Billy's funeral.
Mei was still not reconciled, and through unremitting efforts, she found out where Billy's only daughter who still cared about lived lived. He bought new albums and replaced them with all the old pictures of Billy holding his daughter and so on. The brand new photo album, when touched, makes people feel that Billy is not just a tyrannical, heartless, alcoholic drunk, he is also a person with a delicate love in his heart.
Mei, who never drank, also invited two homeless people who were on the streets with Billy to drink, just to learn more about Billy's life. During this time, Mei either stood at the station or rushed into the distance. He came to the town where Billy's daughter lived.
Kelly Stoker is a beautiful woman. But when she mentioned her father, she became angry and calmed down a little. Especially when she took over that brand new album, she choked up. She said that her father also had an old comrade-in-arms who had been thinking about him. It's just that Kelly still shook her head like Jones did before, refusing to attend Dad's funeral.
The helpless Mei still comforted her and asked her, but did not force her. Kelly looked at the back of him walking away silently, her expression obviously changed subtly. May came to the residence of Billy's old comrade Garbo, and the old man was very happy. He said that when they were in the Falkland Islands, life was hard, and Billy was terrified and just hoped to return to England as soon as possible. May said goodbye to the old man, and received a call from Pratchett, who was bent on firing him, telling him to stop asking Billy's business. Someone else would do it, and he didn't need to worry about it.
Faced with squeezing, taunting, and taunting, he took off his belt and tied it to the bars, and was about to try the possibility of Billy's "self-implantation" when the phone rang. He took Kelly's call, hoping to meet. He hurries to the platform, and Kelly smiles that she's going to her dad's funeral. When she got on the train, she smiled and said that if she had time, she would like to invite him to the coffee shop on Friday. May smiled and nodded. Witnessing Kelly's train leaving, the trance time is like a streamer, tightly holding them together. The previous efforts were not wasted in vain, and were filled with deep love.
Mei was so excited that she came to the store and carefully selected a pair of teacups with dog graphics, what a happy pair of dogs. But just as he was going out, he saw the bus he was going to take on the opposite side, and rushed over without thinking. As a result, an accident happened, and he was hit by another car, bleeding profusely...
As he was dying, he showed a calm smile, which must have been a rare happy smile in his life. He can finally let go of everything in this world, and no longer have to worry about finding someone else or worry about losing his job, not to mention that he also flew away with Kelly's love.
It turns out that Mei has been busy with other people's funerals, which is like holding funerals for herself. What a quiet life it is. No one notices when alive, and still unknown when dead. Just as old Billy's funeral was being held, the work of burying May was also quietly going on. There were only two workers who buried him, which was in sharp contrast to Billy's grand funeral opposite.
All the relatives and friends that May had visited and requested during his lifetime attended Billy's funeral. Kelly and Jones just looked at each other, how did they know that the one who had just been buried silently would be May. Kelly is also looking forward to meeting May at the cafe.
All the people left the cemetery, the sky was getting dark, and the souls of the deceased rose up one after another, and they paid tribute to the person who helped them. The style of the film is unusually quiet, like the title, sometimes slow, but gripping and never stagnant.
Through Mei's life, we can reflect on ourselves. Everyone, no matter how they lived during their lifetime, is just a tombstone after death. Or no tombstone, just a photo. Or there are no photos, just a number. Or it didn't even have a number, just a flame that rose, and then died silently, like a mass of chaos.
2015, 6, 2
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