Rohmer, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

"When I see lovers, I think about them and their future more than myself and my past, so I love cities, people appear and disappear, you can't see them growing old, making the streets of Paris like this Fascinating, the frequent and fleeting appearances of women, I'm almost certain I won't see them again, their presence is enough, the indifference, the confidence in their charm, the pleasure of testing it on me...but It didn't alienate me from Helene, not at all, I said to myself, these passing beauties are just an extension of my wife's beauty, they enriched her beauty and got some of her beauty, she is the proof of beauty, and vice versa Also, when I hug Helene, I hug all women."

Even though I've seen a Rohmer movie before, the first twenty minutes of "Afternoon Love" surprised me. Such a high-quality text, wanton inner monologue, married men's long self-comfort and debate, elegant and mocking. I instinctively sighed that even if such words were placed in a novel, it would not be buried. It turned out that my intuition was correct. Rohmer's "Six Moral Tales" series of films are based on his short story of the same name. set. In the process of flipping through the novels and appreciating the films, I constantly felt that Rohmer's films and novels have an unexpected connection, as if there is no distance between words and images and can be directly translated, which undoubtedly endows his films with a unique Artistic temperament.

There is a popular philosophical sketch, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", which talks about the foundations of Eastern and Western philosophy. It says that Eastern philosophy is based on a transcendental perception, often preceded by thinking and language, witnessing Taoism. The West, on the other hand, is built on logic and needs to be expressed in language. It is pushed into the distance in a strict logical system, link by link, which is analogous to the art of motorcycle maintenance. Rohmer's exploration of love is entirely born out of the latter, and we often joke that no one has sex in Rohmer's films, and that all ambiguity is nothing more than a touch of a knee, or a bright kiss. Because Rohmer tries to get rid of all these things that may trap the senses, to touch the essence of love with precise, elegant language and thinking.

In the movie "One Night at Maud's House", it seems to revolve around a Descartes proposition like a joke, "If you do something with a high probability of success, you will get some benefits, and the probability of failure is extremely small, but the cost is infinite. Then it shouldn't be done, because its mathematical expectations are still infinity in the negative direction." The film's hero, Louis, falls in love with a young woman he meets on the road, but has yet to gain any connection with her, halfway through, Louis was introduced by a friend and came to stay at the house of Maud, a divorced woman. All night, Maud tried to seduce Louis. Louis' situation was that maybe he could find love and solace in Maud, but it wasn't the thing he fancied the most, and the price of it was the possibility of losing the young woman he fantasized about. The whole night was immersed in a hazy ambiguity. It seemed to be an endless chat between a man and a woman. It reflected Louis' struggle and self-debate. In the end, Louis resisted the temptation and fell in love with him again at first sight. reunion. It's just that love itself is too light, and this struggle seems to be innocuous in Rohmer's elegant text. In fact, the undercurrent of desire has long been dissolved in these seemingly petty conversations. The same is true of "Afternoon Love". Regarding the itch after marriage, we have seen too many versions in the history of literature and art. Some may stand on the side of the liberation of love, and some may stand on the side of strict rules and regulations, whether it is Woody Ai A film master like Lun, or an ordinary family TV series, we can find that the story is nothing more than two endings. Either way, the process makes you feel extremely tired and confusing. But Rohmer still achieved a noble quietness in his bones. Fred was indeed moved by Chloe's visit every afternoon, but this move only existed in dense language. When a man said Too many words, and we seem to be able to see that it is his desire and imprisonment fighting. At the last moment, confronted with Chloe's nudity, Fred chooses to sneak away. Perhaps this movie can be regarded as the closest Rohmer has come to chaos and indulgence, but in the end, we still touch the quiet undertone, and the reason is that only Rohmer can make it seem as if he has gently pushed it away with his hands. The coat of love, tells us at the very beginning "These passing beauties are just an extension of my wife's beauty, they enrich her beauty and get some of her beauty, she is the proof of beauty, and vice versa, when I When I hugged Helene, I hugged all women." This itch is nothing and can't be filled. It has only one ending. Like Sisyphus, he feels dissatisfied again when he thinks he can get it, and The only way out of this dilemma is to escape this the subject itself. Behind the language, the core of this solution is so similar to the Zen koan, we are happy to see that the Eastern and Western philosophies have finally reached the same destination.

Movies driven by narration and inner monologue are surprisingly difficult to make, and if they are careless, they will fall into empty stereotypes. And Rohmer is not afraid of this criticism. Fiction films are exploring the border between text presentation and film presentation. In many cases, images cannot accurately describe a person's thoughts, so Rohmer has no scruples in writing novels. directly into the movie. This requires the text itself to have a very high level, and the lens itself also has a very high degree of cooperation. During the monologue, Rohmer often handed over the camera to the street, and the interior scenes he arranged, the bookshelves and the paintings on the walls constitute Rohmer's elegant aesthetic structure. I am very willing to regard these empty mirrors as Rohmer's. Zen. Only in this quiet harmony can we quietly follow the footsteps of the lines and examine love. It is true that passion is a part of love, but today, we should not be dominated by the desires of the flesh and commodities, To be blind animals, at this point, it's kind of good for us to see Rohmer.