After watching the video, I stayed in astonishment. How the director did it, in such a thin narrative, made me feel a huge emotion and was shocked. If the narrative is likened to oxygen, this key element of the film is truly suffocatingly thin. The director refuses to say anything, and the audience doesn't know anything, but there is a huge emotional tension that weaves the film into a whole.
The film is not about the sweet company of an old friend, but a short journey that is close to the heart. Under the film's calm appearance, the director uses rich details to make the audience feel the silent complexity and unease. Mark may not be so eager to go to the hot springs with Kurt, but more to escape from family life for two days. He hides in his own shell all the way, and deals with Kurt hypocritically. And Kurt made a lot of mistakes on the road. He didn't arrive at the meeting point on time. He borrowed 10 yuan from Mark to buy marijuana (should not pay it back), and when Mark refueled, he ran and played with the dog (to avoid paying for the gas) , the worst is to point the wrong way. Along the way, Kurt talked a lot, Mark listened quietly, shared experiences in the past, and their own experiences later, I couldn't see who recognized or envied the other, except for the occasional resonance brought by old people and things, each maintained a mask and a relationship. Suspicion under the mask.
Kurt in the first half seemed like an unlikable character, unstable, unreliable, and insecure. But Kurt has his candor and sweetness. He was playing with the puppy Lucy all the way, and Mark was cold to his puppy. When camping at night, Kurt boasted that he had attended an astrophysics class. He learned very well, and even had a set of his own theory of the universe, but he forgot how to explain his theory to Mark, but it didn't matter, He remembered the conclusion, the conclusion: the entire universe was falling in the shape of teardrops. Perhaps because of the talk of tears and falls, Kurt suffers a brief emotional breakdown, and in the dark he opens up and tells Mark how much he misses him. Mark listened quietly. Hypocritical comfort Kurt, Kurt quickly closed his heart. The next day, perhaps out of guilt about pointing the wrong way the day before, he struggles to prove he knows the way and wants Mark to enjoy the hot springs. The sensitive and fragile Kurt is like a child who has done something wrong and is desperately trying to prove himself and make his companions happy.
The strength of the entire film lies in the emotional tension between the two. To many viewers, director Kelly Leichhardt's films seem to have nothing to say (lack of story and plot) and nothing to see (no visual spectacle). But this is the real movie. Movie is a kind of film that cannot be presented with words, musical instruments or paintings. It must be arranged by the director, the performance of the actors, the green forests and paths, the chirping of insects and the In the mixture intertwined by the water stream, the audience can feel the unique experience of what the director wants to tell. And Kelly Leichhardt does a better job than a lot of directors, getting to the heart of human life beneath the surface. That core is political, economic, cultural, social, all of the foregoing in merging with the individual.
The most interesting thing about this film in my opinion is that the director, consistently, never conveys any clear message, let alone a solution. She is still focused on the present, the present, the present. The director has no ambition to tell the past and look to the future in her films. After watching the whole film, the audience does not know what the two of them do for a living, and why the two had cracks. Whether their friendship can continue. The director never seems to let her protagonist gain a sense of value cheaply in the long river of time. The ordinary life of ordinary people usually acquires abstract meaning and value in the emotion of "I have been here, I have experienced it". The director does not want to pretend to be so empty of beautification and praise of life. In her thin narrative, she removed all elements that could be provocative, tempted, inspired, expected, and repeatedly questioned. What she wants to talk about is that on that weekend, two people with different fates, carrying their own different lives, staggered for two days. What happened to them in the past? It doesn't matter, what will happen to them in the future? unimportant. Every minute and second of everyone's life is real, and no matter what, this moment must be passed. The two people soaking in the hot spring met by the hot spring with their full lives. They politely talked to each other, then missed their bodies and went away separately. All the director's efforts are aimed at presenting this moment, the warm spring water flowing from the rocks, the dense and dense plants, the larks on the branches, the snails on the moss, that is something everyone has, irreplaceable, incomparable. Real life moments. The protagonist and nature share this wonderful moment, which is the purpose of their journey, the purpose of this film, and nothing else.
The film is not so much about friendship as it is about two old friends, a chance encounter between two different life paths. One is a mature man with a family and a business who has settled down, and the other is a still young man who wanders around the world alone. The film begins with Mark's home life and ends with Kurt's daily encounters. The life of the two must continue like this, and nothing will change. Mark chose stability and safety, and Kurt chose danger and wandering. Mark was obviously more confident in his choice in front of Kurt. Kurt is undoubtedly more worrying. At the end of the film, Kurt seems to be looking for something, in front of a Chinese acupuncture parlor, he has a closed door, he goes back to the street, in a sea of cars, we don't know where he is going or where he can go. Kurt said he discovered the secret of the universe: The universe is falling in the shape of a teardrop. Whether someone else's universe sublimates or falls I don't know, Kurt's universe will no doubt be, and is even falling, in the shape of a teardrop. . .
Kurt reminds me of a poem:
There are two roads in the yellow woods,
It's a pity I can't choose both
I stand for a long time on the journey
Looking at one of the extreme eyes
Until it meanders into the distant bushes.
. . . . . .
Many, many years later:
There are two roads in the woods, and I—
Choose the one with few pedestrians
It changed my life.
Send this poem to Kurt, a naive and arrogant man who has no regrets in the search for the meaning of life in the thorns of the earth.
View more about Old Joy reviews
