Reason and emotion, which is more important?

It was a 12-hour train ride from Guizhou to Changsha, and I finished watching this movie while lying on a hard sleeper. I was still very moved last night. When I look back on the film tonight, the only thing left is my full admiration for the director. Human emotions are really layered. The authorities are obsessed, and bystanders are clear. After we get out of one thing, we will become more rational and objective.

First of all, talk about the French uncle Simon. In the beginning, the supermarket refused to allow Iraqi refugees to enter the store for shopping. He and his wife just settled the bill and witnessed the whole process of the incident with their own eyes. Simon's wife was very dissatisfied with the supermarket manager's practice. She went to fight for the right to shop for refugees, but to no avail. When walking out of the supermarket, Simon's wife expressed her disappointment with him, because Simon did not fight for these poor people, even if he said a word. It can be seen that Simon's attitude towards refugees at this stage does not seem to be friendly.

When the 17-year-old Bilal first appeared in the swimming pool where Simon worked, Simon was also rude to him. When he saw that Bilal had money to pay for swimming lessons, his attitude softened a little (maybe he thought that children with a good financial foundation would not do some illegal things for money). After teaching Pilar a few lessons, Simon discovered that Pilar had great potential in swimming. While dining in the restaurant, the picture of the swimmer winning the championship on the TV screen rekindled his enthusiasm for the competition. This time, it is not him who is going to play, but the 17-year-old Bilal. (Later, in the episode of Simon chatting with the police officer, we can learn that Simon is the champion of the 400-meter swimming competition, and the reason why he did not continue to participate in the competition was mainly because he did not have a coach. However, he thought, Pilar is different, he will one day points, and has a battle-hardened coach, Simon.)

Simon's wife thought he was taking Bilal to live at home in order to regain her goodwill. I think there was a reason for this at first. Because, it can be seen that Simon loves her wife very much and does not want to divorce her. The divorce agreement was signed only out of respect for the other person's feelings. However, things are not what Simon's wife thought. After Simon saw Bilal's perseverance and potential, he completely fell in love with (appreciated) this teenager. As a result, later began to put more energy into training Bilar. Especially when Bilal's friends say that Bilal is a good football player because he is very fast, which confirms Simon's idea even more. Even when he learned that Bilal wanted to swim across the Lamanche Strait with his bare hands and smuggled to the UK to meet his girlfriend, Simon did not deny him immediately, but encouraged him in a radical way, telling him, Only top swimmers can swim in the past. This gave Bilal a glimmer of hope and increased his motivation to practice swimming.

Let's talk about Simon's wife. She is the one who fights for the rights of Iraqi refugees in the supermarket, and she is also the one who distributes free food to the refugees. However, it was she who persuaded Simon not to stay in Pilar (because of the official ban on refugees from entering the lives of local French citizens). From her practice, we can see that helping others should be based on what we can do, and once it affects one's own life, it should be terminated in time. There should be many people who agree with her approach and think that Simon's behavior is a bit out of bounds. However, Simon doesn't think so. Obviously, Simon has regarded Bilal as his child. (From a psychological point of view, it is not impossible to generate such emotions. Simon, who is middle-aged and elderly, has no children, and the 17-year-old Bilal wanders alone in a foreign land. He is smart, kind, and lonely. The middle-aged uncle Simon of the character has a heart of compassion.)

What did Simon do for Pilar? Take him home, let him stay overnight, take care of his meals, give him professional swimming equipment, take off his padded clothes and put it on for him, and give him a diamond ring (for those who haven’t seen the movie, don’t misunderstand, let him give it to his girlfriend Mina's. The ring is to let Mina's father see Bilal's abilities, so as to exchange for Mina's father's approval and let her father not marry Mina to someone else.) Even, in the irrationality of the gold medal stolen In the state, he can quickly adjust his mentality to recover Bilal. It's too much like a father's doing, even a little bit like a lover.

Now, let's talk about Bilal, who is a pure and innocent boy who is completely ignorant of the world. He came to France in the hope that one day he could smuggle to the UK to live with his girlfriend. He left Iraq, was caught by Turkish soldiers across the border, and put in a black plastic bag for more than ten days; he hid in a large truck and wanted to smuggle to the UK, and was arrested by French police and tried in court; in order to avoid border police A breathalyzer, he tried to overcome the psychological barriers created in Turkey and practiced breathing with a plastic bag on his head; even, he practiced swimming desperately, hoping that he could cross the Lamanche Strait, during which he almost drowned in the deep sea once. . All this has only one purpose, and that is to be able to meet his beloved Mina.

In the end, he still died.

When Bilal learns that Mina's father is going to marry her to a distant cousin, he can't wait to meet Mina. On that day, before dawn, he secretly rushed to the sea with Simon's swimsuit. Just when he was only more than 800 meters away from the British beach, in order to avoid the arrest of the British border police, he tried his best to hide. exhausted and drowned in the sea.

After that, Simon went to England to find Mina, and when he told Mina the news of Bilal's death, we could all see that Mina was really sad. However, Simon took out the diamond ring found on Bilal's body, but Mina did not accept it. When she turned around and left, it seemed that she easily said goodbye to the past without waving her sleeves.

Simon looked at the ring left on the table thoughtfully. He took out his phone and called his wife (ex-wife to be exact) and told her that the lost ring had been found. Simon's wife smiled very happily. It seems that what Simon retrieved was not a ring, but her long-lost husband. The film laid a foreshadowing when Simon found the ring on the sofa. When he gave the ring to Pilar, it seemed that the director wanted to show that Simon used his emotions and energy in the wrong place.

Looking back at the whole film, I found an incredible truth - women are more rational than men.

Simon and Bilal, one who put too much emotion into a strange teenager, one who sacrificed his life for a beloved girl.

Simon's wife and Mina, one knows how to keep a proper distance from others without losing warmth, and the other knows how to say goodbye to the sad past.

(About the stolen gold medal, it is said that it was a misunderstanding caused by the translation of the subtitles, not that it was stolen by Bilal. The original text should be: The police found the gold medal on the stowaways and the ring on the body of Bilal. In addition , according to the prompts in the first half of the film, it can also be deduced that the gold medal was stolen by Bilal's friend. When they were cooking in the wilderness, Bilal's friend said that he would smuggle again, but he could not bring Bilal with him . Bilal asked him where he got the money to pay the middleman, his friend didn't speak.)

Classic lines from the film:

Simon: "Tu sais pourquoi il veut traverser, lui ? Pour aller rejoindre sa copine. Il a fait quatre mille kilomètres à pieds pour aller la retrouver et maintenant il veut traverser la Manche à la nage. Moi, quand t'es partie, j 'ai même pas été foutu de traverser la rue pour te rattraper."

Do you know why he wants to cross the English Channel? Because then he can be with his girlfriend. He came here from Iraq on foot 4,000 kilometers, and plans to swim across the strait in the freezing weather. And me, when you left, I couldn't even cross the street to beg you to come back.