At the beginning of "Before Sunset" of the film, the hero of men and women for nine years after the reunion, until afterwards endless dialogue began, the woman said she would have to ask an important question: "? That you an appointment yet,"
this issue Going back to nine years ago, strange men and women accidentally met on the train, and they sparked bright sparks and burned all night. After dawn, the two returned to their own countries. When they parted, they changed their previous "just this night" agreement and set a reunion six months later, but they did not leave contact information.
This is the content of the previous work "Before Sunrise". After reading the previous work, it seems that the biggest suspense is-will they meet as scheduled in six months? It seems to be a coincidence that at the beginning of the later work "Before Sunset", when the male protagonist came to France to hold a press conference with a novel describing the encounter nine years ago, the female reporter asked him the same question: You guys Have you seen each other in six months? The man’s answer is very clever. He said that you can take this question as a test. If you think they have met, then you are an idealist. If you don’t think that way, then you may be a skeptic.
However, the real answer came in the chat after the hero and heroine got off the boat. The woman said: If you really saw me and we had sex every day, could you still write such a novel? The man shrugged and said: I would be happy to accept such a challenge... Their responses are often half-true and half-false. Although such half-true and half-false responses are very humorous or teasing, they are full of sadness and charm. However, All the sadness and charm are just because of the reality they are in now and their realization. Because of this, when a man takes a joke, he will say: I know. It's not about sex. In fact, it is more appropriate to say: It's not about time. In other words, if they really meet again, even if a man is given enough time, can he write the same work? Whether you are optimistic or pessimistic, I think your answer will be negative. The female reporter who asked the question was obviously too entertaining. I said that talents who are too entertained will ask questions about "later" after the film is over. .
Here, I think of an interesting phenomenon about these two films. A friend said to me: "Before you watch it, I have to tell you an experience, which is that you will prefer which work you see first. I have not encountered an exception so far. So you are facing It's a question of destiny-which one do you
watch first?" This is indeed a "question of destiny" because of course I have no choice before I read it, and if I have seen it, then there is no such thing as a choice. .
Since there is no choice, then this is not an important question-the important thing is not "which one do you watch first", but "why do you like which one you watch first". There are factors that are not "experience" or "probability". In other words, there is a certain "inevitability of destiny" to come to the conclusion that "you will prefer which one you watch first", which goes against this conclusion. Can be classified as accidental factors such as "probability". In fact, to go further, this conclusion is an important proof that the two works are very successful. Before presenting the reasons, we might as well imagine: assuming we always prefer the one we look at later, what does that mean? That means that every work is not "complete," and it lacks something outside of the work.
For this reason, we must always remind ourselves that we should treat "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset" as two independent works. I must say that these two works deserve our view of them. However, the reason why we need to remind ourselves this way is precisely because we cannot watch these two works at the same time. No matter which one we look at first, this work will participate in the formation of ourselves, and then when we look at the other one next , So that a constituted self will participate. This is natural and reasonable, and it is not the order that prevents us from looking at the works independently, but the way we treat them.
Now we return to the question at the beginning. The question asked by the heroine in the later "Before Sunset", "Did you go to the appointment that day", is undoubtedly a question asked afterwards. If in advance, the question should be: "Will you go to the appointment that day?" Let's see how the two questions are different.
First of all, I have to say that for works, this is not a simple difference between beforehand and afterwards. What we should not have much controversy is that in advance, the two young people must believe that each other can make the appointment as scheduled, which is consistent with their real wishes at the time. Afterwards, the heroine was unable to attend the appointment for some reason, but when she heard the actor say that he did not go, she said: "You better have a good reason!" It can be seen that even though she did not go, she cared about men. Whether the protagonist goes to the appointment. This kind of care is an absent presence, which shows that she is still in place after many years. As when she made the appointment, she hopes that the other party (and also hopes herself) will be on the appointment as scheduled. Here, the physical space-time is not the key to the problem.
The reverse is also true for the male protagonist. He went to the appointment as scheduled but did not see the heroine. After suffering or even anger, he believed that the heroine must have some reason to prevent her from attending the appointment (this reason is of course "Although there is no change in the will, some kind of beyond the scope of his control) External forces prevented her from coming"), and after reuniting years later, he heard that reason as he wished (the heroine's favorite grandmother died). But is he relieved? No, no. Rather, he was more painful. If the heroine had forgotten him a long time ago and didn't take this matter to heart, he might not be so painful, but the problem is that when his expectations are confirmed, the pain has become deeper. He sighed up to Tianhao on the cruise ship: "Why? Why you didn't come?" The heroine knew what he was asking, but the answer was not what he asked: "I told you, my grandma......" The hero replied, "I know. But why?" "—This "why" is also not something that physical time and space can answer.
As a result, we see that for the two parties, there is no disagreement on the agreement “should” be fulfilled in the agreed physical time and space. As spectators, if there is a disagreement, there is probably only one, that is, the audience who thinks they will eventually hate each other hope that they will stop here, so that they can keep a good memory of "that night". But even so, I have to say that it is precisely because the audience who thinks this way is to avoid "mutual hatred" from becoming a reality, therefore, when this agreement occurs, they may still hope that both of them have the same passionate desire to go to the appointment ( That is to say, the subjective conditions have not changed), which in fact does not deny that “should”. The only difference is that this part of the audience hopes to hand over the decision of “whether or not to go to the appointment” to force majeure outside of the body, thereby removing them from this Freedom from the dilemma ("Go to the appointment but hate each other later" and "Fail to go to the appointment but leave good memories"). I have to say that such thoughts come from a pessimistic or weak mind.
In any case, we have already seen: from the point of view of subjective will, the two issues are not much different. What really makes the difference are those things that go beyond subjective will and are always like that-things that we call "destiny". If the two protagonists have maintained their love for each other for nine years (if you do not deny this), then they will reunite in a completely different situation nine years later, and they will truly have a certain tragic nature. On the contrary, it does not possess or at least weakens the nature of this tragedy. It is worth noting that when we say "surpassing subjective will", it does not mean that the decision-making power is handed over to "external things" (even if it is a god or "heaven"). It is a classic example of the tragedy of the fate of ancient Greece. Style understanding. The "destiny" we are talking about today, although it transcends subjective will, it still requires us to participate and accept it. In other words, "Did you go to the appointment that day?"-this is not a matter of subjective will, and it is not pure at the same time. The question of whether physical space-time is present, even if there is an incomparably sufficient "external reason", we still have to give our answer.
The director must work hard to find the reason for the "force majeure" that the heroine did not attend the appointment, but the final result still seems to be insufficient. The death of a close relative is enough to constitute the reason why the heroine did not go to the appointment of the location, but not enough to constitute the reason why she did not reconnect with the hero (for example, she can ask a friend to go there, etc., as long as her subjective desire is strong enough, she even You can entrust strangers...this is not a problem). It seems that this design is indeed a bit far-fetched, and it is one of the few shortcomings of the latter. However, do you realize that the shortcomings do not lie in whether the external reasons are sufficient, because as long as they are careful enough, the external reasons can always be "designed", and what I care about is that they cannot be handed over to the author to "design" The protagonist’s choice itself.
In fact, do we really need a reason that seems to be equal in weight to this agreement to explain our failure to attend the appointment? Why can't it be that nothing special has actually happened, but we just didn't go there? Someone might say: Since both of them have such a subjective will, and there is no external force to obstruct them, why didn't they go? Some people even jumped into the post-production and said to me: Look, didn't the actor go? If the heroine's wishes are the same as those of the male protagonist, how could she not go?
What I want to say here is that there are two inappropriate perspectives for viewing works, one of which is the "God perspective." From the perspective of people with this perspective, the work is a testing ground for their subjective imagination. They have the omniscience and omnipotence of God at the same time, and they have mastered all the past and the future. They overlook the world, and then manipulate the chess pieces to manipulate the protagonist. . The works of Huang Yizhi and his ilk are suitable for this kind of people. They can assume that they jump to any time and space and carry all their own history at the same time! Going back to the work discussed in this article, how does the heroine know that the hero will be there before going to the appointment? If you can’t know, how can it be the basis for the decision? Obviously we can’t give ourselves more power than the characters in the works, otherwise we cannot really put ourselves in the place, this is the case in the works, and the same in life: I cannot let my students understand the truth beyond their age experience, if I Say to them: "You haven't experienced it, so I don't know what will happen later." Then, even if I am not playing God, I am at least playing a prophet.
Just think about it. When we were young and not doing anything, we made decisions based on what we made, and what kind of decision we made. As the heroine said on the cruise ship: when we were young, we always thought that we could meet many people who could love each other in our life, but only later discovered that there were not so many people. This sentence can be used as an important reason for her absence from the meeting.
Yes, let’s assume another situation: it was agreed that the night before, it was an ordinary Wednesday, and the heroine returned to her residence as usual. Maybe she just had a chat with her friends, but she still Remember, the next day was a special day. It is not difficult for her to go to Vienna. The train will arrive very quickly and will be available at any time, so she is not in a hurry. After six months, she has a clear memory, and she even blushes when she thinks of that night, but she feels that it will be a dream, especially when she has no contact information and cannot hear or see any proof of the other party’s existence. Under the circumstances, the more she missed that beauty, the more she felt that it was like a dream. At the party that just ended, a certain girlfriend again talked about her quarrel with her boyfriend and then the protracted cold war... The heroine suddenly got tired of these stories that had been staged countless times every day, and she began to feel that the same man only has That night might not have been a good thing, at least, she had plenty of space to use her misses and memories to outline the other person, and she didn't have to worry about disillusionment at all. Thinking of this, she was a little dazed, and a little uneasy. She couldn't imagine what it would be like to see each other tomorrow. Maybe there will be a sense of strangeness in the moment of seeing each other? After all, she didn't even know the other party's full name.
A few months after sunrise and sunset, our heroine can't distinguish what is memory and what is imagination. She didn't know if it was her expectation to add something to it-the big boy with the stubble stubble slightly red, did such details really happen? Or, take 10,000 steps back, even if it's all true, but what about six months later? It is not that we don't know how powerful time is, not to mention that it is six months without mutual contact, even for men and women in love who talk on the phone every day, for six months, they can become anything in reality. So, the heroine thought, what about that boy? Is he still as shy as he was at the beginning? Is he still eager for himself but unspeakable? Or, it was just that he was on a lonely journey of emotional loss, and happened to meet a romantic and impractical exotic girl. That night was full of healing effects with just the right temperature, so when he returned to the land of America , He immediately opened up a new life?
All this, at that age, has never been a fixed number. Rather than definite numbers, the reason is not so much that you can't see the future clearly, it's better to say that you just want to see the future clearly. And when he thinks about what the future might be, he is also thinking about what the future might not be like. If the future is just the "day yet to come", then all the "possible" and "may not" are impossible. Any falsification shall have the same effect on his judgment. From this point of view, whether he chooses to go or not is not necessarily related to his expectations, emotions or values. If he goes, it does not mean that he is a loyal and unswerving person. If he does not go, it does not mean that he maliciously deceived anyone.
So, on that day, our heroine might have overslept a little because of the slight drowsiness last night. When she was still planning to go to the appointment after hurriedly freshening up, she thought of taking an exam today. Believe me, this course is not important to her. She has usually skipped class for many trivial reasons, perhaps because the process may be a bit cumbersome to make up the exam, and she is really unwilling to perform those extras. She knew that if she did, she could still finish her studies without any setbacks. Thinking about this, she picked up the textbook and put it in her bag again. There was an overlap between the road to the train station and the school, and she did not immediately make a clear decision. On that road, she thoughtfully and repeatedly thought about the question of whether to go or not. Just as she was about to walk to the gate of the school, she met her best friend, greeted her happily, and walked together, and then she said it. The topic of last night. Our heroine is actually not much interested in discussing this topic, but out of good intentions, she did not interrupt. You must know that there is a living life by your side, a friend who gets along with each other day and night in daily life, holding her hand at this moment, can feel the temperature, and on the other side, is a distant stranger, all expectations are only maintained by that unknown It’s a dream that’s real night. If she ever talked to people around her easily, the most likely response she might receive is "Be careful, maybe it's a bad person" or "I didn't expect you to be so romantic." , In short, there is no sentence that can be close to the true mind.
Soon, we arrived at the gate of the school. Even when my girlfriend was talking about it, our heroine had hesitated to go to the appointment, but when she arrived at the school gate, she turned around and walked in in a ghostly or just habitual manner. In the first few steps, she thought about interrupting her best friend, but then she thought that she would inevitably have to spend her tongue to explain. At this time, the strict teacher appeared in her field of vision again, and she was upset thinking about the exam... …In this way, she finally did not stop her usual steps and walked into the classroom with her girlfriends.
The class bell rang and the test papers came down. A girl like her was not trying to shock the world. In this case, the possibility of getting up and walking straight out was much less. Time was lost every minute, until she realized that even if she got up at this moment, she would not be able to catch the next train, so she couldn't help sighing from the bottom of her heart-forget it, the child who insists on dreaming is still a dream Bar. Maybe he won't really rush, after all, he is in America, which is tens of thousands of kilometers away. After letting go of this thought, it was strange and natural that there was not only a kind of melancholy that came to my mind, and at the same time, there was actually a long-lost peace. To go or not to go? She has been troubled by this idea for a long time, and now, as time has passed, no matter whether this is right or wrong, she no longer has to worry about it. That night, like other beautiful things that she had missed before for reasons of this kind (or even just because of habitual laziness), it was not unregrettable, but at the same time, this kind of regret was so realistic. In terms of life, it seems harmless.
You see, nothing happened. This is how our heroine missed what might be the most important promise of her life. You might say: Since it is so important, how can it be harmless or indecisive? My friend, I once again remind you not to look at life from the perspective of God. There are many things. If it is not necessary to come later, for example, after the loss, we turn around and realize its importance, and then even with the meaning of emptiness afterwards The continuation of his life is becoming more and more important. How can you explain why there are so many griefs and regrets in this world? What's more, at such a young age, you might think that it was a very beautiful night for you, but it was only one night. After losing it, you call it "regret", but you still haven't realized it. A night may not only be a night, it is still your whole life, and you will not find any words to describe its being missed.
It's not that our heroine didn't meet anyone since then. In fact, she had made many boyfriends and had sex with them, and then broke up because of this or that. Every emotional interaction and even trivial details made her think of that night off guard, and even more so that after the agreed day, she could no longer meet the actor (no, don't talk about the probability to me). We saw that she also completed her studies as usual, and then went to work, made friends, and fell in love, but there was always something wrong. She did not do anything less, but she was not so dedicated, and she was a little unconscious, as if there was something. Has been pulled away from her.
Unconsciously, nine years passed like this.
Nine years is a number that lacks specific meaning for many young people. It is longer than even the most stable period in their lives, such as school and work (not to mention romance). Therefore, the maturity of a precocious child is false. If all high-level emotions can be extremely concentrated in a certain moment, then it is not possible to realize the meaning of this moment in just a few years. Therefore, Those children who have experienced many things in life prematurely did not actually "complete" their past. On the contrary, this "premature" and "condensation" made them lose the possibility of slow taste, but grew into a kind of intolerance. Things come.
You can't simply imagine the heroine for the next nine years, and you can't simply imagine her tiny moods in every lonely night or ordinary moment. Despair is not a word, although life or death is not, and what is even more unbearable than the two is that you can't even confirm whether you "really" missed something that you regard as the most important thing today. Because at this moment you are the Jack who has not caught up with the Titanic, you are Thomas who did not invite Tereza to Prague, you are not God, because you did not show up at those important moments, so all those so-called majors are not "facts." . You have no way to die for a relationship you have never really experienced or someone you have never really met.
Now let’s think about the heroine’s question: "Did you go to the appointment that day?"
What did you realize? Is this an inquiry about an unknown situation, or a verification of a certain given situation, or both? When our heroine spent that indescribable nine years, suddenly one day, she saw the propaganda of such a novel in the bookstore she used to go to. The plot was "déjà vu", and then she saw the author's name again. . She said that she understood, but did she really understand? No, she just aroused the desire to understand from the bottom of her heart. For nine years, she seems to have been carrying an extremely important question. If this question is not answered, she will not be able to live the rest of her life peacefully. We have to bear the things that happened in some way, whether it's facing directly or deceiving ourselves, we If it can't happen like an animal, it has happened, and nothing will happen to it. However, even though she had doubts, there was never an object to ask, and the lack of an object who could give a response was precisely the reason for her question.
Now he appeared again, incredible. However, the time is not six months later, but nine years later. The contract in physical time is of course no longer valid, but what about the problem? Should she still ask it out?
As a result, we saw that the heroine suddenly stopped and asked her a question that had been buried in her heart for nine years or more (because it was a question of "cosmic mystery"). But before it was a courtesy greeting, she even asked "concernedly" "Aren't you going to catch a plane", as if to say "It doesn't matter" or "If it's busy, just forget it", but where does she really care? this problem. When the actor saw her, it was not that his attitude was blunt or his eyes showed resentment. On the contrary, she was also a little overwhelmed, and she was strongly hinted. This is the second hint. The actor's novel has given her the first hint. For this reason, she read it twice, not to determine "what happened in the first place", but to determine whether she is enough to ask that at the moment. One question-were
you here that day?
Nine years later, they are no longer the young people who were in turmoil at the beginning, life has given them too much. Please don’t say at that moment, "They can continue the front line." No, it’s not that simple. What our heroine can think of at that moment may be just to verify what she missed because of the missed appointment. Is it a kind of life as she thought. If, after nine years, you told me that you were on the appointment, and even, you told me that you have stayed where you are for nine years, do you know? You just added to my pain. Not only is that confirmation not comforting, on the contrary, it makes me want to cry without tears. If you tell me the answer directly, the situation will be like a person buried under the rubble after being dug out after an unknown amount of darkness, and seeing the sun at first glance-I will not know where to be, I will not see the so-called " Any possibility of “continuing the front edge”.
"Before Sunset" is outstanding at this point. I don’t need to repeat what happened later, because it is so natural, although this nature is composed of a series of unconscious tensions, temptations, hesitations, cautiousness, troubles and gains, wandering, hesitation, eagerness, eagerness to speak and stop. , Approaching and swinging apart, and so on. In the end of the film, the thoughts and decisions of the two were not broken, and the suspense was just right. Fortunately, you think that although the previous nine years have been spent, it is still worth the word after all. Imagine if the two really met again, it is very likely that, as the male protagonist imagined in the manuscript of the novel, "make love crazy and then gradually start to hate each other", the female protagonist commented on this conjecture: "That's very reasonable." So, these long nine years are enough to teach them not to miss anything easily.
I think that when walking on the road, the two of them talked about "If the end of the world comes". The actor joked that he would definitely not talk about his novels, but would still discuss the mystery of the universe, "Of course it’s in the hotel. Between crazy sex in the room".
This problem is not caused by accident. Think about it, if the actor really leaves when the point is reached, then the remaining few minutes or hours are not the eve of the end for these two people. ? The actor pulls the heroine onto the bench, acting like a ML. Although the heroine smiles, she undoubtedly rejects the actor's small sexual adventure-this rejection is the same as the rejection on the grass in the park in the previous work. It’s completely different. The reason for this little resistance in the previous game is "I will be uncomfortable if I separate from you." Obviously, the young heroine’s eyes are toward the "unknown future." Even though a night would make her "uncomfortable", it was still just "a night". When she uses such a "future" to measure her current behavior, she will feel that making love will make the night have an unsuitable "heaviness". If it is just a "night", it should be so "nothing". "Reality" passed by. As an audience, what we clearly see is that whether she agrees or not, what happens or nothing happens, this will be the decisive "night". However, on the bench nine years later, the heroine's refusal said: "Today is not the end of the world." What does this mean? This is actually saying: If this is something that can be done by making love (not making love, but a mildly obscene and intimate behavior), then it is not what I want, it is not worthy of my use. After nine years of questioning and expecting to answer, no, this is out of date. This is not the answer I wanted. At this moment, nine years later, what I am asking is not the original night, but the "life". This "life" is not a solemn promise when I was young without knowing the so-called words, but every minute and every second of the past nine years, at the moment when you have not yet appeared, I have already experienced those "physically coming days".
Our male protagonist was at a loss at first. For him, the reunion was an unexpected fulfillment of his unrealistic expectations. It took him a long time to begin to believe that she was really right in front of him, and then again. It took a longer time to understand that the heroine was in the same place as him at the moment, and then he could ask the "why" that sighed. The appearance he was able to show before was joking, eagerness that couldn't be explained. He didn't just want to determine the meaning of the encounter nine years ago, he also had to make sure that the nine years of time gave each other everything. For these nine years, just like the heroine, it is not an "end of the world" that can be used as all and the final end.
What impressed me the most was undoubtedly the climax of the film, the drive to the heroine's home. The actor can finally express his nine years of deep pain to the heroine who was once out of control. He described his dream to the heroine, over and over and over. The dream deeply hurt my heart, "You are pregnant." , You lie in front of me, you told me not to touch you, but I still touched, I touched your ankle, your smooth and soft skin... I always burst into tears when I woke up..." The heroine couldn't bear it. He raised his hand to stroke his hair, but retracted like an electric shock.
This lens pierced my heart deeply, deeply. At least in this world, someone can touch it like me, it is so real, so real that it makes me speechless.
Where can I go to prove everything I have missed, where can I find you, let me ask the last sentence:
Did you come that day?
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