Mark is to this film what Oscar is to "The Tin Drum", viewing and describing the adult world from the perspective of a child, especially the world in a special historical period, tends to be more ironic. Oscar used stopping growth to fight against that absurd age and the filthy adult world. And Mark uses sleepwalking to release the depression and unhappiness in real life. This kind of childhood depression in a totalitarian environment has been deeply revealed in the two works of "The Hive Phantom" and "Raising the Crow" under Franco's dictatorship. But the difference is that Kusturica does not make a big fuss about color and metaphor like Victor Iris and Carlos Saura. Old Ku is still an optimistic person, so the colors of his movies are warm and bright. , Mark will fall in love with football, will fall in love, will turn back and smile during sleepwalking, just like De Niro's smile at the end of "Once Upon a Time in America".
The story of the film is simply a family story during the Yugoslavian Cultural Revolution... The father had an affair with the female pilot. As a result, after an air show, Mark’s uncle heard from the female pilot his father’s comment on a Tito cartoon "No "Correct" evaluation, as a member of Tito's government department, my uncle reported his father and sent it to a remote mine for labor reform, the so-called righteous extermination of relatives. Many of our grandparents and grandparents have heard of such things... On the day Mark was circumcised, his father was taken away, and his mother told Mark and his brother that their father was on a business trip and cut off. The foreskin and the lost father, this is Mark’s coming-of-age gift. At the same time, the mother went to the uncle’s house to inquire about the husband’s current situation and the cause of the accident, but the uncle kept silent, and the father’s former female pilot’s mistress has now become an aunt... The uncle threw a football to her mother and asked her to give it away. The football was given to Mark, but his mother refused. Such kindness is far from enough to compensate for the harm his uncle caused to the family. His mother gave Mark money to buy football, but his sensible brother used force to prevent Mark from buying football and asked him to return the money to his mother. After all, their family was already poor, and his father had an accident, making life even more difficult. Seeing Mark returning the money, my mother was very pleased. In his father's absence, Mark had a sleepwalking behavior. This unconscious behavior was obviously a rebellion and vent to the repression of real life. In order to spot the sleepwalking Mark in time, his mother tied a bell on Mark's body.
The mother took Mark to his father’s place. When the mother and father were about to have sex at night, Mark always deliberately used the bell to disturb and terminate their behavior. Eventually, Mark climbed onto the parents’ bed and was taken into his arms by his father. Go to sleep. Mark challenged the authority of his parents for the first time. His dependence on his mother and the long-term absence of his father gave him enough self-awareness to control the changes in his emotions and environment. My father was transferred to a remote town, and my mother took the two brothers to live at his father's working place. Here, Mark fell in love with the doctor's daughter, and the two had nothing to talk about, even taking a bath together. And the father also started the habit of stealing fishy. Mark witnessed his father teasing a strange woman with his feet under the table. Mark set the woman's skirt on fire, but this couldn't prevent the father and the woman from finally embracing. Fall asleep. The helpless Mark once again used sleepwalking to protest the world and his father's love. The mother finally fought with his father, watched and persisted day and night, and dragged the family to a place where the birds did not shit to reunite, but in return they were embarrassingly stealing. Such a blow is too cruel, but women are also a strong and resilient species. For the sake of family and children, women's endurance is beyond the imagination of men.
At the local national celebration ceremony, Mark was selected as the young pioneer to present a torch to the leader and give a speech. My father nervously supervised and revised Mark's speech and speech methods. My father knew how serious the consequences would be if he said the wrong words at such an important moment. In the end, Mark still made a mistake. He said that Tito led the party in the wrong order... and his father used Tito as the party and the party as Tito’s logic to excuse his son and himself. But they were not punished. On the contrary, the father ended the labor reform and can live anywhere. They returned to Sarajevo together. At the wedding of a family member, his father and aunt were caught by Mark again for stealing fishy. Maybe the father was using this fishy to avenge his uncle. At this time, the mother at the dining table had no idea about this. After seeing all this, Mark went sleepwalking again. The mountains and forests disappeared from top to bottom in the picture bit by bit. He walked to the end of the mountain road, closed his eyes and turned back. Smile.
In the film, Mark sees his father teasing a woman with his feet under the dining table, which is very similar to the scene where Oscar sees his uncle (suspected father) stretch his feet to tease his mother in "The Tin Drum". Such a picture can be described as a classic way of expression for children to see the adult world. As Lao Ku’s early movies, there is no later madness, noisy, free spirit, but quiet storytelling. This rare old library movie temperament makes people unaccustomed and impressive, and it also fits the age temperament of the film story.
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