In this film, the "train" is a concrete figure, because the story is indeed related to the train, but the train is more of a metaphor in the film. It is a moving "coffin" in which people cannot be autonomous. The people on the train only know that they are going to the next stop, but they don't know where they are going. Some are just drifting, bumping, and going far away. Wandering around the world, but no homecoming, this is the life realism of the characters in the film. In reality, we are accustomed to stability in life: a stable job, a stable house, a stable family, and a stable life. Anything that breaks this stability, we will feel great fear. A person's life is in stability, but his heart has been wandering. Isn't it?
When the heart is old, it often has bad problems. People will be old, but what is "old"? Is "old" a purely physiological characteristic? I have no idea. I only know that the characteristic of being old is to chatter, want to talk, and want to mumble. Sometimes he speaks to himself in the mirror, it is not narcissism, but a kind of self-improvement; sometimes he stops and stares for a long time in front of an oil painting of a portrait of a young girl, and what he sees is his own past. The boy who was no longer there—this was how a boy stood in front of her, getting pleasure and physical satisfaction.
He is a retired teacher who teaches French poetry. In his forty years of teaching, he has won the love and respect of his students. This is the achievement and glory of his life. Now that he is retired, he still hopes to teach students. He lives alone, unmarried, kind and easy-going, and a stable person.
One day he looked into the mirror and seemed to see his other self. He thought of the proprietress of that bakery who would only say one thing to customers in thirty years: "Do you want something else?" This is a boring repetition. He looked in the mirror, put on his leather jacket, made the gesture of pulling a gun in a cowboy hat, and then gave the command: "Don't move!" This is another portrait of himself.
For thirty years, it has been a monotony to go to the bank to deposit and withdraw money. Thinking about it now, what I want to do the most is not to save money and withdraw money but to rob. This idea has been there since the first day he stepped into this threshold, but he only realized it now. His other self told him that he was not such a stable person. What he wanted to do most was to wander: "I want to sail to another strange place, either the Americas or a certain continent, and never stay on those new islands. , To become the discoverer and developer of a piece of land. "In fact, the desire for life is not great, but I don’t want to be the one I am now. It is enough to be the "discoverer" of a "small piece of land". This life is also considered Avoiding the cycle, there is a novelty.
When he discovered this self, he felt great sadness. The sorrow is that when you are young, you are always deceived by the illusion of life. When you really realize that you want to change, you can't change anything, because the years are old. The way to know aging is very simple: when any woman walks on the street without looking at you, it means you are old. People can be despised, but they cannot tolerate being ignored. This is the source of men's sorrow.
It's not that simple, because mirrors can also deceive people. The one in the mirror may not be the "id", the "id" may be behind the mirror. He found the wandering "other me" in the mirror, but the "I" also told his own misfortune: "Actually, I'm tired of wandering, and I always want to stop. "This "I" I am extremely envious of the teacher in reality-I want to teach students poetry and feel the beauty of the world; I want to put on slippers in the room to relax my nervous nerves. How I want to be like you, playing the piano under the portrait of the young girl, imagining the story in the fluttering notes. . .
The essence of life is this imperfect incompleteness. Existence is always separated from the soul-now it is stable, the soul prays for wandering; the reality is turbulent, and the soul wants peace.
The end of the film is a scene like this: "He died on the operating table. Before closing his glasses, he saw that he realized himself-leaving the key to himself in reality, and the "real me" Boarded the train that symbolized this
wandering far away. " This is just a dream, it is a dream wandering; and "I" stands in place, really "the true self" also wanders, that is the beginning of another incompleteness. . .
View more about Man on the Train reviews
