"I had a woman Clara that I will never forget. We weren't married, but she was so perfect. I remember one time..." The incomprehensible solitary old man Mangohorn started chattering in front of the woman he liked. Of another lover.
This date, presented by Oscar actor Al Pacino and actress Holly Hunter, was terrible.
Before the few conflict scenes in this film, Al Pacino revitalized a simple and boring locksmith Mangohorn. Driving the same truck, sitting in the same chair, changing the bulbs of the same specification, lighting the same chicken breasts and onions at the snack bar next door, taking care of the same short-tailed cat Fanny, and visiting regularly every week. His heartbroken bank teller Dawn... In short, the old man's life is firmly framed by the three-point line.
The lonely situation is what director David Gordon Green is good at building. The two road maintenance workers in the previous film "Avalanche Prince" are proof of his ability to shape his characters. Similar to the introverted elder in "Avalanche Prince" who insists on writing letters every day, Mangohorn has never stopped writing love letters to a woman Clara who has never met from start to finish, and even the audience has no way of knowing their history. From the mailbox occupied by the hive, take out the return letter of "check no recipients" day after day.
Such an old man must have secrets deep in his heart that he does not want to tell. He feels so guilty and so affectionate for Clara, coupled with his proficient unlocking professional skills, may imply the first half of his ulterior life-a once and because of breaking through. The professional habitual offender who caused her lover Clara to leave without saying goodbye and never look back?
The director is stingy in giving explanations in flashbacks that are common in such movies. All he needs is the old man's living conditions and possible chemical reactions with the people around him, and there is no need to write the first half of his life for him. Mangohorn also has a not-so-close businessman son, Jocob, and another son, Gary, who runs an erotic massage parlor-another hint of his past life, but he does not need the former to use money as a carrier. His filial piety is even more incompatible with the latter's Jiuchi Rouling.
Such a unique character originated from a seventy-year-old man who director David Green met at the Nantucket Film Festival in Massachusetts. "He talked about the incomparable regret for the past life and the eternal separation from his lover, even afterwards. He became very successful, but he never felt any happiness because of the wrong decisions he had made." Al Pacino had already presented similar life regrets in the third "Godfather" in the 1990s, plus the same. At the age of seventy, it is not difficult to enter the role of Mangohorn.
However, how can the boring daily life be reflected in 90 minutes, and how can the audience in front of the screen not feel bored, but moved instead? David Green’s approach is inevitably simple and rude. By giving Mangohorn a special vision of magic, he creates surreal scenes in the movie, hoping to bring out some indescribable moments of sublimation.
On the way to the hospital holding his pet cat, he saw young people’s vigorous and vivid street dance training, and then witnessed an absolutely surreal "watermelon massacre" on the street-a series of rear-end vehicles, like dominoes In the end, all were dumped on the watermelon stall, and the dying or deceased being smeared was in sharp contrast with the joyful youth in front. The surging and dense drums and noisy guitars of the famous post-rock band "Big Bang in the Sky" highlight the protagonist's inner environment and the magical environment in the mirror to the culmination. At the end of the film, the locksmith who finally abandoned the shadow of Clara, but left the car key on the front seat. A passing hapless circus clown made an exaggeration and threw it invisible to Mangohorn. The old man twisted the key, and the car door opened. Abandoning the old man in the past, could it be possible to look forward to the magical moment at the end of life?
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