Homecoming has always been a deep and warm theme. Homecoming is often associated with the true meaning of life, the simplicity of life, and the wandering souls who find their home. This "Meeting Love at the Corner of the World" has a very attractive title, but it is not a romance, at least not all. If it must be named, "love" can only be understood as "big love", that is, not only the love, affection, and friendship between people, but also the kindness, respect, and tolerance towards nature and the world. Get inner peace and joy from it.
The protagonist Alex (Carlo Ljubek) has experienced a displaced and depressed childhood, after a car accident robbed his parents and memories. Although the film does not depict his mental journey in ink, we can still get a glimpse from the clues. Alex was reluctant to leave his hometown of Bulgaria due to political persecution, but he couldn't control the adult's decision. He hurriedly separated from his grandparents, splitting up the happy time. Unfamiliar excesses, concentration camp-like shelters, no longer playing backgammon with my grandfather, the whole family enjoys his birthday, no friends, no freedom, only coercion and patience.
In the era when the Soviet Union had not yet disintegrated, Alex did not understand socialism in Bulgaria, and did not understand the democracy and freedom of capitalism in Italy and Germany. In fact, in the asylum, he and his parents live a life of eating pasta every day, working overtime, and being paid unequally. They and the others in the asylum have no right to express their opinions. Leaving the cage of centralization and high pressure in his hometown, who knows is just walking into another cage that is exactly the same. Even in the United States across the ocean, an ordinary person may be shot to death in the sun on a sunny morning while drinking coffee. (The shootings caused by the proliferation of guns in the United States are still heard today).
So, what is democracy? Where is freedom? Alex's heart is always chaotic, and his memory is full of torture and sadness. Now he has lost his parents and memories. He is like a rootless duckweed, drifting in the world without direction.
Another protagonist of the film, Alex's grandfather Bai Dan (Miki Manojlović) appears, and he comes to take the lost Alex home. They used spring outings, riding bicycles, passing mountains and rivers, using nature's broad-mindedness and simplicity to heal Alex’s trauma, and even used wine instead of chemicals. Dan’s wisdom is evident in this scene. He didn’t let Alex. Being swayed by the doctor, he wanted him to believe in the power of nature. For most of Dan's life, he has seen through human society-man-made society, and has been disappointed in him to guard against him. Is the vastness and beauty of nature comparable to that of human society?
The other kind of wisdom in life is in Dan's favorite backgammon. Although backgammon has a certain element of luck, strategy is also very important. Chess is like life, throwing dice is like luck, and choice is a strategy that reflects the wisdom of life. "Take the risk, bet desperately, and then watch its changes." "Think of a number in your heart and throw it, and you will definitely win." "Playing chess has nothing to do with luck." It is Dan's life style, resolute and decisive, quite strategic, no lack of long-term vision and broad mind.
The past is unchangeable, Alex's forced and patient childhood, and his tragic parents, are like dice thrown badly. Although manpower is unchangeable, he can turn things around with wisdom. Ultimately, success or failure is uncertain. It all depends on the response.
Dan's two tricks can be described as moisturizing things silently. Through sweating and breaking the limit of the road home by bicycle, Alex has a new understanding of the road of life. Every corner contains the unknown, which is the beginning of life and bad. , Facing the unknown, being the person who bravely goes to the helm is a compulsory life course for everyone. The same goes for backgammon. The quality of a dice is like a corner on a mountain road. It depends entirely on luck, but the subsequent reversal depends entirely on personal attitude and strategy. The dice of the world is all right, after the difficulty is good, after the good is difficult, it all depends on the response.
Although there are images of this and that in many places in the movie, over the top of the mountain and the rainbow after the rain, it does not leave a sense of deliberateness. It is set against the magnificent landscape and has a feeling of icing on the cake. The road to return home is interspersed with past experiences, fainting the coldness of politics, and at the same time injecting depth into the road to return home. The soundtrack "Reverse" makes people feel like "Paradise Cinema". When you look closely, don't these two grandpa and grandson riding in tandem resemble Dodo and Evert?
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