(Text/Yang Shiyang)
A misty economic crisis, three loves that have a beginning and no end, this is the whole story of "When the World is Separated". This Greek film has a gloomy tone. It is alienated, cold, and desperate, but at an inadvertent moment, in an uncertain corner, a spark of hope suddenly flashes to illuminate the moment in human nature. Then, everything is again. They all escaped into commonplace and even extinguished hope.
Everyone knows the economic crisis experienced by Greece. It appeared in the news time and time again, mixed with terminology and analysis. "When the World Separated" cuts into the scene from the smallest details. It focuses on the grand narrative. The tiny personal history, the crisis is like rain, fog, and dust in the sky. People hurriedly dealt with it and took care of themselves. In the end, the economic crisis inevitably invaded the spirit, and everyone became distracted, wandering, and anxious. At this moment, they met love, some people used it as redemption, some people used it to escape.
It has three parallel stories: the girl suffered an attempted rape, was rescued by a refugee from Syria, and the two fell in love; the middle-aged man experienced company layoffs and an endangered marriage, and used drugs to fight depression all day. , But he fell in love with the woman who presided over the layoffs from the Swedish airborne company; an old woman who was so embarrassed that he couldn't even afford a small tomato, he ran into a German retired professor living in Greece, and the two slowly got along with each other and even became a little embarrassed. . Several parallel lines are eventually entangled together, and the protagonists all come from the same family. They sat around the table and ate, pretending to be in peace, performing happily, but when they walked out of that room, everyone and everyone were separated from each other. The last scene on the dinner table is like the country whose economy has collapsed. On the surface, it maintains calm and peacefulness, but inside it has long been a mess.
This story is very cleverly woven. The girl's major is international politics. She argues in the classroom about the conflict between the influx of refugees and humanitarianism, but she herself is experiencing and verifying the human nature of refugees; middle-aged men are suffering from layoffs. Under pressure, the woman who is in love with him is in control of her own life and death at the same time; the economically distressed old woman happens to meet an exotic man who decides to find herself again after she has no worries about food and clothing. This is full of cultural conflicts, character conflicts, and language conflicts, all of which form the surface separation, but in fact, these couples of lovers have lightly crossed those separations and become intimate, while the opposite is There is a huge silence and secrets between family members who should not be separated.
The three outsiders and the three Greeks formed a relationship of mutual observation and scrutiny, and in the end, almost everyone was changed. Syrian refugees are envious of life in Greece, and the economic crisis is nothing to those who have experienced the defilement of life. He thinks it is close to paradise, but paradise is expelling them; professional women from Sweden feel that they have enough insights. She is in control of everything in her life, but in the end, she is just as dependent on the rescue of drugs as the man; the German professor who feels that she has found love and freedom has been waiting for nothing. Not to mention the ending of the Greeks, they fell into death and grief one after another. How wonderful and cruel these encounters are. They first freed each other from prejudice, pain and shackles, but eventually caused all participants to fall deeper.
The scene of the story in "When the World Separated" is extremely symbolic. The boy and the girl hide in a dilapidated airplane, the man and the woman are trapped in an affair apartment all day long, and all dates between the old woman and the German professor are blocked. In the supermarket, these three scenes gracefully reflect their respective hopes and predicaments. The boy from Syria hopes to obtain legal status. The airplane has become a symbol of his freedom. The broken body has now become He and the girl’s secret love base. His body cannot be placed nor escaped. The love in the cabin is like a spiritual “suspension”, and the apartment is like a backstage where you can remove makeup and relax. I deliberately keep a distance in the company. Only when I return there, can I indulge or hug and sleep under the curtains; while the old women and professors wander every day in the supermarket with abundant goods but few people visit, bright lights, and luxuriant shelves. Under the envelope of the economic crisis, this is more like a cruel joke.
Close observation will reveal that their love is fragile and must be kept in a proper airtight container. The cabin, apartment and supermarket are fresh cans. Their desire and ambition beckoned them to rush out of the container, and they fled there. But in the end it was a complete failure. Under the economic crisis, people were cautious and curled up inward, but the unexpected love made them touch their tentacles carefully. This became the shining light of human nature under the muddy haze. But the light flickered and then went out, what has ever changed in a good direction? The image of Eros and the funeral as a symbol are interspersed in the three stories. Love and death have become another generalization of this movie. This is something we must pass but cannot penetrate. In this sense, it writes about love, but it is by no means limited to love. It starts from feelings and finally arrives at the chaotic and boundless reality of life.
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