"I sat by the window and looked out in vain, and I sat there year after year, and often a voice said to me, maybe the next moment I will go crazy, but I am not crazy, and I am not afraid of going crazy, I want us to get out of this dirty place."
Claire kept talking and the diva listened while eating cookies, the only happy time they had together.
Born in 1955, Hungarian film master Bela Tal is known as the "aestheticist of the independent era". In 1987, he directed the film "Curse" (also translated as "God's Wrath" and "Purgatory"). Like all his films, the use of black and white and long-lens moves slowly and slightly, thick, contemplative and wide-open. The loneliness and sympathy of a peaceful person are pushed to the extreme of gray and cold.
On April 2, 2008, Bella Tull came to Hong Kong for the screening of "The London Visitor" (2007). When asked about long takes, he said, "I like long takes. In real life, you have to go through the middle to get to the final step. So I hope the movie is space-time and makes the audience think about it. Long takes in a way It can also capture the most real life." Here, the sacred realm of film language, through the hands of film masters such as Murnau, Dreyer and Bresson, was passed to Bella Tarr.
In 2004, I saw "Family Apartment", "The Outsider" and "Prefabricated Life" in his "Social Reality Trilogy", and in 2005 I saw "The Whale Circus" (also translated "Incomplete Harmony" in 2000. ) and The Damned, 2007 finally saw Satanic Tango (1993). These movies will be taken out like delicacies and tasted quietly over the years, for fear that I will accidentally destroy their deliciousness. It's an amazing and rare viewing experience. 2012 saw his new work "The Horse of Turin" (2011). For me, watching his movies is a kind of grace in life, not just sentimental.
Philosophy-obsessed Bella Tarr was 10 when she starred in a TV series. At the age of 16, he made a film about gypsy workers, which caused dissatisfaction with the authorities and was rejected by the university he wanted to study. Since then, making a film has become the only possibility for him to break through. Most of his early works were mainly documentaries, with a strong realistic style. At the age of 22, he made his first real film, "Family Apartment" (1977).
He has always believed that "movie is the medium for expressing the soul" and never compromises. He wants to truly represent the desperate people who are marginalized. Although he is so persistent, he has a special respect for those who work with him. He said, "Film, plot and music are three completely different languages. Only when they are properly integrated, can the film itself be fresh, vivid and natural."
Therefore, his cooperation with the writer Lancelot has already become a movie story, and the plot of "Horse of Turin" is the crystallization of the cooperation between the two when Bella Tarr's life was at a low ebb. He said Lancelot woke me up and reinvigorated me. The movie soundtrack also played a role in the icing on the cake. Like Elaine Calandno and Angelopoulos, like Zbigniew Preisner and Kieszowski, Mihai Weig and Bella Tarr The cooperation began with the "Autumn Yearbook" filmed in 1985.
Bella Tarr herself is a person with a particularly deep musical background. He said, "I like to compare a film to the harmony of an orchestra, and each film language unit is like a musical instrument". He is not only a fan of classical music, likes Wagner, Brahms and Ravel, but also particularly appreciates European and American music from the 1950s to the 1970s, and likes popular singers such as Smith and Lori. It just so happens that Wig is good at using rhythmic music, which can accurately respond to the incompleteness and deep melancholy of life in his films.
In "The Curse", the melodious and agitated accordion always permeates people's sense of loss, especially Claire's silence and sadness. Among them, the songs sung by the female singer in the bar are magnetic and sentimental, which is a kind of fusion beauty, although it is filled with a touch of sadness. The dance music in the ballroom, that is, the live performance of the three accordion players, is gentle and meaningful from beginning to end. It dances with the crowd on the screen, and also coincides with the blank eyes sitting at the table, as well as those who sleep against the wall and fall asleep a certain face. From the pair dance to the group dance to the empty space, only the old lady picked up her jacket and left slowly.
A guy who said "I won't see her again when I die" is dancing solo in the rain. Vig always uses simple orchestration, electronic synthesis, guitar, accordion, piano and finally the deep cello bass to bring us into the situation the film is intended to illustrate. Therefore, I always have a wonderful feeling that I forgot to swallow for a long time and kept chewing. This may be a resonance that cannot be relieved.
In fact, before the filming of the film, the director had been planning to shoot "Satan Tango". Due to the fact that the film was too long and encountered financial problems, he just took advantage of this gap to shoot "The Curse", which is similar to "Satan Tango". The masterpiece "Satan Tango" has explored the path. It is worth pondering that, shortly after the completion of the filming, that is, after 1989, the political situation in Hungary changed dramatically, and the Soviet Union and the entire Eastern European socialist camp disintegrated. From the reality of 1987, it is not difficult to see what Bella Tassone was thinking. To borrow what the protagonist said in the film, "life is terrible, reality is collapsing". Undoubtedly, this is a prophetic movie. It is intriguing just to see the old lady quoting the words from the Bible in the film. Bella Tal was a philosophical thinker herself. Although he was only 32 years old at the time.
The protagonist Claire in "The Curse" lives in a small mining town. This middle-aged man who has nothing to do, besides sitting in front of the window and staring at the window, he likes to stand across the street and quietly watch the opposite bar. Dingo is another swaying walking dead opposite him. The scene where several of the dogs hunted like flying horses in front of the bar in the rain was particularly shocking. Rain, the natural footnote of the film, always comes and goes, like Claire's beloved bargirl. It just so happens that female singers like rain the most.
In one meeting, she said "I love rain, it calms me, I don't think about anything but rain, because everything is unstable here, I just want to get out of this town." Interesting Yes, in all the dialogues between two people, one person expresses and the other person must listen. There will be no dialogue in the true sense, which makes the texture of the whole film extremely orderly and quiet, even if there is a fierce quarrel. The reality is that the bar owner said to Claire "you have nothing but this body". So the boss suggested that Claire help him go out to get the batch of goods, within a three-day time limit, after getting it back, there will be a 20% commission. Claire said "Why don't you call someone else". "I just want to help you, I don't trust anyone." "I don't trust anyone either." It shows that trust has fallen in this society.
Claire's heart was bleeding when the female singer sang "over and done," a sad song that was both ecstatic and lonely. He loved her, but was privately warned by her husband Sebastian not to seduce my wife unless you wanted to get your neck broken. Claire says you misunderstood. The way to eliminate the so-called misunderstanding is to transfer the business handed over by the bar owner to this jealous man. The man readily accepted.
In the next three days, Claire got her wish, but the relationship could not last, and her heart was higher than the sky. After Wushan's cloud and rain, she said, "I will see your tired forehead in the dust and fog." She stopped worrying about it, just as she had firmly refused before. Begging is a world apart when she is lonely, and she has no shortage of admirers. It was also like at the dance, she had to dance with her husband who had brought the goods, and she had to dance with her bar owner, and Claire could only sit and watch coldly. Afterwards, while her husband was drunk, the female singer followed the bar owner into the car and kissed.
What's interesting is that whenever Claire is lost, a mysterious old lady will always appear in front of him, and then chat with him for a while, like a wise man. But people in deep despair ignore all these, and he wants revenge. The best way to curse is to walk into the police station. He reported that the bar owner was instigating smuggling, which he said was for social order and justice.
After he came out, he was covered in mud and filth, walking alone by the stagnant river and the garbage dump. A wild dog suddenly burst out and barked at him. He got down on his knees and barked at him like a dog. he left. It was raining heavily, which was a curse. In the purgatory world, he continued to walk on the muddy and filthy wilderness until he disappeared. A pile of barren hills stood abruptly, just like everyone's end point, everything should end.
2013, 11, 27
From the film critic collection "Invisible Movies" published by Haitian Publishing House
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