'London's River': Let You Breathe With the Parents Who Are Missing

The fate of everyone and a movie is always certain. For example, some movies may have just been shot, and you will see them immediately when they are still hot, but some movies may have been shot for almost a century before you meet them in the vast sea of ​​films; another example, some movies you It's easy to watch it in one go, but some movies you just have to watch several times to actually see it. For example, when I watched "London River", its first show in Berlin was at 9 o'clock in the morning on the 10th. The night before, I stayed up all night and was extremely tired. I sat in the cinema and was ready to sleep. The wrinkled face of British actress Brenda Bryce in "London River" was unattractive to me under the circumstances, so I fell asleep. In the afternoon, I was going to make up for it, and there was an interview, so I had to change the late-night ticket on the 11th to go to the Friedrichstadt palast cinema.

Friedrichstadt palast is the largest theater in Europe, staged musicals and movies, located in Berlin's most famous Lindenstrasse. When I entered the theater, I was deeply shocked. Because Friedrichstadt palast also staged musicals and acrobatics, in order to take care of the effect of the theater, it is impossible to be as high as the Berlinale palast, the main palace of the film festival, but there are many horizontal audience seats. The solemn and solemn feeling is more like a theater in ancient Rome, which pulls the era back a long time.

When the red velvet curtain slowly opened and "London River" began, I was immediately plunged into a soothing movie atmosphere. The atmosphere or temperament of the film has always been fascinating. There is always that kind of movie that grabs you deeply with its unique lens language and storytelling, and makes your heart breathe with the movie, and "London River" is just like that. The film tells that after the terrorist attack in London in 2005, some parents came to London one after another to find their long-lost children, fearing that they would be killed in the attack. The film focuses on Sommers, a Christian mother from rural London, and Ousmane, a black Muslim father from France. At the beginning, Sommers first appeared, she was looking for her daughter who went to study in London two years ago. Her husband died young and she raised her daughter to adulthood alone, but has little contact with her daughter and doesn't really understand her inner world. When she arrived in London and saw the missing notices posted by parents who, like her, were looking for their children, her heart sank to the bottom. Ousmane appears about ten minutes after the movie opens. He came to London from France to find his son Ali, whom he hadn't seen for many years. When he left his hometown to work in a foreign country, his son hadn't gone to school. Now he doesn't even know what his son looks like. It was more difficult, but he promised his wife in his hometown to bring his son home.

After many twists and turns, Sommers and Ousmane are entangled by fate. Their children were lovers before they disappeared, but it was difficult for the parents, especially Sommers, to accept. Sommers even resisted believing when he saw his blond, white-skinned daughter and the black guy who looked a little dull in a pair of glasses in the photo.

But all signs point to whether they are killed or not, they are together, Sommers and Ousmane frequently appear in various places of tracing, but Sommers has a bad attitude towards Ousmane because of his inner knot. Ousmane is going to return home because of his limited entanglement. Sommers develops sympathy for Ousmane during the search trip, and asks him to move in with him, so as to find his children together.

There was a turning point in the search for people who had been without progress. Some people said that their children had traveled to France together. The two were relieved and prepared to leave London the next day to live their lives in peace. But they did not expect that after the joy, the bad news came, and the police came to tell them early the next morning that it had been confirmed that their children had been killed in the explosion. Sommers struggled to accept the truth and cried into a puddle of mud. However, life continued, and they left London as scheduled...

The multiple bombings of subways and buses in London on July 7, 2005, the suicide bombing of terrorists killed 56 people and injured more than 700, The incident left a great deal of trauma to the hearts of London and the whole of Europe, and it was an outright human disaster. The film does not confront the disaster itself, and pay attention to the people after the disaster at a very small cost, like other films that show the disaster. In the selection of the crowd and the setting of the relationship between the characters, the relationship between estranged parents and children is also used as the main line to express the hidden problems in modern society. In it, the weakness and fear in human nature are accurately expressed, and the deprivation and family relationships brought about by globalization are vaguely expressed.

Looking at the wrinkled face of Brenda Bryce in the quiet film temperament, I feel poetic. In my opinion, she is the best actress in this Berlin Film Festival.

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