Matteo, the protagonist of the film "Family Journey" (or translated as "Everything is OK", the original Italian title "Tutti stano bene") is such an old man. This old man, who has never left Sicily for almost his entire life, embarked on a journey alone in order to visit his five children who have not been home for a long time. However, Italy outside Sicily made him so unfamiliar and at a loss: he took a family portrait and told others his story, and the result was indeed a pair of cold eyes. He stayed in Naples back in the hotel room he and his wife had stayed in on their honeymoon more than forty years ago, but time has always used inflation to flush out the older people. More than 40 years ago, when Matteo stayed for three nights for only a few hundred lire, now it costs 200,000 lire for one night, which makes Matteo indignant. When I saw this, I thought of my grandma. Every shopping in the mall, for her, was a cruel education. In the days when she ran a family, wages were only a few dozen yuan, and goods were priced in cents. Today, every price tag in the mall is like the white hair on her temples and the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, reminding her that she is old and telling her that this era does not belong to her anymore.
Director Tonatore has always opposed excessive modernization and globalization. The tension of interpersonal relationships and the centrifugal force for the elderly caused by this industrialization run through the film throughout the film. In the film, many cities in Italy all exist in the form of construction sites. The elderly Matteo was either surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the crowd, or sat in a car that could not move forward, and the roads leading to Rome had become stretches of parking lots.
Matteo's confusion about this "new world" is concentrated in his verbal loneliness. In another context, he does not understand the overtones of "modern man". The prostitute who solicited customers on the street in the middle of the night lifted her skirt. Matteo thought it was to show him her stockings, so he also lifted his trousers as a "return"; the beggar said to him: "Sir, I have three children..." He thought that People are telling him the good news, with a cheerful response: "Congratulations, I have five children." But of all the interpretations of the language's loneliness in the film, the one I can't forget the most is the one on the subway: the carriage. A group of young people were singing popular songs, and the cheerful atmosphere infected other people in the carriage. The humming turned into a chorus. Tonatore unexpectedly used a documentary-style long shot to shoot this segment, one face after another. The close-up composition of all beings makes this exchange extremely real, with the texture of life. Suddenly the tone changed, and the camera was sharply focused on Matteo's back. He was standing alone at the rear of the car, facing away from the cheerful crowd. Matteo's loneliness was set off by the joy of the crowd. The camera slowly turned to face him, his body twitching, the corners of his mouth murmured, and tears seeping out from behind his heavy, stone-like lenses.
Industrialization's persecution of Matteo is also reflected in his relationship with his children. Like most parents, Matteo wants his children to excel and have great prospects for each. Children have left their homes behind this expectation. But success must mean mediocrity or even failure. Life has given five children the most authentic education. They lived mediocrely or even bleakly, but they had to give their father an illusion, until these illusions were punctured one by one and the gate of hell closed. After walking for a while, Matteo came to his senses and said to his children, "Tell your children to be ordinary people."
In the film, Matteo recalls the faces of the five children when they were young again and again. Time flows only between the switching of the camera. The innocence and vigor of childhood have turned into vicissitudes and twilight. Under the weight of life, everyone hides pain. . The cruelty of growing up actually does double damage. First, for ourselves, there is no need to say such words. But when we lament ourselves, we ignore the harm of growing up to our parents. For our parents, we have changed from pets that can be held in our palms to crutches in life, and even if they are trembling in our arms, they will still It is the children who have not grown up who feel that they are sheltered from the wind and rain. Life has never been normal, the so-called normal, and how much sorrow it contains.
At the end of the film, matteo returns to Sicily, where he has lived all his life, and talks a lot to his wife until the camera turns to the tombstone of her wife. He kissed the head on his wife's tombstone and said softly: "Everything is fine."
But Matteo is lucky, at least he still has Sicily, which is far away from the hustle and bustle, and keeps it as a belief that will never collapse in his heart, not stained by dust. home.
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