"Another Year" A story of a happy family and some unfortunate relatives and friends: In one year, I experienced hardships in spring and autumn, I went to work in the private plot, and gathered three or five friends. The biggest dramatic conflict here is between people and time, man and himself. Life is stuck there, with little change. The film uses the most common details of life, gathering, eating, chatting after dinner, playing, going back in time, planning for tomorrow, and attending a funeral for a year. The film is like a running account, as if it were only some fragments taken from the torrent of life. Let's talk about the dialogue of the film here. The essence of our life is hidden under the dialogue like a running account. Mary, a slightly neurotic divorced woman in her mid-fifties, lives alone, like most women—the words are always gushing out like water from a spring.
In the spring, Mary was a guest at Tom's house and drank a few more glasses of wine. After a while of chatting, she reached a state of pouring out. After drinking, she told the truth and told the backlog of pain in her heart about the past, about love and life. The talker always can't help but tell his heart out at the end, revealing it naturally. And this reveals, mixed in about what kind of car to buy, how to go on vacation after buying a car, how to eat, slim body, fat, as well as drinking, where to travel.
The geologist faces the rock and his back to the sea. His wife faced the sea and turned her back to the rocks.
The torrent of ordinary conversation can easily drown everything. After the drowning, there is silence, the silence in life. Pinter once said that there are two kinds of silent loneliness: one is to say nothing, and the other is hidden in the endless talk. among. Mary finally talked about herself after gushing. People who talk a lot will always expose themselves. People's hearts and souls are poured out along the characters' most common dialogues and most daily actions. Talkers can't hide their inner secrets. The film also reaches a state through endless boring dialogues: it reveals the ups and downs of life and the loneliness of people, as well as the general predicament faced by human beings: loneliness, and the search for a different meaning in the ordinary. Where is the other meaning? At the end, Mary and Tom's brother and Tom's family are eating, two outsiders listen to their family's plans, and happiness contrasts with loneliness. The so-called better life is just a family together, a happy vacation and a shared experience.
Dialogue, and performance, the two main elements that underpin the film: Mary's crush on Tom's son is revealed only through expressions, and brief dialogue, like going out for a drink. There is almost no treatment at all.
This film can be classified into realism, showing our life through the most real life, from the most objective standpoint, basically abandoning the drama, and some approaching prose. Such films and perspectives have recently been "Somewhere", far from Ozu's works, such as Mai Qiu and Tokyo Story. Using the seasons as chapters, it shows the life under the torrent of time, giving us the feeling that one day we suddenly feel old. Some of Jia Zhangke's films are also fragments of life. He is more inclined to the relationship between people and society, as well as the relationship between social changes and people. And "Another Year" is more about people living together, the predicaments people will encounter in any social system, the life of failure, and the unsatisfactory life situation.
The torrent of dialogue throughout, somewhat dilutes the fun and rhythm of the film. But how appealing can a life of loneliness, loneliness, and the ordinary be? Most people live in such a situation, what is the point? Examine your own life? Watching this movie about loneliness and happiness makes people even more lonely. After two hours of lengthy conversations, the loneliness deepened, and at the same time, I cherished the people around me who were eloquent.
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