The opening scene is very beautiful. A mother and son are running wildly in a sea of flowers, implying the yearning and pursuit of freedom, and then the story begins. The old lady, Watts, and her son and daughter-in-law left their hometown to live in Houston. Every day, she made the bed, was cleaned, and did housework. The daughter-in-law treated her very badly, and was always thinking about the pension checks she would receive regularly. There was a head-on conflict at the beginning. The daughter-in-law deliberately found fault and said that she did not see the prescription that the old lady put in her drawer and asked the old lady to find it. , Who knew that the daughter-in-law was furious and thought that the old lady moved her drawer to spy on her privacy, but it was the daughter-in-law who asked to find it first. The old lady was so angry that she threw the prescription on the ground, which caused her daughter-in-law to make a lot of noise and let the old lady apologize to herself before she gave up. The son asked his mother to apologize to his wife and pick up the prescription on the ground in order to calm things down. Return it to her, the old lady felt very aggrieved, the son still insisted, the old lady called her son's name sadly, sobbed and leaned on her son's shoulder, pulling her son's collar to cry, but in the end the mother said "all right" , picked up the prescription on the ground, smoothed it out one by one, entered the room and handed it to his daughter-in-law and apologized in a low voice. The daughter-in-law pretended to be generous to express her forgiveness, but ruthlessly held the prescription in a ball and threw it to the ground. . . . Then the daughter-in-law began to complain that the old lady likes to sing hymns at home every day, and it is very uncomfortable to stop singing as soon as she enters the door, or the old lady just sits at home and looks at the ceiling. . . After hearing this, the old lady felt very distressed. She couldn't bear any more of her current living condition, so she decided to return to her hometown of Bountiful, a place she had been away from for 20 years, and she thought about it day and night. She had long wanted to go back to the place where she lived, where there were friends she had played with since childhood, and she thought that she would be very happy to live in the old house after returning with the newly sent pension cheque.
So the next day, she took the opportunity to pack up her luggage while her daughter-in-law was out and set off secretly. She planned to take the train first, but the staff said that without this stop, the place name no longer exists. Disappointed, she went to the bus station and got the same answer, but realized that Bountiful was somewhere in between the other two places, so she bought a bus ticket to a place around Bountiful. Not long after her son and daughter-in-law found her running away and chased to the bus station (because she repeatedly expressed her desire to return to Bountiful), she quickly hid and escaped being found. Then her new journey began, and after arriving at the station in the middle of the night, she realized her handbag had been left on the car and waited at the bus station for staff to return it. Unexpectedly, the detective came with the handbag the next morning. The detective said the old lady's son had called the police and he had to bring the old lady back. The old lady was broken down because she was only twelve miles away from Bountiful. , the wish that I have been looking forward to for many years is so close and so far in this moment. She cried, she begged, and finally narrowed her wish down to whether she could take a look at Bountiful for a while before her son arrived at 7:30. People's hearts are full of flesh, and the police detective was moved. He personally drove the old lady to Bountiful, the hometown she had longed for, to show that the land was deserted and the old house was dilapidated. Recalling those past years, along with the broken curtains, there are also her thoughts swaying in the wind. Soon the son and daughter-in-law also came, they came to take her home, and then they went back together.
The son is still the former son, and the daughter-in-law is still the former daughter-in-law, so life will be the same as before. It seems that nothing has changed, but for the old lady, she has fulfilled her dream for many years. But she still has to live a life under the same roof as her son and daughter-in-law. Will she be happy? Can not help but make people a little worried. I thought of another movie "Umberto D." (1952). At the end of the film, the loyal dog that was abandoned because of embarrassment returned to the owner. The owner was greatly moved. No princes, no roses, no Cinderella wearing crystal slippers, life is always the harshest twelve o'clock, and everything is back to the way it was.
There is an invisible conflict running through the film throughout, the conflict between the countryside represented by Bountiful and the city represented by Houston. The mother and son both lived in Bountiful back then, but the film's opening location was already Houston. The director did not explain the details or reasons for the move, but it is not difficult to infer that it was because of starting a family or working hard for a career. Like the boss applying for a promotion, even the book he's reading is "How to Become an Elite". . . The son listened absently to his mother's memories, and asked her to give up the idea of returning to Bountiful. It's not that he has completely forgotten the past, he just prefers city life and refuses to look back at the past. The past days in Bountiful may not be on the table in his opinion. He needs to quickly integrate into Houston and become a real part, so he Everything about the past must be slashed out of his blood. He thinks that recalling the past is useless and meaningless, so he lied to his mother that he doesn't remember the past or what his grandfather looked like. In fact, he still remembers it all, just not. Dare to force myself to face it, so I can only avoid the negative resistance of memories. When he returned to the old house in Bountiful, his son was reluctant to go in and take a look. He said that it would be easier to see the house no more. Compared with the dilapidated old house now, he would rather only keep the old house in his mind, and then Go on with your new life.
20 years later, Bountiful has become a place that no longer exists, it has been erased from the place name, no one knows it except the elderly, and no one remembers it, even the old lady's friend, the only one who insisted Kelly, who lived in Bountiful, also died a few days ago. Large deserted fields, old dilapidated houses, and quiet surroundings. The old lady said that if she hadn't left, if she continued to work in the fields, she would be better off living here than now. She said, my strength comes from the wind, the land, the trees, not the house and the crowd. She hopes that one day people will come back and clear the fields to continue growing cotton and give the land a new look. But she also knew, "the children will sell it, go to the city, and the trees and grass will grow again." We are all part of this cycle, we leave but always take what it gives us, she said.
Bountiful is the hometown where the old lady was born and grew up. There are her close friends and playmates from childhood to adulthood, her painful love and her lover who failed to get married, and her full of memories of the old days. When she returned to Bountiful, she cried with excitement as she sang the hymn she loved, and she was not allowed to sing freely when she lived with her son and daughter-in-law. She heard the familiar bird calls, and remembered that when she was a child, because her father loved and protected birds, the door of her house became a bird camp. Standing at the door she felt as if her father and mother came out of the house to welcome her home. She thought of her first dance. Once again, she felt the silence of Bountiful, stroking the traces left on the wooden door for many years, and recalling the warmth of being with her family many years ago in a dilapidated old house that could be regarded as ruins, she was reluctant to leave for a long time . She sat on the rocking chair under the porch outside, as if everything was still yesterday and she just slept outside the house. Although she has lost her only witness to the old days (friend Kelly), and Bountiful once had her pain - she lost her true love forever and lost two children after marriage. But her pain was also an integral part of Bountiful in her heart. The beauty of Bountiful lies in its authenticity, happy and unhappy, all exist. Times have changed, reminiscing about the past, even if it hurts, it will feel kind.
Before leaving, the old lady sat in front of the old house and cried. She knew that she would never have a chance to come back, and even if she did, "the old house will be destroyed by the next storm from the bay", and this little trace of old warmth will no longer exist. Youth, time, there is nowhere to place, and nowhere to pay tribute.
After the old lady returned home, it is not difficult to imagine that her boring and depressing life is still the same. She still has to manage the housework like an old mother from morning to night, she will still be provoked by her daughter-in-law from time to time, and it is still difficult to find spiritual comfort from her son. She wanted to go to Bountiful, where she wanted to start a new life; she finally went to Bountiful, but she eventually had to come back. Life is like a round dance, seemingly gorgeous and back to the original point. Her beautiful dream was shattered, but I knew she would pick up the glass shards that had fallen on the ground and put them back together into a glass ball, mixed with tears and blood from her injuries. The glass ball called "Dream" will be full of scars from now on, but these small and trivial scars will eventually become the strongest place for the old lady, because she reassembled the glass ball called "Dream", she The "dream" is complete. It doesn't need to last forever, as long as it has been there, then this moment will be remembered forever and will shine. Life is too short, life is too bitter, having a dream, or creating a dream for yourself, is the best pain reliever. From now on, this beauty will support her enough to fight against all oppression, dissatisfaction, grievance and pain. She will be strong because of her dreams, and she will be happy because of her dreams. Everyone should have a small garden and a piece of pure land. For the old lady, that is her Bountiful, although for others, Bountiful is already a non-existent place, and few people know where it is. 20 years later, Bountiful has long been deserted, but in the heart of the old lady, it is still green and peaceful. Bountiful is no longer an old place name, a dilapidated old house, a family with laughter and tears in the past, or her faith, her beacon that never goes out, she will be with Bountiful.
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