This is exactly what Kate, the heroine of this year's most mature and introspective film "45th Anniversary", feels. After 45 years of happy and contented marriage, she suddenly noticed the ghost of her husband's ex-girlfriend during these long years. The woman's body was found in a forgotten glacier, so the ghost of the past suddenly invaded the home she shared with her husband, took hold of him, and challenged her with a smile on her husband's slideshow, and went straight to the These 45 years have turned into a question mark.
Can a person really be uneasy about something that happened so long ago, and for a woman before they knew each other? This seemingly absurd thing is in fact unreal. The most interesting thing is that she herself clearly knew the absurdity of this matter, and gave this answer rationally and unmistakably. But she still couldn't let it go, and that was the problem.
The title of the film is a simple concept of time, but it is the most complex and pervasive mystery in the film. What did so many days and nights mean to him and her?
On her side, the answer is relatively certain. The author meaningfully chooses a one-sided narrative angle, so that the camera hardly ever leaves her. In Charlotte Rampling's placid but turbulent face, we see a collapse of faith. Her husband's stubbornness towards the past made her look at the years with a new perspective. In this cold look back, she saw the lies in the cornerstone of this marriage, and she found that she had become a substitute, a second best.
And with him, we as viewers, like Kate, can't see directly into his heart. Until the climax of the ending, we hear his confession. He claims that the meaning of aging is to stop making choices, in other words, these forty-five years are the result of a choice when you are young. Therefore, the time in between is no longer important, what is important is the current state.
This fundamental disagreement over time finds echoes elsewhere. She didn't know what footnotes to put on the watch she was going to give to her husband, and he said he would rather not know the time.
So the missing photo wall becomes a kind of symbol: this is a marriage that has lost its sense of history, a union that happened in a vacuum without any trace of the wild goose passing by. And when she finally sees the photo wall, it becomes an inexplicable irony, blatantly broadcasting lies.
The film ends at the most dramatic moment, when a woman feels the coldness of love dying in the warmest atmosphere. This is Dividing Day; it is the most pessimistic interpretation of marriage. If you are also fascinated by the smoke in the romantic melody, please open your ears and listen to the lyrics, Winter Is Coming.
P.S. Lyrics for "Dividing Day":
[Margaret]
Dashing as the day we met,
Only there is something I don't recognize.
Though I cannot name it yet, I know it.
Beautiful is what you are,
Only somehow wearing a frightening disguise.
I can see the winter in your eyes, love, telling me:
"Thank you, We're done here, Not much to say.
We are together but I have had Dividing Day."
So when, when was this day ?
Was it on the church step?
Suddenly you're out of love.
Does it go creeping slowly?
When was your Dividing Day?
I can see the winter in your eyes, love, telling me:
"Margaret, we didn't, You courtesed, I bowed.
We are together, but no more love, no more love allowed.”
When was dividing day?
Was it on the church step?
Did it happen right away?
Were you lying next to me,
Hiding what you couldn't say?
How could I have guessed?
Was my cheek upon your chest ?
An ocean away…
When was, when was, when was Dividing Day?
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