"Ethel and Ernest" is about the daily life of a couple, the accumulation of each day to make up a life, and then the story ends. Even after World War II, post-war restoration and reconstruction, and political turmoil in the country, these twists and turns that seem to turn ordinary stories into soul-stirring haven't affected their ordinary daily life.
They are just like all of us ordinary citizens who are too small to be worth mentioning. In a flowing life, they get married, have children and grow old. There are no legends, no ups and downs, no great sorrows and joys. They are really just scraps in life.
However, after reading it, I can't help but burst into tears. These trivial things are so far away from us but so close to us. It turns out that time brings the same meaning to everyone. It turns out that we really just die naturally with the trend of the times. Organism, it turns out that it is such a beautiful thing to manage a life well, it turns out that it is such a great thing to accept the long-lasting life and live with peace of mind.
It's so beautiful.
[Starting from your name]
The story of Ethel and Ernest begins on an ordinary morning. Ethel, the upper-class domestic maid, stood at the window shaking the dust, and then saw the sunny and cheerful milkman Ernes. special, then the two looked at each other, waved, and then triggered a throbbing like love. Ethel was lying at the window all day waiting, hilarious, nervous, disappointed, repeating the cycle, day after day. Suddenly Ernest knocked on the door with flowers in his hand and he said I think I should introduce myself because you shake the rag at me enough times, my name is Ernest.
My name is Ethel.
Falling in love, dating, meeting parents, and getting married all came naturally. When Ethel resigned, he happily said that I was getting married, and Ernest shouted that I was too.
From then on, they are no longer independent individuals, but a couple who have tied each other for a lifetime, and they will no longer be indispensable in future stories.
They took out a loan to buy a house, and then bought the furniture little by little. The child was born, and they gradually made the barren life more and more full.
Ernest is lively and cheerful, full of enthusiasm for life, and is a typical big boy; Ethel is a sensitive and virtuous housekeeper, a typical little daughter-in-law - still like the ordinary people around us, nothing special, but really cute.
[Best life in the worst days]
Ten years after the end of World War I in 1928, Mussolini and Hitler came to power, and various countries were either civil wars, invaded other countries, or were invaded.
German air raids, alliances with France, policies to send children from families to foster care in the countryside.
Ethel and Ernest still carry enthusiasm and hope in their precarious lives.
Two people arguing about political parties, Ernest who keeps newspapers all day long, Ethel who is crying because his child's curly hair is cut; Ernest has been delivering milk for ten years, collecting cheap Furniture, do all the heavy work inside and outside the house, quietly buy a car, build a bomb shelter in the backyard, don't worry about the parents, don't complain about life; Ethel makes sofa covers and curtains, washes clothes, takes children to clean, and goes to work to supplement the family. , in his spare time, he brags about his own children with his neighbors, and occasionally complains about his life.
In the most difficult days, they lived like this plain and practical. No matter how the political party changed, no matter how the world changed, when the war came, they responded to the national policy and sent their children to the countryside for foster care, and then Ernest joined the fire brigade and followed the fire. To save people, Ethel continued to take care of the housework.
Bringing the kids back after the war, Ernest owns an upgraded milk truck, Ethel gets a promotion; Raymond gets older, goes to college, gets a girlfriend and gets married, and Ernest retires.
Time flies by like this, and before you know it, you have been together for half a lifetime.
【We are ordinary but full of soul】
As Raymond grows up and gets married, Ethel and Ernest get older day by day, Ethel gets worse and worse, and Ernest gradually goes bald. The days that will end are crumbling at the end of each other's lives.
This is us, this is our ordinary but plain and rich life.
Ethel is five years old and is a typical sibling love, but Ernest has always called Ethel cute, and his wish to form a big family was given up because Ethel was an elderly mother. The first sentence after the child is born is "how is she" instead of how the child is. There will always be small surprises, and it will always follow Ethel's wishes; when Ethel married Ernest, the two were He was destitute, but Ethel always kept the house in order, never disliked Ernest's low-paying milk work, and always encouraged and comforted Ernest with kisses and hugs when he was depressed and disappointed. , Although there are small disputes in life, the overall situation is always the most important.
Such a sweet life.
In the movie, little Raymond brought back a small pear sapling and planted it in the yard. After his parents passed away, Raymond and his wife stood under a big leafy tree, and then Raymond said, "This tree is I planted it out of fruit pits." This scene is actually incompatible with the feeling of loneliness and longing revealed in "Xiangji Xuanzhi", "There is a loquat tree in the courtyard, which was planted by my wife's hand when she died. Coincidentally, people couldn't help but cry.
Ethel Big Ernest was five years old. They married in 1928 and died the same year in 1971. It is a hand-drawn animated film by Raymond Briggs based on a picture book written by his parents' real life stories.
Because there is a real basis, it is even more moving.
We come into the world by chance, and the chance of becoming great is even lower, so it is destined that most of our lives and love will be trivial and mundane. But life is so precious to us, even if it is plain as water, even if it is not worth mentioning, it is our only life.
For ordinary us, birth, love, marriage, childbirth, and death are a series of life changes that cannot leave any trace in history, and we ourselves know that our life is not unique. But when we make it into a book or a movie, we will see that in a long and short life, we have been the protagonists of the years, and our stories do not have the beauty of twists and turns, and there is no brilliance. The shocking beauty of the world, but it has its own plain beauty.
When we have exhausted that kind of life, and look back on this kind of life, we will see that even such a dull time, we did not have to live by it, but carved it into a dazzling diamond with cherishing warm hope and enthusiasm.
Lighting up the small historical space that belongs to us, let us finish this life and want to meet in the next life.
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