The title "Twin Melinda" always reminds me of the famous "The Double Life of Veronica" - two women with the same name Veronica suffer their own fate in Poland and France. They are implicated by some mysterious sense of fate, and their lives have become the silhouettes of history, carrying the heaviness of history. The extensive use of mirrors and mirror images in the film also makes us sigh at the great power of the film in the dislocation and splicing of time and space. Although "Twin Melinda" can also be called "Melinda's Double Life" to some extent, its style and the story it tells are completely different from "Veronica". "Veronica" is like a rigorous mirror-theoretical practice, while "Melinda" is like the sporadic sparks that collided with Cubism and briefly looked back. Woody Allen's twins appear in two fictional space-times isolated from each other - Melinda is not a real-world character, but a fictional vision of a woman in the minds of the two storytellers. This vision first became the referent of language in the storyteller, and then was cast on the big screen by Woody Allen, endowed with a short-lived body and vitality. The two Meilians have reached the muses of tragedy and comedy - like moths to a flame, they use their short screen lives to interpret the artistic power of tragedy and comedy. "Twin Melinda" opens with a Woody Allen ten-minute love moment - a rainy New York night. A couple of old friends sat in a small restaurant arguing fiercely over who had the high ground between tragedy and comedy. One thinks that tragedy faces reality, so it can resonate more with audiences and thus contribute to better box office results. While another argues that it is because tragedy triggers people's pain that audiences choose comedy because they want to escape reality. Such arguments could never reach a conclusion, so another decided to test the workings of tragedy and comedy with the story of a woman who failed. Here, the characters' attitudes toward the intruder reflect the very different mechanics of tragedy and comedy. In the two isolated story spaces, Melinda is a complete intruder - she suddenly breaks into the originally harmonious family gathering or guest dinner for no reason, and thus changes the original intention of the two families. Living condition. But tragedy and comedy react to intruder characters very differently, which makes the fate of the characters very different. In the tragic version, Melinda suddenly breaks into Lee and Laurel's house party. Members of the family reunion express surprise and psychological rejection of the intruder Melinda, especially Lee, who sits at the dinner table and speaks ill of Melinda behind his back. With no way back, the United States Linda had to temporarily live in Lee and Laurel's home, so the background characters' rejection of Melinda gradually evolved into passive acceptance. It is worth noting that in the tragic version, not only does Melinda appear as the aggressor, but we as the audience are also the aggressor - we unconsciously force into Melinda's inner world with the movement of the camera. The film enters a long monologue at around 15 minutes and 17 seconds. In this scene, Melinda sits at a table by the window, recounting her emotional trauma leisurely. At this point the shot is progressively advanced, gradually transitioning from mid-ground to close-up. In this process, the meaning of the characters began to be highlighted, and Melinda began to exist larger than the background. We also entered the inner world of Melinda with the advancement of the camera. This double-layered invasion actually corresponds to the defense made by an old friend at the beginning of the film for the tragedy-tragedy is more likely to resonate with the audience, because the audience is close to the tragic characters and has no distance. Also an intruder, in the comedy version, Melinda is treated much better—she enjoys the double protection of a foreshadowing and a soft landing. In the comedy version, Milinda is no longer the old, uninvited acquaintance who wanders around, but the sobbing, pitiful young woman in front of her house. This kind of foreshadowing immediately aroused our sympathy - you see, this young girl needs help, and no one should reject her. Later, Milian, who had swallowed 28 sleeping pills, went to Hobie and Susan's home for help. At this time, Hobie and Susan are entertaining a heavyweight guest, and this guest will directly decide whether Susan can become a real director. Melinda's invasion didn't turn the crowd away, as this group, especially the head of the family, Hobie, was a typical Woody Allen character -- unlucky, talkative, loud, good at creating chaos and making it happen scenes for maximum comedic effect. Since the comedy version of Meilinda has an independent residence and does not break the directorial plan of the hostess Susan, she has become a more and more lovable character, and Susan even took the initiative to arrange a blind date for Meilinda. Such a soft landing also plays a role in protecting the characters, and Milinda will get better and better under the nourishment of comedy fate. Regarding the question of who is better between tragedy and comedy, the film failed to give a clear answer in the end, and this question itself may be unsolvable. The tragic version of Melinda ended her on-screen life in despair and uncontrollable convulsions of a suicide attempt, and we may be able to read from her tears the gratuitousness of emotion and the meaninglessness of life. In the comedy version, Melinda and the divorced Hobie get married ; Their love story is frozen in that sweet kiss at the end. Tragedy teaches us to empathize, and comedy gives us hope. As Melinda in the tragic version said, whether it's happy tears or sad tears, aren't they all tears? Regardless of tragedy or comedy, don't they all make us feel the charm of film art? Whether we cry or laugh, they are all part of our lives.
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