Everything you want will be lost
I went to Taipei to see the 54th Golden Horse Film Festival last week. Before I set off, I bought several tickets in one go. Except for the classic restored version of "Happy Spring", BL type "Call Me by Your Name" and other popular shows, my favorite is not "Dream Deer Love". There is no other, the film won this year's Berlin Golden Bear Award, and the mainland is also translated as "Flesh and Spirit".
In fact, I personally think that the name "Meat and Spirit" is more suitable for the movie itself than "Dream Deer Love". Because it is more like a fable to reality than a fairy tale. In addition to "love", the story is a kind of exploration or reflection on self and others, possession and loss, existence and meaning.
The plot of the movie is very simple. It begins in a cattle slaughterhouse. The decapitated cow has a lively heat from the wound. It is the most straightforward portrayal of the flesh. The heroine is a new quality inspector, and her dull and cold temperament not only makes her out of tune with her surroundings, but also attracts the manager's attention. In a psychological test, the hero and heroine found that each other had been appearing in each other's dreams, but not as humans, but as a pair of female deer and stag in the forest to communicate. The mutual sympathy in the dark made them try to get closer to each other, but eventually they became more and more alienated.
It is like two magnets of the same property, met because they are the same, and resisted because they are the same. So one party chose to change its magnetic field, and even did not hesitate to destroy the body in exchange for the "rebirth" in the spirit. When the two people were finally united, the resonance of the soul had long since disappeared.
In the story, the heroine was lying in the bathtub and chose to take her own life, and she put on a song, the lyrics sang: "He cut out my tongue, there is nothing to say." (He cut out my tongue, But I was speechless.) Underneath the seemingly dull and clumsy appearance was an extremely sensitive and rich heart, which was extremely painful to her, like a trapped animal locked in a small partition waiting to be slaughtered, constantly colliding and suppressed. When there are conflicting souls and bodies, only the sacrifice of one can be liberated. How to choose? And she didn't die. When she hurriedly wrapped her bloodless arm and ran eagerly to see each other, she was still alive, but she killed the past self and wiped away the deer that haunted her in her dream. She made her own choice.
After the reckless pursuit, it is the lover who finally gets married. They are finally together. I really like the detailing of the film in this part. Until here, the girl didn't realize what she had lost. She finally no longer had any resistance to physical contact. She lay in her lover's arms, thinking that she already had the happiness she wanted to pursue. At this moment, she was satisfied.
She slept with her lover hugging each other, but the doe and stag never appeared in each other's dreams again. wake up. Did she lose or gain? The movie came to an abrupt end with no answer. Everything starts from a dream, the dream pushes them closer and separates them. They are together to hold the dream tightly in their palms, but they don't know that dreams are the lightest and most fickle, and can't stand the weight of the body. Pressure, obsessive rubbing. The more you want to hold it in your hand, the easier it is to wake up early. Dreams are cunning and unreadable, and so are feelings.
The camera finally freezes on the edge of an empty pond in the dream. It can be understood as the end of people going to the empty building, or maybe it can be regarded as the beginning of the unfinished. Remembering the verses of Szymborska in "Love at First Sight",
"They believe in each other
It was an instant burst of enthusiasm that made them meet
Fate pushes them closer to separation
block their way
There are some signs and signals present
even if they can't read
Maybe the same dream one night
blurred in the morning
every start
It's just a sequel
book full of plot
Always start half way"
Falling from a dream to life, starting to lie on the same bed, but never seeing each other again in a dream. It's not so much the end as it's just the beginning.
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