There are too many excellent directors in Italy, whether it is the early neorealists or the famous three Nicholas later, they are all master figures. After that, there were still Bertolucci, Olimi, Scola, and the Taviani brothers who were quasi-masters who were stubborn, but in the 1990s, Italian films gradually entered a low ebb. The remaining few are rarely new. The knowledge is limited, but the only ones who have the impression are Amilio, the director of "The Spring of a Little Thief", and Bernini, who is directed by you. I am afraid that only the director of this film, Paolo Sorrentino, can really be called a cutting-edge director. With this "The Result of Love", the director has made many films in Cannes, European Film Festival, Italian Film Academy and so on. The festival was nominated and also gained a great international reputation. This year, his new film "Family Friends" once again competed for the Palme d'Or in Cannes, but it still ended in failure.
According to the director’s personal statement, the inspiration for the film came from a scene the director himself saw in Sao Paulo: the high temperature of 40 degrees outside, a 50-year-old man sat quietly in a hotel bar as if waiting for God’s call. The director wanted to know, what were the people thinking in the bar inexplicably? So the director began to virtualize a character, arranged the plot, and tried to answer these questions through this, so there was this film.
As said in the film, everyone has an unspeakable secret, and this 50-year-old man, who lived alone in a hotel for eight years, must have been caused by an unspeakable secret. So, the film begins with decryption,
The first 30 minutes is the beginning of the film, introducing some basic information about this middle-aged man named TITTA. He has lived in this Swiss hotel for eight years without any relatives or friends. Every day is just quiet. Doing looking around in the hotel bar, the only entertainment is playing poker with an elderly neighbor, but unfortunately TITTA always loses. He pays rent and meals on the first day of every month, never defaults, and never discloses his true identity. He rarely deals with other people, even the waitress who has been serving in the hotel for two years, although TITTA's heart has always been very ambiguous with the waitress. At this time, the audience, like other people in the hotel, did not know TITTA's true identity. What made TITTA stay in this hotel? What makes him so lonely? What the hell does he do? It is these questions that give the audience the desire to decipher further and increase their viewing interest.
So, when the film went on for nearly thirty minutes, the first plot point appeared, that is, the box that appeared at the beginning of the film reappeared. Due to the prompt at the beginning of the film, it was obvious that this box would be an extremely important prop . The box appeared in TITTA's room. Here, the director used a method different from the previous dull rhythm and a lot of long shots, but used a lot of quick cuts and close-ups, with the bright rhythm of electronic music, which was different from the previous dull rhythm. The collision makes the film instantly arouse the passion of young people. Pistols, nice cars, suitcases, special receptions, piles of banknotes, the sound of counting banknotes, and a series of collages make this segment cool. So gradually began to decipher, let the audience know that TITTA is by no means an ordinary person, and the subsequent plot further verified this. It was revealed in his conversation with his brother that perhaps he was engaged in some sort of criminal work. At the same time, the appearance of two mafia killers also shows something. TITTA talked to his family many times but had nothing to say, but we learned that he has a very good family, a beautiful wife, and grown children, which makes it difficult for him to live alone in a hotel. more mysterious. In addition, the ambiguous relationship with the beautiful waitress is also further deepened, and the frequent eye contact makes the film have a strong sultry taste, and it also implies that the love in the title of the film has come. Finally, TITTA's love for the waitress grew deeper and deeper, and even took $100,000 to give the girl a car (later we will understand that $100,000 actually has a price). Because of TITTA's love, he decided to tell his secret to the waitress, and also to decrypt it for the audience.
Here, the second plot point of the film appears, which also begins to bring the film to its climax. TITTA's secret was revealed, and we finally understood the reason why he had been trapped in this hotel. He was a senior accountant who had helped the Mafia handle the accounts. Due to negligence, the Mafia suffered huge losses, and the Mafia did not kill him. However, he was placed under house arrest in this Swiss hotel and asked him to be responsible for helping the mafia to launder money here. It is also for this reason that he could not communicate with his family and friends, and could not leave the hotel, and this loneliness continued for eight years. The waitress decides to run away with TITTA, and the two make an appointment to meet two days later. Frustrated, TITTA confronts the mafia boss alone and decides to die because he says he doesn't want to return the box. Eventually, he was sunk into the cement.
At the end, the poor old friend of TITTA who has not been in touch for 20 years is repairing the wires in the wind and snow. Protagonist's voiceover: I don't know if he will know, his good friend is thinking of him.
As the director's second feature film, the film still has a lot of stylized things in it. In the use of lenses, the director is very obsessed with long shots, but his long shots are different from the fixed long shots of Cai Mingliang and others. The uniform shaking from different angles, especially the opening paragraphs, combined with the lonely state of the protagonist, the film has an inexplicable melancholy temperament.
Driven by this uniform panning of the lens, the film progresses very smoothly and with a kind of harmonious flow. Sometimes frontal, sometimes sideways, sometimes overhead, without editing, it is completely random shaking of the lens, but it is different from the rapid shaking in "Irrevocable", but it is abnormally stable and does not make people feel dizzy.
However, as a new-generation director born in 1970, Sorrentino's films also have a lot of dynamic elements in them, making them different from those of the older generation, and the use of electronic music in many places is just right. Collage of the first trip to the bank to launder money. The alternation of the electronic music and the ambient sound when the waitress had a car accident, combined with the video, is very cool. In addition, at the end, TITTA recalled that part in the car, echoing the previous scenes, revealing the truth. It turned out that the money had been robbed by him and given to his old neighbor. The reorganization of the story structure and multiple small The hint makes that passage very much like Christopher Nolan's Memento. It also shows that Sorrentino is also a director who likes to play with structure and movies.
The main character, Toni Servillo, is not a well-known actor, but his performance in this film is very good, and he finally won two Best Actor Awards and one nomination for his performance. In this film, his lines are very few, and most of them are in the form of voice-over as the protagonist's self-reporting, and most of them are expressed by body language, but his impression is very deep. Now, I still clearly remember the one with eyes, Sitting on the window seat, he looked thoughtfully at the melancholy man outside the window.
The result of love, a steady man who insisted on being silent for eight years, finally made a decision to change his destiny because of a love. The final result is that TITTA died in the cement, and the waitress was also unknown because of a car accident. I don't want to impose any meaning on love, and lead to the idea that love is hell. It's just a story, an inspiration for the director, and may not have any profound themes.
Following Cédric Klapisch and Julio Medem, there is another middle-aged director who has aroused my interest. It is worth looking forward to.
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