As the first part of the "Glacier Trilogy", this film has a mixed temperament of "Jeanne Dillman" and Bresson's later image style. The repeated daily routine is exactly the same as that of "Jeanne Dillman", while a large number of partial close-ups such as hands, food, tools and destroyed items during house demolition are in line with the style of Bresson's later period. The self-destructive behavior of the final house demolition and family suicide, like Dillman, did not use dramatic conflict and externalized emotions as a driving force to tell the audience the motivation, but hid the reasons and motivations in repetitive, mechanical daily fragments and life itself. Dillman finally exploded and killed the client under the always hidden emotions, and the family of three in this film exploded in self-destruction.
The first paragraph is in 1987, which is a middle-class family where the daughter lives with her father, mother, and uncle. Through the letter written by my mother to my mother-in-law, we learned that my uncle and my mother jointly opened a shop to do business, but my uncle has a serious tendency to depression. My father works in a mechanical and cold factory. The leader is an incompetent old man who is about to retire. Because he is afraid that his father will take his place, he often suppresses his father at work. The film begins with a long car washing process. The father and mother sit in the car and watch the car washing machine work outside the car. At this time, they are surrounded and swallowed by the cold machine, and so is their life. After washing the car, there is a beautiful beach like a paradise. This is the seventh continent, which is in stark contrast to the city full of cold machines. Then there are a large number of partial close-ups of life fragments, the alarm clock at six in the morning, getting up, brushing teeth, waking up daughter, stepping on the bathtub to put on shoes, feeding fish, pressing coffee, eating breakfast, opening the garage door to go to work, mother in the optical shop At work, the father walks through the icy and roaring factory machines, shopping at the supermarket after get off work, checking the items at the counter one by one, refueling the car for the next day of repetition... The daughter is pretending to be blind at school, she seems to want to taste Taste the pleasure that is invisible, want to escape from the abyss of repetition, but in exchange is a slap in the face from my mother... The first part of the seemingly happy family dinner ended with a sudden cry from my uncle. why cry? My uncle did not directly tell us the reason, but in fact, all the images presented in the movie have already constituted the reason. Perhaps, this is the most helpless sadness, because despair comes from your life every moment, you can't escape. The first part ends with the image of the daughter entering paradise and the beautiful beach after praying to God before going to bed, which is very meaningful.
The second paragraph is in 1988, when the parents ended a sex before the 6 o'clock alarm clock. This completely controlled life by the environment presents a complete absurdity in this timed sex. After getting up, it is still the same life segment as the first paragraph, repeating the procedure, but at this time, the father has successfully squeezed out the former leader and was promoted successfully. My uncle traveled to northern Europe to improve his mood. The last family of three witnessed a car accident and a corpse lying on the side of the road waiting to be disposed of when driving home in the rainy night... Then the mother sat in the car while washing the car and wept bitterly, just like the uncle in the first paragraph. Assimilated, domesticated life stirs up waves in the face of death, which is scary, and fear brings inspiration about life, like philosophy. So in the third paragraph, they began the "just" road of rebuilding the philosophical system and putting it into action.
1989, the last year of a family of three. The daughter bids farewell to her grandparents, and the kind old couple smiles and waves goodbye to the passing vehicle. This is the only warm tone in the film, from two dying people who are dying. They are outsiders in this era, but Nor do they have to fit in. And young parents who have rebuilt their philosophical systems aspire to be outsiders. All the living things that have appeared before are destroyed in the third paragraph, the broken fish tank and the struggling fish on the ground, all the clothing is cut, all the records are broken, all the paintings are torn up, all the money is taken out of the bank Flushing down the toilet, sawing down all furniture, etc., etc., all commodities lose their meaning and become objects, and all the meaning of life that you once pursued no longer exists. They tried to escape from this era of brainwashing controlled by cultural commodities. They took poison and died one by one while watching concerts on TV. In the end, only a TV with no signal was left.
Since the invention of television, while entertaining viewers, television has been nakedly engaged in dictatorial cultural brainwashing. Advertisements, TV series, variety shows, all tell you what kind of life you should pursue, what kind of goods you should buy, what meaning you should look for, what is good, what is bad, what is elegant, what is vulgar, what should be, what shouldn't. Every viewer sitting in front of the TV watches the same program and receives the same value output. As a result, people live a unified life and have a unified value. People no longer reflect, no longer think independently, it’s okay, anyway, someone thinks for us, we just need to use it now. In this way, we have all become supporters of cultural totalitarianism without knowing it, and become a group of docile lambs who are easy to be managed, consumed, squeezed, and slaughtered... Finally, the TV without signal shows that. Everything, the family of three is no longer docile after rebuilding the philosophical system. After losing their lives, they no longer have instilled value, so the shrewd people in power cut off the TV signal, and invalid output is always a taboo in the capital world...
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