"What else can I spend time on? Only work, day after day. , Year after year, wait until one day, suddenly, everything is over..."
Except for Kurosawa Akira's "Desire to Live", this is the second time I have seen such a moving movie about the elderly. It's about a stranger and an old man, to be exact.
Fassbender's Fear Eats the Soul, 1974. An old woman who had been a corridor cleaner all her life met a lonely and sincere Moroccan who was 20 years younger than her. They contacted each other with kindness, and her lonely heart was moved casually. The marriage of the two had to withstand blows from all levels of society. Children, neighbors, colleagues, shopkeepers, and even strangers in Germany, all looked like them with amazement and sarcasm.
As this Arabic proverb says, fear can eat up the soul. The old woman burst into tears, but she was finally able to wait for time to wash away. The younger Ali was overwhelmed by all kinds of fears. When the old woman just casually said that she didn't like the couscous noodles from his hometown, the mild-mannered Ali was bruised by the frailty. He began to indulge himself, looking for bar girls, gambling, drinking, staying out at night. When the old woman found his factory, a group of German auto mechanics also laughed at her as Ali's grandma from Morocco.
Ali remained silent, whether it was the ridicule of the crowd or the tears of the old woman. Until they returned to the bar where they first met, a gypsy dance made the two dance again. The repentant Ali had just made the old woman gratified, but was admitted to the hospital with a bone perforation.
"We have to be nice to each other, otherwise there will be nothing left to miss." Fassbender poured tears of infinite sympathy into the ordinary, bitter and hopeless lives of the two low-level little people. There is no more meaning in life, only the comfort of each other. Of course, as a comrade, Fa's also has other arms. But in our view, it still points directly to the heart.
"Ali, we have so much money, we should buy a piece of land in heaven." Perhaps, Fassbender had to borrow the old man's mind to realize the illusory meaning of life. Whether before or after death, people are still hopeless and meaningless. In love, the only place where two people can escape.
The film is said to be a German adaptation of Serk's "What's in Paradise", and is also called by Serk as the "best and most beautiful" film of French. Seriously! The best and most beautiful is not necessarily youthful beauty. Compared with "Lili Marlene" and "Braun's Wedding", I would rather say, just like "The Desire of Life" for Kurosawa Akira, the most sincere and beautiful is this. Two old men's films.
The film also reiterates the theme of Fauci's "Katzemacher" in the 1960s about the erosion of loneliness and the hostility of groups faced by strangers. When the loneliness of the smoke sounded, and Ali was walking on the empty street alone, we could all feel what loneliness was. This is the situation of strangers, and it is the situation of all people.
The emptiness and boredom of the world, as long as it is told so realistically, is enough to move people. The pain in it, in ordinary view, is only real, simple and simple as usual, but at the same time, it is timeless as new, and everyone can taste it.
Fassbender, like Bergman, is a writer who is faithful to the heart.
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