"A Night at the Mude House" is the third of six films in Rohmer's "morality series" and his first to be widely regarded as a masterpiece. The film starts the whole story from the perspective of an engineer who has been wandering abroad for many years and has returned to France. The engineer, who was not even given a name by the director, was a devout Catholic who fell in love with a brown-haired woman when he went to church for the first time since he came to the small town of Clermont, but was hesitant to do so. miss. Then I met my high school classmates. A classmate introduced him to a divorced woman, Mude. One night in the Mude family, they also had a good impression of each other, from love to philosophy to religious belief. Because the heavy snow couldn't go home, the engineer slept next to Mude for one night, but nothing happened. The morning after he came out of Mude's house, he happened to meet the brown-haired woman he liked again, and he approached him regardless. After the short chat between the two, they were very compatible with each other, and the relationship gradually got closer. They got married not long after, and Mude moved out of the city. Five years later, the engineer took his wife and son to the beach and met Mude, whom he hadn't seen for many years.
When reading the "Morality Series", the first thing to understand is the word "morality" in French. If you only understand it from the Chinese meaning, it will inevitably lead to misinterpretation. Rohmer once said on this issue, "There is a word in French, moraliste, which I don't think can be translated into English. Moraliste can only describe someone who is interested in himself, he is concerned with thoughts and feelings... So' Moral stories' are not about moral content. Although there may be characters who act according to certain moral beliefs, 'morality' can refer to those who like to openly discuss their motives and reasons for their actions. They are easy to analyze and think better than doing. many". If it is not easy to translate into English, it will be even more difficult to translate into Chinese.
In other words, the "morality" that Rohmer refers to is actually closer to thought, idea, and even philosophical thinking. In this way, it is not difficult for us to find that the male protagonists of these six stories are almost all such intellectual images who can think well and have their own "moral" system. They talk about their own beliefs and beliefs, eloquently and eloquently. The engineer of "One Night at the Mude House" is a person who has his own set of thoughts on mathematics, natural science and philosophy. The topic of Pascal was originally raised by his philosophy professor friend, and in the beginning of the three-person chat, the engineer had no advantage at all. His words were always interrupted, but he still relied on his almost stubborn belief. And Faith brings the minds of Mude and his friends to his familiar orbit. Mude was also quickly fascinated by such a man. Many women will be fascinated by such a man. Although the engineer also had a good impression of the charming Mude, his equally stubborn faith in love prevailed over desire. In the end, he also got the love he insisted on.
Therefore, it can be said that this film is not a film about "morality" in the literal sense of the Chinese language. Maybe there are some questions about desire and love, body and soul, but that's just a side-scrolling topic. In the end, what the director wants to show is his deep philosophical thinking. Someone once checked the names of certain literati or philosophers in each of the "Moral Series" after reading them. And this film corresponds to Pascal, who is constantly mentioned in the film.
Pascal, the name may be a bit unfamiliar to most people, but in weather forecasts, we often hear how many hectopascals and how many kilopascals are the central pressure of a certain area (the lower the pressure, the stronger the wind). The "Pa" here is the abbreviation of Pascal, which is an international unit of pressure. Pascal's law is an important law in fluid mechanics. It says that if the pressure of a certain part of the fluid in a closed container changes, it will be transmitted to other parts and the wall of the container without loss; at the same time, the pressure is equal to the force divided by the action area. . It is conceivable that Pascal was the discoverer of this law.
Of course, it is a bit of a sideshow to draw Pascal out in this way. Because natural science is only one field of his research, his greatest achievement is still in the field of philosophy. "Thoughts" mentioned many times in this film is his posthumous work, and it is also his masterpiece.
"Man is but a reed, the most fragile thing in nature," Pascal wrote in the Polronian monastery, "but he is a thinking reed." This is also Pascal's ultimate reflection on human life that is widely circulated. Rohmer, who is also a native of the province with Pascal, obviously has many similarities with his predecessors. Interrogation of the contingency of life; rejection of the flamboyant world; also Catholics are equally suspicious of religion and belief - this doubt may not be directed at religion itself - because if you never believe in a religion, then you Also religious (making himself a god). Therefore, this doubt was finally transferred to the discussion of the beliefs of the individual life.
Are the beliefs in everyone's heart the same? If you insist, what is the scale or limit of persistence? Which one should be regarded as the driving force behind the formation of the trajectory of destiny? This is a constant theme throughout the six "morality series" films.
Original:
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