"You must be ready to bathe in your own fire: how can you be reborn if you don't first burn to ashes?" - Nietzsche
This is a story about life and reincarnation.
Coppola's appetite is really not small. In addition to expressing the endless cycle of individual life, he also seems to want to include the origin and destination of the entire human race. As one of the film's several parallel themes, Coppola touches on this concept. Dominic spent his life tracing the origin of human beings through ancient languages (and almost succeeded in the end), but on the other hand, he saw the end of human beings because of his own foresight. A genius who has insight into human beings is ultimately unable to face his own life. "Actually, I'm eighty-eight years old." He said to Veronica more than once, but also to himself, but Veronica's body was overdrawn in the coming and going of countless souls, helping ancient creatures Back to light. Life presents two extremes, but genius sees the circle in it. Dominica's rejuvenation is a retrospective of its own reincarnation, and looking at a higher level, the film reflects the prehistory of all human beings, and the replacement of the present and the next generation of species also means "spring breeze blows again". But the meaning is very vague, and Coppola doesn't seem to dare to delve into it.
The last splinter's words in the mirror are intriguing: "...Destruction is the meaning, this is the price humanity should pay...that's why you can't finish your book, why you're always a loser." That's right, Dominic is destined to be unable to complete his career and love life, because he sees reincarnation before others, so in the circle he can't see the end, can't see the starting point, he doesn't know where he will go. "I will leave this world alone." This is Dominic's monologue at the beginning of the film. In the end, he fell alone in the snow in the early morning, his pupils were still not dilated, and the third rose representing life was transformed into his hand and passed away vividly. Is he really free?
"If I confuse spring dreams with real experiences, then my life will be much more interesting than I imagined." - Dominic
This is a story about dreams and reality.
The film can be seen as a two-hour long sleepover. High-definition camera footage with underexposed amber tones create a blur, and shots that are slanted at times or completely upside down simulate first-person impressions of the pupils, the narcissistic dialogue of everyone, including the Nazis. It is different from the dream of Dreamworks, it can directly dig out the most original impression of the most real dream in your mind, a sweet dream, a nightmare or a spring dream. If you're a dreamer, maybe you'll babble a few words along with the movie for no apparent reason.
Dominic goes back and forth between dreams and reality, enjoying himself. He has learned countless languages in his sleep, believing that his reunion with a dangerous female Nazi was just a dream. This confusion almost brought him death in the end, but it was not difficult for him to turn the death into a dream.
Did you know that Zhou Zhimeng was a butterfly? Butterfly dream is Zhou Yi? In the end, Dominic returned to the Select Cafe on December 20, 1938, and met old friends from the old university. "I know I'm in a dream, and I can wake up now if I think about it." "If it's not a dream, then do you know about the Hiroshima atomic bomb? Do you know about the moon landing?" He terrified his old friends . On the other hand, the hotel on December 20, 1969 called to the cafe to find Dominic. Is time and space interlaced? Or is it an outright spring dream? Is it a spring dream in 1938? Or a spring dream in 1969? Zhuangzi believed that vivid dreams are indistinguishable from reality. Well then, even Zhuangzi and Dominic, and even Coppola himself don't know the answer, I'd better not go into it.
After one shot, Dominic completed 30 years of aging in a flash, and can't remember the "story about butterflies" he told a minute ago. He really woke up, and then with doubts about life, disappeared in the early morning of December 21st of an unknown year. This is not suspense, this is an unsolvable mystery.
Geniuses feel lonely, so they split themselves.
This is a story about self and division.
Dominic's first split personality came with new teeth. This split personality is not as simple as the opposite. It seems to have more supernatural foresight and insight than Dominic himself. He can always tell Dominic the truth of things and what to do next. I think the rose part is the most conscious part of the whole film. The split body made two roses for Dominic, but after the montage, the split body disappeared and the doctor appeared, and the two roses were literally across Dominic's knees. head. Returning from the moment of realizing reality, is it Yefi? My thinking is tied. In the night in the hospital, when they were talking on the hospital bed, the position of the split body was erratic, which seemed to imply that Dominic himself could not control the movement of the split. He always wears the same clothes as Dominic, he is everywhere, even when Dominic's life is threatened under the gun of the Nazis, he never forgets to say "You really have no choice" almost humorously in the corner.
Freud believed that personality is divided into id, ego and superego. Dominic did not split into three, which is considered to take care of our IQ. From the thinking of normal people, I always thought that no matter how split the spirit or personality is, we can't escape from our brains. However, with Veronica's accidental turning back, the horror effect was produced - Dominic also began to doubt this. Whether the schizophrenia really exists objectively. In the end, Dominic finally resolutely strangled it in the mirror, watching the other self shattered along with the glass, roaring like a beast and sinking into hell, and his life ended the next day, with a third bloom in his hand. rose.
Can personality and spirit really be divided to the point of producing entity? We know it's just a fantasy without Coppola explaining it, but the true Insurgents may be able to understand more than we do.
This love can be reminisced, but it was lost at the time
. This is a story about love and career.
Even in such a Kafka-like film, the pursuit of love and career is still a very obvious main line. The most important things in the genius's heart are revealed by the hallucinations of the film's death. "I will love you until I die." Poor Dominic lived two lifetimes, but he didn't really enjoy love for a few years, and madly chased the career of two lifetimes. Good death. A genius in the sky, but lost both in love and career.
A touch of shadow, two names. After Veronica came back to life for the first time, Dominique held her and chanted Laura's name. Laura or Veronica, in Dominique's heart, it's probably just the same person who continued before and after. Laura's love is no match for Dominic's love for his career, and after losing Yiren, Dominic also ends up doing research like a walking dead. When he saw Veronica for the first time, Dominic didn't hesitate to use his real name. I don't know if there is a feeling of being separated from the world. If you gently say "Oh, are you here too?", it would be appropriate.
It's a pity that Dominica is not destined to have both. Veronica's psychic brought an ancient language that even Dominica could not know, but almost overdrawn his life. Seeing that there is only one choice between career success and lover's life, Dominic finally chose love. However, good luck makes people, and the way to choose love is to leave. "I don't want you to lose your youth and beauty, you can be the same as before." I don't know what kind of pain it was, but at least Dominic still kept that shadow in his heart forever. Seeing this, I realized that gains and losses can become so entangled.
What puzzled me was Dominic's expression - the two parts of breaking up with Laura and meeting Veronica for the first time, Dominic's reaction seemed calmer than when facing the Nazis. I don't doubt Tim Roth's performance. According to Coppola's concept, even at the most critical moment in life, genius can maintain a calm and calm consciously? Although the emotion of the whole film is hidden, the director does not need to be so stingy with the master's acting skills.
There are believers, not unbelievers.
This is a story about science and the supernatural.
Rejuvenation, mind power, and spirituality, the three great mysteries of human beings, are gathered here. Whether they are expressions used to reflect deeper themes, or philosophical meanings that are especially displayed, Coppola doesn't want to let go of anything that can surprise people. However, the explanations of these things by scientists may not be credible. Artists express their own thoughts, and it is enough to entertain the public by the way. It is not necessary to take it seriously.
It's just these elements that make the plot more confusing, and the movie itself more difficult to locate. Most of the supernatural-related episodes take place in the dark, adding a sense of suspense and horror, especially in the dark night when Dominic uses his mind to settle Rudolph, which is quite Hitchcock-like. And Veronica was out of control after being struck by lightning, and even Dominica was afraid of it. So when we saw Veronica turn from a little bird to an ancient fierce spirit, we would only widen our eyes and say "ah, ah", how can we think that all the encounters of Veronica were just used by the director Just to add to Dominica's misfortune. If it weren't for Dominica's research and the visibility of the story, would Coppola have to sacrifice such a beautiful woman and entangle with souls every day?
Knot
"There is only Tao." This is what Dominic wrote while practicing Chinese characters, and Coppola gave a close-up. This is indeed a very oriental movie. In addition to Taoism, it also played a little bit of Buddhist philosophy. The concepts of Tao and Buddha need not be said too much, and Coppola is still unfinished, and he has played many of the above elements over and over again, learning Dominica to rejuvenate his youth, and he has had a play addiction. Playing with fire like this is easy to self-immolate. Fortunately, the person who played with fire was Coppola. Although the film is too mysterious in shape and spirit, and received a bad response in Europe and the United States after its release, the combination of countless classic characteristics is classic, which is incomprehensible. Although people are boring, they don't dare to say that they can be smarter than the master. In fact, the budget of the film is only 5 million US dollars, and it was completely invested by Coppola himself, even if it is burned, it can be burned. The master entertained himself in his later years, and the resonators rejoiced and praised, and the rest, sorry, you wasted two hours.
Regarding the three roses that appear in the movie, Dominic got two in his lifetime and a third after his death. The first two flowers can be understood as career and love. Throughout Dominic's two lives, although his fate has been turbulent, his career and love are still in his own hands, and he can finally decide the choice between these two roses. However, the last flower, I think it represents life, the life that Dominic made a big joke with, the life that Dominic could not understand and control after all. Do people really have no control over their own lives? Can you really only appreciate the beauty of your life blooming in your palm just a moment before leaving, before your pupils dissipate? This understanding is very negative, but whether we only have the right to use life without ownership, whether there is a more transcendental existence above life, I have no way of knowing.
The end. Life blooms on a black curtain. Involuntarily return to the beginning of the film - the backward clock, the skull, the smiling Laura, the rose, the impression of two lifetimes. Awakened from a dream, as if from a lifetime.
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