Franklin's narrative technique, plot, and allegory are not unique, but it's still one of the most worthwhile watching movies I've seen recently.
The film's narrative structure is a multi-process that has been quite suspected at the beginning, consisting of John Prester's time city story, Emilia's death show, Milo's situation after lovelorn, and Peter's journey to find his son. .
Time City: John Prester haunts the dark night to find the murderer of his client, the eleven-year-old Senna's murderer, "The Lonely"...
Death Show: Emilia is an art student Schoolgirl, she is working on a work about "death" - her own suicide process...
Loveless situation: Milo feels very painful after breaking up with love. At this moment, he saw his childhood friend, Sally, a girl again on the street...
A journey to find his son: Peter is the church keeper, and he runs around in search of his missing son, David...
These four stories are really about a state of mind: coping with three manifestations of pain...
One, like David, faced the heavy blow of his sister Senna's death and created a completely delusional world at that time. , to place himself in it, to give himself a new identity, name, and mission to escape the pain of suffering. This is a complete denial of the real world.
One, like Emilia, who is saddled with the shadow of her father's departure, suffers from not being able to get her mother's consensus—that she misses her father and her mother doesn't. So she carried out one death show after another, in addition to angering her mother and mentor to gain their approval and understanding, she also showed her powerlessness in the real world. This is a complete acknowledgement of the real world.
One, like Milo, had to cancel the wedding because of his girlfriend's departure, so he once again recalled the delusional character Sally created when he was a child because of his loneliness. This is half denial and half admission of the real world.
The birth of these three manifestations of coping with pain did not come out of nowhere, but for a reason.
David's father, Peter, is the caretaker of the church. Perhaps his son had signs of this kind of mental outburst since he was a child, but he did not take normal measures such as psychological guidance. Instead, he explained his son's mental problems as Chosen by God—probably old Peter saw Joan of Arc too much... This kind of unrestrained approach made David, under strong stimulation, possess the superpower that Milo said, and will The story of his delusion turned into reality, and a dark city shrouded in dark clouds was built.
Milo, like David, has this kind of spiritual bud, which started as a child, maybe because of loneliness or being bullied by his peers, but in short he created a companion that only he could see - lovely Little girl Sally, which gave him a certain level of anaesthesia and comfort. His mother reacted negatively to this, and Milo seemed to have solved this mental problem naturally because he had communicated with others and had friends for a period of time after he grew up. But once struck again, he rediscovered "Sally".
Emilia's mother couldn't forgive her husband-although the reason was not explained in the plot, her attitude deeply stabbed her daughter's feelings, but it did not allow her daughter to get a false sense of life. Indulge in the daughter and weave a beautiful image of the daughter's father, so that the daughter is anesthetized in the memory of the good times in the past, probably Emilia will also fall into her own delusions and cannot extricate herself. But she created the other extreme, causing Emilia to be "born to death" in the real world.
David: Mental problems arising from pain + positive identification with father = complete denial of reality.
Milo: Mental problems arising from pain + mother's passive acquiescence = half denial and half acknowledgment of reality.
Emilia: Mental problems arising from pain + mother's toughness and uncompromising = full recognition of reality.
No matter who it is, there will always be trouble, anxiety, sadness, and pain in the real world. There are only two ways to solve it: positive and negative. The positive is to open up yourself, encourage yourself, and firmly believe that the pain will always pass. The negative ones are the pain, the self-blame or blame others, indulging in pain and suffering.
Franklin's film is a three-dimensional extension of the negative: whether it's a complete anesthesia in delusions, like David, or temporary relief from delusions, like Milo, or wandering like Emilia. To resist the real pain between death and life? In fact, these are not what we need. The best performance we should do is to no longer regard pain as the opposite of happiness, but to live forever as a part of happiness, and because of pain, we can realize that happiness is not easy to come by. Cherish it.
Another: I personally think that the identity of the old man mopping the floor in the hospital is a delusional agent.
Another: You can also think that he is the result of the delusion of the audience.
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