--Borges
"Relax, look happy. Smile, you too, son!"
"...hey, watch out for my hair!"
Not all works showing love and marriage are smart enough to use such an opening, but there is always another way of saying it. For example, like "Marriage Life". In fact, in many film and television works, the depiction of family life is often similar, and there is a lack of more general or allegorical scenes. But the film is exceptionally observant right from the start, with a model couple interviewed and photographed by the newspaper. The host proposed to let the two make a self-introduction. Husband Johann is very confident: "I am well-informed, well-educated, and an inclusive person. I love sports, and I am a competent father and son—", his wife Marianne looked at her husband cautiously and hesitantly, and replied : "Do you have to say—? I married Johan and had two daughters...I can't think of anything else..."
That's part of the truth. Bloated and carved into the bone, like a tumor, or a bruise.
Ingmar Bergman is often considered a modern film artist for his experimental filmmaking and relatively cold and obscure niche themes. But we can also be sure that he never lost his innate classicism. Most of his works attach great importance to the delicacy and beauty of the picture composition. They are mainly composed of stable fixed shots, accompanied by baroque soundtracks. Most of his works also follow the principle of language editing points as the golden rule. "Marriage Life" is one of the exemplary works. From the chapter-style paragraph scene narrative to the written and literary dialogue, Bergman undoubtedly mixes two layers of aesthetic concepts with contemporary significance. The stage play form and line characteristics of this indoor film are obviously also in line with Bergman's personal creative characteristics as a screenwriter and a TV producer. Coupled with a considerable number of personal close-up shots with very straightforward expressiveness, the inner emotions of the characters are infinitely magnified, producing a shocking shock. But what reveals Bergman's value orientation to a greater extent is the conservative flag he quietly tore apart in this film.
From the vassal attributes shown by his wife Marianne in the interview at the beginning, when the old woman came to file for divorce, she talked about a loveless marriage that lasted for 20 years for three children, and the two resisted the weekend arranged by their parents. Frustration at potluck, taunts and disparagements of feminism published by husband Johann, and sexual trends that are unavoidable no matter the situation. There is clearly an unequal attitude towards women from the director's side view. In Bergman's view, there is no real equality between men and women, and this attitude of dependence and ridicule is not unrelated to his four marriages. Men's spiritual status and way of thinking and comprehension are very different from women's, which causes the root of the spiritual difference between men and women. In the marriage, the husband assumes and occupies the entire spiritual world of the wife. Even after he tells him that he has cheated for several years and will leave with his lover the next day, the wife still carefully sets the alarm clock for him. And when his wife was so overwhelmed with excitement that she wanted to read her husband's diary full of self-examination and shouting to her husband, he fell asleep. The whole process of this marriage, from the separation of appearances to the complete collapse, was gradually torn apart in the several encounters and emotional confrontations between the two in several scenes. A man is tired of a woman's long-term company, but cannot tolerate a woman who leaves him and is completely free. Driven by his natural sexual stance, a man always believes that women belong to him, so at every meeting after a broken relationship, he asks for sex to reaffirm his territory - to find certainty and love in love. sense of security. What women desire more is to gain spiritual understanding and communication, and persistently try to do so, even if they are tyrannized. This dislocation of needs makes every communication between them full of despair and sadness.
But that's the downside of love—dependency as opposed to hatred. In a sense, the reason why people think that love can bring expectations and hope is nothing more than the long-term possibility of succession symbolized by love, which seems to bring a kind of ambition and ambition beyond death to their chaotic life. Light, so that they no longer feel that their existence is just an unfounded accident; the second is because the basis of love itself is a true refutation of human nature - spending their entire lives with someone who is not related to them. Individuals fall in love with each other, trapping themselves in a boring container that may have long since lost its freshness. Humanity has always been willing to explore and challenge the possibility of this distortion - just like the longing and pursuit of immortality. Worse yet, they often find that the only way the sexes can absolutely resonate is when they're having physical contact or talking about money. But even so, love brings something beyond love. Like the last story in the movie "Savage Tales" or "Eyes Wide Shut", long-term love cannot remain absolutely innocent at all, and only brings the side effect of short-term mutiny. Ironically, love doesn't end when its dark side is revealed, but instead plunges into a more frenetic, almost vindictive, intercourse. Men and women hate each other in the gradual disappearance of their divinities, but because of this rift, they are more closely bound together, and they grow old together like gears that rely on gnawing and turning.
Another ingenious part of the film is the shaping of real details. As an orthodox and rigorous religious convert, Bergman never relied too much on the flamboyance of expressionism to gain the visual pleasure of the audience. He does not want to be an aesthetic benchmark, but an allegorical exhortation. The vividness of any story must require truth, and truth that can be connected with beauty. Authentic details are key to shaping the character. In the film, Marianne fondles her necklace when she is nervous, and Johann uses her knuckles to gently rub her arm when expressing intimacy. These actions greatly increase the persuasiveness of the film. If we ignore them, we will obliterate the presupposition and presence of film art, and there will be no truth and beauty at all.
We obviously have reason to believe that in all the sweetness there are poisonous snakes of pain and human screams and cries, but acknowledging this does not seem to be conducive to the positive extension and development of spiritual space. So we choose to smile, whitewash the peace, hope for any benign possibility, and willingly put out a hand and cover our mouths.
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