At the end of last year, Bi Gan's film "The Last Night on Earth" caused a huge controversy, because it was announced that a personalized niche literary film was packaged into a commercial romantic comedy (of course, the box office plummeted the next day, It ended up being a black comedy).
This film is not as difficult to understand as Bi Gan's film, it at least tells a relatively complete story, but it is still a very personal film. Some people like it very much, and some people scoff at it.
Say the name of the movie.
"La Grande Bellezza", in English, is "The great beauty". The domestic translation is "the beautiful city". The original text does not contain the word city, and the main content of the film has little to do with the city, although the story takes place in the city of Rome. It is very necessary to point out this point, because it is related to the theme of the film. If you don't understand this, your understanding of the theme of the movie is bound to have a certain degree of deviation.
Although this is a film that does not tell anything, it is necessary to introduce the synopsis of the plot.
The protagonist, Jep, is a quite successful newspaper reporter. He wrote a novel and won an award when he was young. With this debut novel, Jabil broke into the so-called high society in one fell swoop. over novels. The film does not have any tricks in the narrative, but it is relatively fragmented. It shows Jabil's extravagant life in Rome every night (sounds a bit Guo Jingming's meaning). Of course, there are also many trivial activities, such as interviewing performance artists, chatting with candles, visiting old friends, and visiting art exhibitions. In this way, the audience followed Jabil's footsteps, walking through the streets, squares, meadows, riversides, and even the ruins of ancient Rome, exploring Jabil's inner world and lost past.
From this, the film raises a rather metaphysical question - what is beauty? What is "La Grande Bellezza"?
Leaving this question aside, the most intuitive feeling about the film is naturally the ubiquitous soundtrack in the film. The theme song The Beatitudes appears repeatedly in the film with a slow and sad tune, just like the violin in the song, sometimes straying outside the film, sometimes accompanying it, and participating in the narrative.
At the beginning of the film, with the slow-moving camera and the ethereal soprano, the outline of the city of Rome is slowly brought out.
Immediately afterwards, a woman's shrill scream broke the silence, and the camera switched to Jabil's birthday party scene. The music suddenly changed from classical to modern dance music. The extremely rhythmic electronic music almost made everyone tremble. Shaking and switching in the crowd, seemingly out of focus. This scene has been given six or seven minutes, and there is hardly any plot interspersed in the middle (well, there is still a little bit).
Seeing this, maybe you are already wondering whether this is a movie or something put together by several MVs.
Do you think this is over?
After the dance music, Sorrentino arranged a rather beautiful scene immediately, and the accompanying track became a soft, ethereal but powerful (thanks to the strong bass of the bass) More than Scarlet awakens the drama in the play. The characters and the audience outside the play announced the arrival of the morning and officially opened the prelude to the whole movie.
Such a huge style change did not make the audience feel any disharmony, but seemed to blend together. In this way, the soundtrack of the whole film freely shuttles between classical and popular, strict and free, flashy and ethereal, and also guides the audience's sensory emotions to move left and right.
There is a scene in the middle of the film, which is what happened to Jabil in a diner, which is my personal favorite. Director Sorrentino used a set of slow motion and a series of montage shots to match the rhythm of the music (it can also be said to cooperate with each other), in short, the music and the rhythm of the shots are quite synchronized. Emotions poured out as footage recorded what happened to Jab at the restaurant and what happened to several of the other characters. There are almost no lines in this scene, only the guitar and the singer's slightly sad voice. Interestingly, in this scene, the passer-by, played by director Sorrentino, also glanced at the protagonist. He must have liked this scene himself.
Then the scene moved to the next scene, and the Jabil friend finally got the chance to act in a play. In this scene, the soundtrack and the lines work perfectly together. The content of the play is about August and September, and about memories. The track is also called Settembre Non Comincia (the coming September). With the slow progress of the guitar chords, the film seems to bring the audience to the careless days of August and September. in a lazy mood.
I spent all summer getting ready for September with no plans farther now my summers are spent reminiscing about the goodwill that has faded partly because of burnout and partly because of carelessness. The only pastime I can give is no rain August is coming to an end and September has not yet begun and I'm so ordinary but don't worry it'll be alright
The movie soundtrack of "City of Beauty" has as many as 29 tracks (the data on NetEase Cloud Music may not be very accurate), even more than some musicals. For example, there are 25 pieces of "The Secret That Can't Be Said", 30 pieces of "La La Land", and 30 pieces of "Extreme Car Theft God".
The soundtrack of "City of Beauty" is not quite the same as that of a typical musical. Generally speaking, musicals or just ordinary movies, their soundtracks are always traceable and predictable. You can roughly feel where the soundtrack will appear, and how the soundtrack will change as the plot develops. But in "City of Absolute Beauty", the music almost comes as it says, and doesn't give you a chance to foreshadow your emotions at all.
Sorrentino didn't just use the soundtrack to enhance the mood of the film, perhaps for him, the music was the mood. The whole film seems to be wandering in a certain mood repeatedly, and it will not break up for a long time.
Of course, there may also be criticisms that the film's soundtrack is flooded, and it's even just a big 2-hour MV remix.
There is a small detail in the film. The picture of the previous scene has not left, and the soundtrack of the next scene has already sounded. So much so that it sounds as if the sound is always one step ahead of the picture. Even makes me suspect that my stereo is broken. If it wasn't a mistake, then the director did it on purpose. Or that's the director's philosophy: the music (mood) comes first.
Watching the whole movie, I can't help but have this idea, maybe the movie doesn't want to discuss with you what beauty is, but wantonly show you beauty.
What is beauty? Well, the film itself is beauty, Sorrentino said.
In the film, almost everyone asks Jabil, why are you not writing novels anymore?
Jabil gave two answers. Once in the middle of the film, he said that the glitz and temptation of the city of Rome made it difficult for him to calm down and write. But the questioner was obviously not satisfied with this answer, and was just playing her way, because in her opinion, Jabil's home was as quiet as the countryside. Once, at the end of the film, when asked by Sister St. Mary, Jabil finally replied, "Because I was looking for something more beautiful, and I didn't find it."
What is beauty? What is "La Grande Bellezza"? I think the director's next film title gave the answer - YOUTH.
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