This is Aki's more tender work. In this film, the lead actor who has remained unchanged for thousands of years is smashed to the head, but it fulfills a man's good wish to start a new life and find a new home.
The male protagonist is a gambler who is addicted to gambling. He almost lost all his belongings, which broke his relationship with his wife. (This is what his wife told him after he returned to his wife at last) So he went to the big city alone to find a job, but soon after he got off the train, he was knocked unconscious by three thugs with money and ID card. , all items were looted. He was then taken to the hospital, and when the doctor declared him dead, he sat up after the doctor left and died, but he lost all memory, including his name, before he died. He became an amnesiac tramp with no name and no past. This was a story that couldn't be more tragic, but Aki then sent those kind-hearted people from the bottom to this man. Due to amnesia, he was unable to have a reasonable identification, find a place to live and a job. So a vigilante placed him in an abandoned shipping container as a home and charged him rent. Although the security guard is very snobbish and always asks men for rent, there are other homeless people living in the container, all kinds of people who are equally suffering but kind-hearted, casting a ray of warm sunshine into the life of men. The man also fell in love with the female employee who was in charge of distributing food to the homeless at the relief station.
Men have a unique taste and sense of music, especially rock music. He called a local jazz band into his home to listen to rock and roll, and the band members sat in a row with joy. Then the man became the producer of the band, and the band held concerts in the community, which gave the man a sense of accomplishment. Another interesting passage is that the male protagonist met an old man robbing the bank while doing business at the bank. He and the female teller were kept calm in the bank warehouse, and the two even chatted. After being rescued, the old man who robbed the bank found him. The old man was confiscated by the bank because of the loan, the factory closed, and he had no money to pay the wages of the employees, so he entrusted the male protagonist to distribute all his property to his employees. After the male protagonist agreed, The old man shot himself. This is a cold and tender story. Interestingly, when the male protagonist and the old man were talking in the cafe, the director Aki's own photo hung on the wall...
Finally, the police found the male protagonist's life experience, and the male protagonist returned to his wife. He learned from his wife what he used to look like, and obviously he is happier now than he used to be. So he left his wife again, returned to his girlfriend at the rescue station, and started a new life completely.
Archie is one of the most storytelling of the European stylized directors. The coexistence of form and content, cold humor, sudden violence, a lot of shady transitions, a lot of partial close-ups and omitted information can clearly show Bresson's far-reaching influence on him.
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