A few days ago, a new movie starring Hu Ge was released, which caused widespread discussion on the Internet.
On a Q&A website, I was also invited to answer a related question: "Is there love between the characters of Gui Lunmei and Hu Ge in "The Party at the Southern Station"?"
My answer is as follows:
The answer was highly upvoted, and it also brought my mind back to 10 years ago.
In the winter of 2009, I was writing a novel on Xige Street; at that time, I needed a life-saving straw, and I needed to grab something, both financially and emotionally. In the depths of the night, cigarette butts are hard to find; without nicotine, the unpredictable fear, loneliness, and guilt are uncontrollable, gnawing at the heart and bones like ants.
That night, I watched "Leaving Las Vegas"; two people were playing loneliness, and the loneliness was watching off-screen.
One, not love
In the newspapers and on the Internet, most of the comments on "Leaving Las Vegas" are "the love of two people at the bottom" - this is the point of view that the average aesthetic ability of the general public can understand, accept and perceive, and naturally Easiest to spread.
Similar to the great new movie "Joker" released this year, 99% of people may interpret it from the perspective of "alienation after oppression of marginalized people", because the core of "independent movies" and "the living conditions of antisocial personality disorder" "Themes are not popular with people.
The popularity of niche literary and artistic works is an irony in itself.
The protagonists of the movie are Ben and Sera, an alcoholic and a J woman.
From Ben's point of view, he's not in love with Sera.
Ben has been a rotten guy from the start of the movie. He was addicted to alcohol, his life was a mess, his wife was separated, his friends avoided him, and then he lost his job.
Whatever, he couldn't tell himself, whether it was the alcoholism that caused the hardship, or the hardship that caused the alcoholism. In short, his body and mind were riddled with holes and terminally ill; he was dead.
Ruan Ji cried at the end, Ben had passed this stage, and he decided to die.
Ben comes to Las Vegas and meets Sera.
When he saw Sera for the first time, he was impressed, he wanted to piao her. Sera went home with him, because of his leak, he entered the "sage mode" earlier than ordinary people, after that, he just wanted Sera to accompany him and be by his side.
This is very common in life. When you are walking on Momo or Tantan, loneliness is real, and the need for companionship is also real; if you can't find you, smoke to keep warm, and if you can find it, use AI to keep warm.
You can be affectionate to J girl too, but you know it's not love.
What was Ben's attitude towards Sera from start to finish?
A solace that draws the line.
At first, he said, "Don't go, I just want you to stay..."
Then, to move in together, he said, "Never stop me from drinking, understand?"
Later, when he brought the other J girls back to Sera's house, he didn't feel guilty and left simply.
In the end, the last booing, Sera helped him.
What is Ben talking about about love?
In front of the bartender, he can politely and logically refuse to care, he can also "passionately" talk nonsense to strange women at the bar and bank tellers, and he can take other J women to Sera's house without hesitation - because he really doesn't care.
He can easily say to Sera that he loves her, even that she is an angel, but just like rejecting the bartender, he refuses everyone to persuade him to be kind to himself.
Any "love," he said, was to seize a solace; his last days were a constant search for that solace and for alcohol.
Only refusal to survive is his true voice.
Sera to Ben, is it love?
Unlike Ben's death, Sera's survival. But don't misunderstand that they're different - they're all the same: Ben is Sera's next stage, and Ben is Sera's more morbid future. But "at this moment", their hearts needing comfort are already connected.
"It's good to be with you," Sera said the first time he was at Ben's hotel.
Later, she accepted Ben's death all the way, and expressed her understanding in the end; even, she bought a jug for Ben, and she did not deny his death plan.
Ben's death, Sera was very sad: she lost her straw, lost her kind, and was left alone.
2. Leaving Las Vegas
Leave, Las Vegas.
A verb, an image.
Las Vegas: Sex, gambling, black, alcohol, violence.
Leaving: For Sera, it is to break free; for Ben, it is to go to heaven.
When Sera gets to Ben's step, the same goes for "leaving Las Vegas", which means "going to another world".
Liu Xiaofeng explained in "Salvation and Happiness" that in the face of suffering and evil in the world, human beings have two spiritual qualities of detachment and redemption. Under the influence of Western culture and religion, many people will embark on the path of accepting the fact of suffering, understanding the existence of God, and redeeming themselves and reconciling with God.
The reconciliation of the pioneers, like Russell, is willing to look down on purgatory; the reconciliation of ordinary people is more like a walking corpse cultivated by religion, rushing to "heaven" slowly or urgently.
Sera has accepted the fact of suffering, so she is "free" and can still make a living from her flesh with equanimity. Ben has come to terms with his god, he was the walking dead before the movie started, and what we're seeing is after he became the walking dead.
John O'Brien, the original author of "Leaving Las Vegas", committed suicide shortly after writing the book.
You can talk about Ben's state as John O'Brien himself; of course, before that, they were all Sera.
This is reminiscent of Hai Zi, a poet who "takes dreams as horses".
Haizi's poverty and loneliness are deeply rooted in his bones, but his works are full of hope - you don't even know whether "facing the sea and spring flowers blooming" is his real hope, or his anti-mockery that he can't reconcile with his life's predicament .
The only certainty is that when he is determined to die, it is the same as Ben.
Hai Zi, who "cared about human beings" in the past, also gave up struggling——
At the end of the grassland, my hands are empty and I can't hold a teardrop when I grieve, sister, tonight I am in Delingha, which is a desolate city in the rain... Tonight I only have the empty sister Gobi, tonight I don't care about human beings, I only want you
Ben's "Dellingha" is Las Vegas and "Teardrop" is Sera.
(END.)
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