6 hours and 6 minutes, the length of the Italian film "A Splendid Life" scared off many viewers who came here. But anyone who ignores this "difficulty" will not be able to calm down for a long time after the film ends. "A Splendid Life" made me realize again my film teacher's definition of a good movie: a good movie is one that makes people restless after watching it.
There's a lot of fidgeting about this movie. Can there be more? The film begins in 1966 and ends with the characters in the 21st century. In the past 40 years, Italy has been in a period of turbulent social unrest. It has experienced major social events such as the Florence flood, the Sicilian resistance to the Mafia, the Turin blue-collar labor movement, the Milan student movement, and frequent terrorist attacks. If the director wants to, he can make "A Splendid Life" into a movie with a major theme, but he focuses on how the three generations of Madio and the Nicolas Brothers' family walked into it step by step under the changing social thoughts. The little people of the new century, often overlooked by historical records, are the closest to the truth.
A group movie will also have a protagonist. Who is the protagonist of "A Splendid Life" among three generations of more than ten people in a family? I think it's Madio.
Audiences familiar with this film will not forget such a scene: in the 1980s, Madio, who rarely returned home to celebrate the New Year with his parents, siblings, finally returned home. Watching his family happily look up at the bright fireworks in the sky, Madio quietly left and returned to the apartment where he lived alone. After calling Mirella, who was the closest but not his girlfriend, she refused, Madio got up and walked from the room to the drying platform, walked back to the room from the drying platform, and then quickly jumped into the drying platform and jumped over the railing... How did Madio, who left the scene in the middle of the story, become the protagonist?
Because, Madio's personality color and his life path dominated by this personality color are the most mirror images of Italy from 1966 to 1980s.
In 1966, Madio was about to graduate from the University's Department of Literature. Because he was dissatisfied with the criticism of his thesis by the professors, Madio resolutely refused to follow their suggestions to revise the paper, so that the thesis was not passed, and Madio could not graduate from the university. Madio, who did not get a college diploma, joined the army and went to the army. When he went with the troops to rescue the disaster area in Florence, he reunited with his brother Nicola, who had become a doctor. Too hastily, the two brothers had to say goodbye without much reminiscence. After retiring, Madio chose to go to Rome to work as a policeman. He had a fiery temper and injured the prisoner when he was interrogating him. Madio was reassigned by his superiors to Palermo, Sicily, to deal with the Mafia. When Madio returned to Rome, it was already the 1980s, but his temper had not changed at all. The social problems in Rome are difficult to return - the criminal is a rich man, but a top bag is here. Madio wants to dig out the truth of the case, but he is frustrated again and again, and is regarded as a monster by his colleagues because he is out of time. Everyone speaks loudly, and sometimes Madio feels that he is too out of tune with society? Therefore, when he met the female photographer Mirella in Palermo, Madio, who felt that he had lost everything, would falsely call himself Nicola, the brother who always seemed to get what he wanted. Madio, who can always find the joy of life in books, suddenly realized one day that reading a book can be thrown away at will; The loneliness of everything being empty made Madio unbearable, and he chose to retreat from this world.
Madio is gone, but like a shadow, he controls the lives of those who are related to him. Mirella gave birth to a child with Madio. Madio's mother, who was suffering from the loss of her son, was comforted in the last journey of her life because of this child; because she loved the same person, Madio, Mirella and Nicholas. Gula was determined to abandon secular prejudice and came together - Nikolai, who seemed to have a smooth journey, was actually full of sadness. His beloved wife Julia, a dissident, left her young daughter and her beloved husband relentlessly and planned to leave home in order to join a terrorist organization. Watching his wife drifting away, Nikolai knew that she was bound to go to hell. How he hoped that Julia would be able to repent the moment before the door opened... Watching "A Splendid Life" to this scene, I am a hundred Confused: How can a woman who loves Mozart be so madly obsessed with violence?
At the flood scene in Florence, Nicola met Julia in addition to Madio. However, this volunteer did not roll in the muddy water with the victims like Nicola, but sat by the piano and encouraged the compatriots to rebuild their homes with Mozart's piano sonata.
Julia played Mozart's No. 8 Piano Sonata. The work was composed in 1778, when the composer was 22 years old. Mozart's works such as "Piano Concerto No. 21", "Violin Concerto No. 3", "Oboe Concerto" and so on often appear in the diet. The "Piano Sonata No. 8" played at the scene of the flood in Florence was a bit cold and hard. The composer's piano sonata, completed shortly after his mother's death, has been called the most unpleasant of Mozart's works, especially the third movement, which powerfully drags fans into a mood of depression.
Mozart's "Piano Sonata No. 8" played by Julia on the streets of Florence, although only a fragment of the first movement appeared in the movie, the cold and hard temperament has already appeared, but Mozart's innate kindness is still It was revealed inadvertently, so when I saw Nicolas leaning his elbows on the lid and listening intently to Julia playing Mozart, a thought flashed through his mind: not far away, Madio could also hear Mozart, maybe in addition to reading He also loves classical music. I fell in love with classical music. Later, Madio would not leave us so decisively when life was in a desperate situation... Not necessarily , Julia who played Mozart, and then Schumann, who was softer than Mozart, Didn't she also walk into the dead end of life?
Bach, Mozart, Schumann, Britten... 6 hours and 6 minutes of "A Splendid Life", selected many classical music works to add a rainbow to the already near-perfect story, but only Piazzolla's "Forgetting" is a title song that can accompany "A Splendid Life" from beginning to end - it is an interpretation of Madio's life with music over and over again. Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla wrote "Forgotten", which originally wrote about the pain that is connected with the past and wanted to forget, and used the bandoneon as the main instrument. Bandoneon accordion with violin, viola, cello, double bass or dialogue or harmony, expresses the pain of forgetting with bitterness and passion - that is Madio, that is Italy from 1966 to 1980s! Although it was a chaotic world, it was also a time when human feelings were so thick and uneven, a time that was wrong no matter how you describe it.
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