lives consist of how we choose to distort it.
The male protagonist, Harry, has a rambunctious character, constant love affairs, and a chaotic and absurd life. He went through three marriages successively, during which he showed mercy everywhere, found prostitutes to vent his desires, slept with his wife's patient, and had an affair with his wife's sister... In today's words, he was an out-and-out scumbag.
At the same time, he is also a eloquent, talented and imaginative writer, whose chaotic and dramatic life has inspired him to write. He is wild and contradictory, and only when he is creating can he find inner peace. He wrote everything that happened around him into a book, trying to deconstruct his chaotic and absurd life, but he was always easily seen through.
When Harry's inspiration dried up, he was suddenly invited back to his alma mater to receive an honorary degree. He went through many twists and turns to find a companion, and finally went with a prostitute, his friend Charlie, and his son. There are more anecdotes along the way, and his madness and absurdity screw everything up. My friend Charlie died suddenly, my lover married someone else, my son was taken away by his ex-wife, a prostitute found drugs on him, he was accused of abducting his son and sent to prison, and the honorary ceremony was also unsuccessful.
Back from prison, Harry came to the creative stage lonely. Reality and dreams meet here. He attended the honor ceremony, and all the characters created in his novels were present to bless him. No matter how bad life was, he knew the inner peace and endless joy that the process of creating these characters brought him, and that peace and joy came from his chaos and absurdity.
Out of the dream, Harry started writing, and he himself and all the characters and absurd experiences in his life became the inspiration for his next work.
The film was directed and starred by comedy master Woody Allen, and won the 70th Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The Jewish old man's huge brain holes and ingenious plot design are amazing. The characters in the film shuttle back and forth between reality and the fictional world of the novel, but the ingenious circular narrative method ensures the integrity of the story structure, which has to be called wonderful.
For the deconstruction in the title, I understand it as an exploration and reflection on the heart. We don't have to go to the bottom of things like philosophers to explore the deepest wisdom in the world, but sorting out and thinking about the heart is a process that every complete and full soul must go through. As Li Ge said, regardless of the level of knowledge, a person deeply organizes and cleans up his own heart, which is very charming in itself. I think the fascinating thing is that this is actually a process of constantly understanding and accepting yourself. Countless small arrangements and reflections like this have invisibly shaped our more stable three views, allowing us to face ourselves more calmly, face life and the world more bravely.
Writing is Harry's way of deconstructing himself, no matter how absurd and bad life is, in books, the grotesque can be made reasonable, the ugliness need not be concealed, and all the real desires have an outlet to express. The descriptions in Harry's book are explicit and true. In the book, he doesn't have to pretend. He calmly examines his own heart through words, accepting its beauty and ugliness, rich and grotesque, free and unrestrained.
In fact, most of us can be regarded as "honest people" compared to Harry's debauchery. Can we respect our way of life? Do we have the courage to accept who we really are? I think most people's answer is no. We are anxious all the time, we always wish we were living the "more right way", but only a few people start to learn to reconcile with themselves.
We can say that Harry is absurd, we can despise his bad character, but we can't say that he is unhappy. Because his way of life largely respects his own wishes, he accepts himself as he is no matter what others say. Of course, Harry is an artistic figure, and the above is not intended to encourage anyone to live as recklessly as Harry, and it is not to agree to be content with the status quo. But it is undeniable that his calmness and self-acceptance are enough to give us some thought. As stated in the film:
“Know yourself, stop kidding yourself, accept your limitation, and get on with your life.”
Understand yourself, stop playing with your heart, accept your own shortcomings, and live your life well.
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