In reality, the relationship between China and the United States is constantly deteriorating, but in one movie, one can see the unforgettable friendship between China and the United States, or more precisely, the pure and beautiful friendship between two men.
Although it is just a story of pioneering and pursuing wealth dreams in the American West in the early 19th century, it seems like countless past events. No matter how tactful and exciting the middle process is, it turns into a sigh and disappears in the end. between.
However, the past is like a smoke, but it can also hit people's hearts directly. The movie breaks the shackles of politics, etc., and allows us to see the connection between people, without the interference of too many things...
Speaking of movies, "The First Cow" is the latest masterpiece by female director Reichart. It is a gentle anti-western western, and it is also the most comfortable work I have seen recently.
When it comes to westerns, one will naturally think of the yellow sand in the sky, the brave western cowboys, the heroic chivalrous feud and so on. But in this film, it is very rare to have a Chinese as one of the protagonists, and to create a biography for two gentle men.
As if it was just a story of a life story that happened when you were pioneering the west: there were two men who once existed and spent a wonderful time together. Like a shooting star across the sky.
In fact, the intimacy between them is even close to love. If you don't believe it, after reading it, you can bring this perspective into it and appreciate it.
As a well-received art film, of course, the film not only explores the friendship between people, but actually involves a lot of things. I will give it a brief introduction below, and I will feel it for myself.
The protagonist of the film is a cook cookie from Maryland. Different from the common European and American images of bravery and fearlessness, he is shy and gentle.
On the road, he encounters a little lizard that can't turn over, and he will gently help it to turn over; his walking boots are stained with mud and dust, he will wipe his boots lightly, and after passers-by praise, he will quietly take out the trousers that roll into the boots ...he is such a lovely man.
The other protagonist is Jin Lu, a first-generation immigrant from China. He has the chivalrousness and courage of the Chinese, and the adventurous spirit of the Westerners, but he is also gentle and humorous.
One for gold, one for fur, in short, they all came to a small town in pursuit of wealth.
Both of them are wandering travelers, because after seeing each other for the second time, they began to support each other. They are not heroes in the conventional sense, but are closer to representing most of the "weak". They dream of wealth, but they are also content to pick up. Mushrooms, pick up wood and these subtle life.
In fact, they met unexpectedly in a tavern for the second time. Jin Lu invited Cookie to go home for a drink. They chatted happily all the way. When they got home, Jin Lu was preparing to cook, while Cookie swept the floor and emptied the room. The bottle was inserted with wild flowers, and then, looking at Jin Lu's figure, he shook the carpet, which foreshadowed the next walk between the two.
By chance, Xiaobian saw the cows of the local consul's house wandering in the woods on the road, and naturally thought that it would be great if they could make pastries with milk.
This emotion inspired Jin Lu's dream of starting a business. He decided to milk cows at night and make cakes to accumulate initial capital for them to open a store in the south.
Every time Cookie is milked, she whispers softly to the cow, so that milking the cow squeezes out the affection, and the cow will lick his arm when he is close to him.
The pastries they make taste like mom's and feel like home to those around you. Such an easy exchange of wealth makes their desires wide open.
The director mixes all the differences in region, race, birth environment, etc. into the food.
The so-called "first cow" is director Kelly Reichardt's McGuffin. In the film, it represents a symbol like a means of production. For the rich it is an unremarkable and ordinary thing, but for the poor it is a distant dream.
Cookie and Jinlu are not sturdy cowboys in traditional westerns, but two traders who make food by stealing milk at night. They should have been living a life of mutual support and idyllic company. Ambition and greed (“People like us, we have to go our own way. We will take as much as we can.”), and eventually, the consul who was possessed by cattle discovered their behavior and hunted them down. .
There is a scene in the film where Cookie asks Jin Lu, "Why is the baker like a beggar, when everyone needs bread."
Jin Lu smiled, he knew that if you want to get rich, it is not enough to have the ability to create value in milk, but also to have milk. At the end of the film, the cattle are fenced off, the consul's wealth has not diminished, and they are literally running around like beggars.
In the end, they were tired and lay side by side on the ground, dying with their breath, and the film came to an abrupt end, which just echoed the opening scene of the film, wonderful! It turned out that this is the life story of the two anonymous people.
When you can't help but revisit or reminisce the film, you will find that the most unforgettable thing is not the past of developing capital and fighting with each other, but the tenderness in the gaps, the natural scenery of those wild places, those Inadvertent moments scattered in life.
Capital is like a dream, and eternity exists in the time when Cookie and Jinlu pick fruits together, eat and chat together, exist in the slow pace of Indian girls, exist in the idle play of dogs, cows and other animals, exist in The old man's wooden house and the dust in front of the door...
If you don't watch the film carefully, you will feel that the rhythm is slow and lacking interest, but in fact, the director used a very gentle shooting method, and after eliminating the cruelty, he leads people to appreciate the real texture of people and things.
The film seems to only tell a pure time, an ideal state that is close to beauty once existed, with the flow of capital, the changes of people and things, all the beautiful and sad eventually become a part of nature, disappearing in time and space, but All things are like this, once there is a kind of beauty, and those things that disappear also exude eternal light.
View more about First Cow reviews
