Many people say: watching this movie, laughing and crying, but crying and crying will understand.
Take it for granted.
A Man Named Ove Decides to Die is a comedy film directed by Hannes Helm and released in Sweden in December 2015. In 2016, he won the 29th European Film Awards for Best Comedy, and in 2017, he was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Makeup and Hairstyling at the 89th Academy Awards.
The movie tells a simple story:
The 59-year-old Ove has a quirky temper, stubborn personality, and law-abiding. Under the double blow of his wife's death and being fired from the company he worked for 43 years, he completely lost hope in life, so he decided to die.
However, every time he went to die, he was broken by various situations of his neighbors. In these accidents, Ove gradually opened his heart, realized his mistakes, and worked hand in hand with his neighbors.
The film did not use a sadistic story to deliberately earn the audience's tears, but interspersed with memories of the protagonist Ove's life from a unique perspective - suicide. Below, I will start from three different movie characters and talk about what this movie has taught us.
01 Ove: Don't make conclusions in advance if you don't know other people's past
Ove, 59, is stubborn, eccentric, well-behaved and principled. At the beginning of the movie, he opens the door and patrols the neighborhood: checking whether the garbage is sorted according to regulations, scolding the neighbor's dog for urinating everywhere, arranging the toys that the children have left in an orderly manner, returning the randomly parked bicycles, and checking the garage. Is the door locked, cursing the stray cats who casually enter the community...
From the very beginning, the audience created such an inhuman protagonist who was called "the evil neighbor from hell" by the neighbors.
That is, such a grumpy protagonist, why did he completely lose the idea of living just because of the death of his wife and the dismissal of the company he worked for 43 years, so he decided to follow his wife's footsteps and go to the world of death to find his wife?
Without knowing the past of others, it is impossible to judge at will, so the film reveals to the audience his unknown past through every death of Ove.
Ove lost his mother when he was young, lacked maternal love, and his father was not good at showing love. The only time he hugged Ove was because Ove was almost hit by a train. Love made Ove develop a character that is not good at communicating.
Although he is not good at communication, Ove has grown up healthy under the company and protection of his father's love. When Ove handed the report card to his father, the father was too happy to show the report card to his colleagues. He was hit by an oncoming train and died on the spot.
Ovi witnessed all this, and developed a paranoid character. He carefully checked everything and stubbornly did not allow vehicles to enter the community, for fear that something might go wrong and cause the same tragedy as his father.
In order to pay off the salary advanced by the railway to his father, Ove diligently stayed on the railway to work. However, misfortune enveloped him once again. The neighbor's house was on fire. The home was burnt down and nothing was left.
Ove accidentally met his future wife Sonia on a train and fell in love at first sight. In Ove's eyes, the world is black, and only Sonia is colored. Sonia's optimism, strength and love for Ove make Ove's whole world bright.
Sonia accompanied Ove to complete the self-study of an engineer, promised to marry Ove, and became pregnant with Ove's child. Everything was so beautiful. However, misfortune came again. During the bus trip, the driver of the bus was drunk and the wife was injured, the child was lost, and the wife's legs were paralyzed.
Ove kept writing to the government, hoping to hold the travel agency and bus driver accountable, but nothing came of it. In times of despair, it was his wheelchair-bound wife who encouraged him and cheered him up.
However, six months ago, his wife died of cancer. In Ove's eyes, his wife is his whole world, and the whole world has collapsed, can people be okay?
At the end of the movie, the audience gradually understood that the title "Evil Neighbor from Hell" set for Ove at the beginning was not true. It overturned all the impressions Ove gave us, and allowed us to see the most real him. He is not good at expressing himself, but he is upright and brave, silently protecting his neighbors, and being brave enough to lend a helping hand when others are in difficulty.
If you don't know someone's past, don't jump to conclusions about that person. In life, there is a story behind everyone, you have to listen to the story first, and then decide things.
02 Sonia: Either die or live well
There is such a sentence in "Youth": A person who has never been treated kindly can best recognize kindness and cherish kindness the most.
This sentence is most suitable for Ove and Sonya.
Sonia and Ove are complementary characters, one is noisy, the other is silent, the other is optimistic, and the other is vulnerable. Sonia is like a light, not only accepting Ove, but also giving Ove a home.
However, fate is equally unfair to Sonia. She is a university professor. After marrying Ove, she was injured in a coma during a pregnancy trip. After some time, she woke up, but the child was gone, and her legs lost the ability to walk. Live in a wheelchair only.
Her original job position did not accept her who became disabled, and the travel agency and bus driver did not take responsibility. She submitted many resumes, and finally rejected her on the grounds that she could not walk.
Finally found a special education school, but the school refused to renovate the wheelchair walkway, which limited Sonia's work and stagnated.
Sonia's experience made the family dead. Looking at her husband Ove, who kept writing letters to the government, Sonia said to him: Either die or live well, right?
So that night, Ove bought wood by himself, braved the heavy rain to the school to build a wheelchair-only lane for Sonia, and Sonia stood on the podium again. Special education students are more or less handicapped, but Sonia is not discouraged, she patiently helps them, and devotes all her energy to the students until they become talents.
In the face of misfortune, most of us may choose to shy away from facing it. Sonia is just like what Mr. Lu Xun said: a real warrior, dare to face the bleak life, dare to face the dripping blood.
He is a true warrior. In the face of difficulties and misfortunes, he turns his attention to solutions rather than misfortune itself, allowing himself to start over and making those around him more courageous.
Also like she said: Either die or live well, isn't it? It's all our own choices. In Sonya's opinion, the luckiest thing is that she is still alive in this world, and that's enough.
03 Parnina: No one can do everything alone
Parnina and Ove seem to be two opposites, Ove undertakes everything alone, protects his neighbors, including dying, he thinks he can do everything alone, in his opinion, all the people in the world are are idiots, are all fools, except myself.
Parnina, on the other hand, didn't care and showed her own and her husband's shortcomings carelessly. For the first time moving into the community, Parnina told Ove that her husband would not back up and asked Ove to help.
When her husband fell off the ladder, Parnina immediately went to Ove for help. When her husband was injured in his leg and could not drive, Parnina also asked Ove to teach her to drive and so on. When she has any difficulty, the first thing she does is to ask others for help.
Parnina kept adding new troubles to Ove, and broke Ove's suicide again and again. Until the end of the film, Parnina's words finally woke Ove:
Because of your misfortune, do you blame others for being idiots? You are the one who gives up the most; you think everyone can survive without help, but you know, no one can do it all alone, including you!
Ove finally realized his mistake. He began to help his old friend Rooney to avoid Rooney being forced to be taken to the nursing home, and began to unite with his neighbors to fight against the "white shirt".
No one can live as an island, everyone faces situations of need and need, and no one can exist independently.
Epilogue
Nietzsche wrote in "Beyond Good and Evil": The idea of suicide is a great consolation, by which one can successfully spend many unpleasant nights.
Ove chose to commit suicide for various reasons: losing his love, old age and unemployment, refusing to accept the world, etc. There is nothing in this world worthy of his nostalgia. For him, death is a relief.
However, the constant interruption of the neighbors and the colorful paintings painted by the children made him feel loved and needed again. Love and being needed are the most basic needs of a person's survival. However, many people today are living Once you have your own hero, you don't need to be loved or needed. One is stingy with giving, and the other is ashamed to talk about it.
So, when I finally saw Ove take out the cradle he had made for Parnina for Parnina to use, when he carefully put the baby in the cradle to tease, I seemed to hear the moment when his heart opened.
He began to accept the world, he began to open his heart, he began to receive love from his neighbors, he realized that he was needed by his neighbors, and finally, he gave up suicide.
At the end of the film, Ove dies, because his heart is too large, and one snowy morning, Parnina sees snowflakes in front of Ove's house. She doesn't go out to exercise as usual, and hurriedly calls her husband. Running to Ove's house, I saw Ove lying quietly on the bed with the stray cat lying on his chest.
He left a suicide note explaining everything, and the neighbors gathered at the church to give Ove his last grief.
"The Meaning of Myths" says: Don't pursue the meaning of life, pursue the meaning of living. I think the meaning of life is probably love and being needed!
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