After watching it, it took a day of brewing. I feel that I don't understand a lot of things. Of course, it's not the kind of poor understanding, but I don't have the basis of Bergman's other works to help me judge the director's thinking.
The visual impact of the film is strong, starting with a boy who seems to be touching the screen we are watching. Elizabeth also has a lot of scenes where she stares at the camera for a long time, making the audience feel uncomfortable. Including deliberately dissonant music at the beginning. It feels like these dissonances deliberately created by the director, as well as the details that break the fourth wall, are trying to express something. A kind of rebellion? Is the propaganda director's sense of the mask discordant?
The most exciting part of the whole film is when Alma tells Elizabeth about her unique experience of beach sex, and the pleasure, shame, and guilt it brings. This literal exposure of herself allows Alma to confess her heart to Elizabeth and plunges Alma into a fascination with what Elizabeth might call love. But just like a young man's love in reality, this love is full of self, and full of desire to be noticed and loved. Elizabeth brought Alma a whole new experience, experiencing smoking and talking unrestrainedly, revealing the thrill of her own vulnerability. In that moment, everything was fine. It wasn't until the next day that Alma saw the reality. She thought her feelings were two-way, but after secretly reading Elizabeth's letter to the doctor, she found that Elizabeth only regarded herself as an interesting observation object in her vacation life. Of course the relationship itself is not malicious, but Elma, who has fallen in love with Elizabeth (or Elma, who has fallen in love with Elizabeth as she conceived it in her own mind, since Elizabeth never really expressed her true thoughts) Unable to accept this fact, she was full of anger of being betrayed, and even more so when Elizabeth was reluctant to speak, the pain of not knowing what the other party was thinking. All things added up, so that Alma almost splashed Elizabeth with boiling water.
Of course, after the rapid turn in the relationship between the two women, the film has moved towards a more and more blurred expression, like a dream. My memory of the film also went from being clear to trying to recall a dream. Whether it was the visit of Elizabeth's husband, Alma acted as a stand-in; or the confrontation between Alma and Elizabeth, and the two finally merged into one. In the end, echoing the state of the two people at the beginning, the little boy who touched the camera appeared again. I'm not sure what I'm saying. At least, there is a lot more room for speculation, and it diverges a lot.
In addition to a certain story, the director used these two characters (mainly Elizabeth) to express some personal emotions and attitudes. I think I still need to experience it, and have the opportunity to learn more about Bergman.
postscript:
Watching this movie is the end of 2020, and it feels like we have entered an era of personal literary decline, and everything is developing towards popularization and entertainment. Maybe human beings are like this, technology is just feeding nature. Maybe I want to see a global cultural explosion, and the phenomenon of a hundred schools of thought contending is a personal wish. Maybe it's already happening, just in a way I can't understand. All in all, this stage has come into contact with some literature of the last century, and it is inevitable that there will be some criticism of contemporary social thought. Only.
hooligan
2020.12.09
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