...French Film Appreciation Class as an afterthought homework)
The film revolves around the long-term triangular relationship between the German Zu and the French Zhan, two close friends, and the woman they love, Catherine.
The acquaintance of Zu and Zhan happened just before the First World War. Against the background of "German-French feud" and nationalist fanaticism, their transnational friendship became even more precious. The two are so like-minded: in literature and art, they have endless topics to talk about; and for material things, they both regard money as dung. The difference in mother tongue did not become an obstacle, but a medium to promote exchange and learning - they often talked at night and translated each other's poems. They were even attracted to the same sculpture, as if they were connected to each other, literally soul mates. The difference is that Zhan is good at interacting with people and has many female partners, while Zhan appears to be very weak in communication with the opposite sex.
Catherine's presence breathes new blood into this passionate relationship. The aura she exudes is just like that sculpture, which makes Zu Yuzhan fall in love with her the first time he sees her. She is generous and bold, and society's requirements for female roles cannot confine her. She dressed up as a little man with a two-stroke beard, asked the men on the roadside to borrow fire with a cigarette in her mouth, ran a race with Zu and Zhan on the bridge, and wanted to beat them. Indeed, only a woman like this can hold a man like Zu and Zhan. Since Zu always wanted a female companion, the empathetic Zhan also acquiesced to Katherine and Zu's close relationship. So Zu offered to marry Catherine, he asked Zhan if he would mind, and Zhan replied, "Do you think she would be a good wife and mother? I'm afraid she will never be happy in this world. She is a ghost, not a man Owned woman."
Catherine's character is pointed to the point - she may love her husband, but she loves freedom more, just as after the three of them watched a play, Catherine made no secret of her love for the heroine who pursues freedom. All I long for is freedom. So after Zu published a drama review like "As a wife, loyalty is very important", and quoted the words of a patriarchal writer, Catherine claimed to protest, so she lifted her hat, jumped, and jumped into the night Senna River, as if to wash away the stigma against women that fell on him. But in Zu's hard pursuit, Catherine finally agreed to marry him.
Zu is a rational man from a male perspective. He is on the opposite side of the war—the collective madness. This is also doomed to him being incompatible with the crazy outside reality, and it is also doomed that he is fighting for his homeland—Germany. When I was in pain, I almost "lost faith", that is, reason. Before meeting Kai, Zu painted his ideal woman's face with chalk on the coffee shop table. Ideals are out of reach for him, just as Catherine, the symbol of pure freedom, is crazy for him. He longs for the ideal to exist in reality, and he thinks that if he has Catherine, he can have the jungle of "life", but Catherine is not the kind of woman who wants to take root. After meeting Zhan and Katherine, he doesn't seem to have a relationship with outsiders anymore. And there is no "substance" in the soil of his life. Except for the almost ethereal renderings of literature and art, his life is almost barren. He and Catherine complement each other, but cannot live together. After the end of the First World War, Zhan came to Zu and Kai to visit old friends in a hut on the German-French border, and at this time their marriage had almost collapsed - Kai showed mercy everywhere, and Zu could not live without her, because as far as he was concerned, This "love" is the only bridge between him and the sensory world, so he can only silently endure and get used to her cheating and deception. Perhaps before marriage, as a male character, Zu Hui believed that the woman in the marriage was obliged to remain devout and undivided, and that the man also had the right to ask his wife to do the same, but only after marriage did he realize that Kai couldn’t be someone’s wife, she Just herself. Catherine confessed to Zhan: "It was Zu's generosity, simplicity and vulnerability that confused me before. I hoped to use my cheerfulness to heal his weaknesses, but these weaknesses turned out to be part of his character... Zu and I were forced to face each other and couldn't become one."
Catherine is a "feeling supreme" person. In the film, her changes in feelings are mainly manifested as swings on gender issues, and she experiences the meaning of life in the relationship between the two sexes. Catherine sowed seeds everywhere, but never took root, because she was fighting for the right to bloom on her own. And the one who has absolute "freedom" can only be the one who controls and conquers everything, so she must be the master of the relationship between the sexes, and she must submit to her wherever she goes. She lingers in the hotbed of different men, but in fact men are no different to her. In short, she doesn't want to be like Therese, who told her life in a few words, or Denise, who is only regarded as a "thing" and a sexual tool by her male partner, she only needs to live passionately and crazy.
Zhan is the sum of Kai and Zu. He has both rationality and sensibility, so he can easily establish contact with the outside world and firmly play a social role. He not only has Zu and Kai in his heart, but also this crazy and calm world. He prefers to be a calm observer of this crazy world. After the war, he also visited many war sites on his way to Zu and Kai's hut. If the increase in entropy is the natural result of life—disorder, freedom, and immorality (the morality discussed here is neither praise nor derogation), Catherine exists in the accelerated state of entropy increase, and she wants to break the order established by this male world. , Zu is a person who wants to formulate rules, act against entropy, and make it orderly, while Zhan is a person who has a sense of resistance to this unnatural order. He did not resist to death, because he knew how to live intelligently, just as Zu commented on him: "I have never seen your zero and boiling point." Zu mentioned the moral restraint on women in the drama review. , Catherine's leap was to resist the order, so Zhan was deeply struck by that indomitable courage. Catherine can list all the varieties of French wine, she knows everything, but she says delicately and deeply: "I like the nape of your neck the most, that's the only part where you can't see me looking at you." He has balance in himself, But Katherine upset his balance. So he tried to regain balance in the relationship, but failed. As Katherine said, "We played with the source of life, and we failed." Zhan ultimately chose to return to the normal world, and that wife would serve as a good wife and mother, serving the orderly world of her husband - the one he wanted to maintain a relationship with. Jiaobei continued to live a stable life. But it was a betrayal and provocation that Catherine could not bear. So her entropy increase reached the threshold of explosion-she drove Zhan in her car and rushed to the Seine... At the end of the story, only Zu was left to bid farewell to Zhan and Kai's ashes.
It is worth noting the visual effects presented in the film.
When Zu and Zhan set off to find the sculpture in the Mediterranean, the photography used the sliding zoom technique. This very short-term lens change and the resulting space distortion will bring a great visual impact to the audience's feelings. This surreal lens detail is used in the film to express the psychological shock caused by the sculpture to Zu and Zhan, and it also implies that the appearance of Catherine will have a huge impact on Zu and Zhan's life.
And Zu, who is in a disadvantaged position, is also shown in the camera. In the shot of three people in the same frame, he always seems to be the "third party". Three people ride, you can only see Kai and Zhan side by side, and Zu alone behind, can't show the whole body; Kai and Zu are lying on the bed, and Kai crosses Zu to answer Zhan's phone... This game , he was rarely involved. In a way, Zu was lucky because he didn't get caught up in the madness that led to his destruction. But Truffaut doesn't make a right or wrong assessment of the characters, as the film's fluid, free movement also shows unparalleled joy in depicting the three lives of Zu, Zhan and Catherine. Zu was also unfortunate because he almost lost the ability to feel.
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