When I watched this film with my classmates, the feedback from my classmates was: "I feel like I have Alzheimer's disease too", and I feel the same way. Most of the films show the hallucinations of the elderly with this disease, which made me, a medical student, experience the helplessness of Alzheimer's patients for the first time, not just a few cold words in the book; "Due to the change of protein conformation, appear Pathological changes of starch fiber deposition, common in Alzheimer's disease" is so intuitive and immersive that I am once again amazed at the charm of the image.
The plot does not need to be analyzed too much, it just shows the imagination of the old man, and the reality and the virtual are intertwined: the attending doctor who mistakenly thinks of his son-in-law, the nurse who does not exist like the second daughter; the present and the past are intertwined: I am in a nursing home, and my daughter has already lived in Paris. The screenwriter showed it very cleverly. When each layer of time and space is dislocated, it will enter the next layer, and the sense of helplessness that is pierced by each layer gradually deepens, as if entering a bottomless pit, and as if in a quagmire, sinking deeper and deeper, unable to breathe . It seems to be unpredictable, but there is a lot of information hidden: the old man's gratitude and reluctance to part with the eldest daughter's careful care, the deep nostalgia for the second daughter who passed away due to an accident, that sentence 'little daddy', condensed how many misses, the eldest daughter In the struggle between pursuing his own life and taking care of his sick father, there are only silent tears, and the son-in-law's impatience with the old man is even ruthless. The discussion of family affection is integrated into the seemingly clueless plot.
From the opera's soundtrack to the elegant interior decoration, the film is filled with a classical atmosphere, with a gorgeous and heavy aesthetic. The multiple doors in the room and the design of the old man losing his watch allude to the chaos of time and space. The old man wearing a hospital gown in the illusion also implies the fact that he is in a hospital. Moreover, the entire film was almost completed indoors, with only a few rooms, but it was not monotonous, and with the changing environment of each floor, the art team was really attentive, and it also reflected the profound skills of the director’s stage play background. Needless to say, the actors went for Anthony Hopkins, and Olivia Colman, which was the first time I experienced their performances on the big screen.
At the end of the film, the old man sits up in shock. In front of him is no longer the familiar apartment, but the blue wall of the hospital, and the familiar and unfamiliar nurses. When the fog dissipates, only endless loneliness remains. 'There are only a few leaves on my branch,' reminds me of O'Henry's novel, but it's about a young man who can miraculously survive, but when you're really near the end of your life, when the eternal When death is right in front of you, the feeling of powerlessness that cannot escape the laws of nature, can you really be relieved? At this time, no matter how strong the last line of defense will collapse, an old man hugged the nurse tightly and said, "I miss my mother", life seems to have returned to the infancy - extreme attachment to the mother, may life It's just a closed loop. At the end of "New York Synonyms", when the old male protagonist faces the empty theater, he also thinks of his mother. Maybe a mother's love is the softest place in a person's heart.
The last shot is a tree with lush branches. It seems that the director wants to be more active. Life is this kind of cycle, some people go down the mountain, others go up the mountain, and there is an endless stream. Life is as gorgeous as summer flowers, and death is as quiet and beautiful as autumn leaves. Life and death are a pair of beautiful and sad words.
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