This one has a mediocre rating on a site, but I really like it. Four middle school male teachers lost their enthusiasm for life in the middle-aged and boring routine. Several elder brothers started drinking in the name of 'psychological research' on a whim, and unexpectedly, their classroom work and emotional life changed for the better after drinking. However, after a short period of time, everything went from controllable moderate drinking to a situation that got out of hand, and even paid the price of life. I probably wouldn't have felt much of it five years ago, but I love this film so much now, and the handheld photography is amazing.
The film asks students to quote Sigrid, a well-known German writer: "To dare to take risks is to temporarily lose your footing, to dare is to lose yourself." This seems to be the teacher's excuse for drinking, and we always seem to have to start at a certain moment. Be aware of your disability and accept the fact that the 'disability' itself cannot be changed. From the beginning to have a better sense of experience in life, to the increasing dependence and addiction to alcohol, what we see is the individual's confusion and fragility, as well as the efforts to find and release. And more grand propositions such as 'life', and how to deal with the emptiness of life, where the answer can be easily obtained. You and I both know that alcohol is not an antidote, the question is, in day-to-day life, what is?
In addition to individuals, this film uses lines and details such as history class, music chorus "IN DENMARK I WAS BORN", "everyone in this country drink alcohol" to hint us, and this may not only be a story about an 'individual'. Or Denmark as a whole, trying to find positioning in the vertical and horizontal coordinates, anchor the value, and rewrite the current process. In the end, Uncle Maizi's shot is too moving - drinking recklessly, crying, dancing, and finally leaping out to the sea. It seems that alcohol has catalyzed the rapid decay of the past, and in the future, we still have to find reasons to fight for it.
There are many movies about the "mid-life crisis", but people deal with it in different ways. For example, "Classmate Manas" in Taiwan, "The Big Bath" in Germany, "City Island" starring the new godfather Andy Garcia and the young Flash in the United States, including the new film "Little People" just released by John Wick's team, etc. The routine of this type of film is how to turn the "crisis" of the little people into "vigor", stop in the middle of life's heavy load, breathe, and gain a painful understanding, but cannot be defeated. Instead, after finding your way out, move on.
Interestingly, most of the films I see are about men's midlife crisis. What about women? Our colleagues, friends, mothers, aunts, how do they resolve it, who should express it, and who should they tell it to?
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