This long film about love does not have a happy ending after all.
No matter how many times you watch it.
The first time I remember watching it was in my junior year of college. The children of the Chinese department sat quietly in the lecture hall at night. Read it silently. Nearly three hours.
After the hero and heroine experienced an unforgettable misunderstanding, when the man met her again in Siberia many years later, and saw the woman's carriage passing by in the distance, he ran desperately in the direction of the carriage, running desperately.
When he was close to the carriage, he stopped in a daze and didn't stop her. Just stood there for a long time watching the woman leave this barren land.
He could have stopped her, and he could have continued to write the happiness he once longed for.
But he just gave up. Left alone in cold, lonely Siberia.
The unfinished end of this love story will leave some viewers with pain. Like the previous misunderstanding of the hero and heroine, we experience another life journey.
I sometimes recall that last episode. There is no great sadness or joy. No regrets either. It just felt like everything was real. This is especially true of the man's choice.
Perhaps his inner lingering and the current reality constitute a complex and contradictory emotion, a kind of forbearance torture. This silence has nothing to do with apparent rational behavior. The long time of encounter and parting was criss-crossed under the control of memories, woven into a cocoon in his heart. Even if the cocoon is broken, something is destined to not fly out of his emotional core.
The film doesn't actually tell us the answers to many questions outside of this story.
Maybe it's hidden in the next movie waiting for you to find it.
Just Milan Kundera whispered in my ear.
There is no time for people to recall the past. It's impossible to relive love like rereading a book or rewatching a movie.
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