The film begins by introducing them out of a closed orphanage. Wherever the camera reaches, it is full of the quiet and idyllic scenery of the United Kingdom, but it does not bring any warmth to the film at all. On the contrary, it is indescribable depression. This depression increases little by little as the film progresses. All the children in the school were raised to be organ donors. Their mission in life is to donate organs, three to four times, and then die. And these children are cloned clones. Ruth tried to find her body, and she secretly observed a woman working in a bank. The woman has a delicate face and elegant demeanor. But the truth is exposed, that is not Ruth's body. Ruth hysterically shouted out what everyone tacitly said by the sea: "It's not her, I know it's not her. Our deity will only be a scum, a prostitute, a poisonous insect, an alcoholic, a vagabond, a criminal." She fell into a deep depression. Self-loathing and no objection to organ donation. Ruth seems to be the most unrestrained and dissolute among the few people, but in fact she is the one who compromises the fastest. She is not very interested in "deferred donation", and she has already decided that organ donation is her responsibility. In the end, she lay on the operating table, having donated organs three times, with hollow black eyes and pale cheeks. The doctor dug out a whole piece of liver from her belly. The vital signs monitor screamed sharply, and the blood flowed. The respirator was pulled out, and her bright life like a blood-dropping rose withered like this.
Tommy and Kathy, the childhood sweetheart love that sprouted at school, were once slightly shaken by the darkness of the entire film. Kathy's careful maintenance and comfort when Tommy was isolated and run on. When Kathy was too strapped to even buy a small toy, Tommy quietly handed over the tapes she had bought for her. Kathy's tiny body, sitting on the edge of the bed, played on the old radio: Never let me go. She hugged her pillow, happiness and sorrow are light, love and friendship seem to be real, only fate is confusing and sad.
So pure in the early childhood, the love that bloomed in the hearts of children, died of jealousy, and died of unwilling fiddling with peers. Ten years later they reunited and fell in love again. Love becomes deep and intense. Love is no longer the tenderness of a child who reciprocates a peach in return, but a desire, a strong need, a need for life. There are rumors that any couple who are in love can apply for "deferred donation" - delaying organ donation for at least four years if they can prove how much they love each other.
But this kind of love makes people feel even more sad. It seems that everyone can see that the "deferred donation" is a lie and nothingness. Tommy and Casey supported each other, their fingers interlocked, and their eyes were exchanged. When seeking the truth, Tommy nervously let go of Casey's hand. After learning the truth, he looked helplessly for her gentle palm, a series of paving until the end. Tommy screamed helplessly in the black wilderness, and Casey rushed up to hug. Two beings connected by fate cannot save each other or wait for each other. Life is hopeless, love is hopeless. If the "deferred donation" exists, then their love sprouted from innocence, and their need for each other is of great significance to life. However, everything is a lie, does love still have meaning? This proposition is thrown out, which is beyond the expression of the whole film, but sharply and cruelly tore my inner defense line. At that moment, I couldn't hold back the tears.
Tommy donated his organs for the last time, the day of the surgery, the second day after a hug in the wilderness. In the dark wilderness, the two embrace each other, and their love has been sublimated to the climax. Such a powerful embrace cannot resist fate. It's time to leave without delay. Love is weak. Life is weak and powerless.
Casey watched Tom enter the operating room, his eyes wandering, and the last glance might have slipped away in the blink of an eye. Anesthetized, rubbed alcohol, Tom closed his eyelids. The doctor came around and cut him open. Kathy has been watching through the glass, watching her beloved leave, helpless.
At the end of the film, there is an impressive scene: Casey drives to a wilderness under the sunset, the rare sunshine in the film, but not warm, showing bleak sadness. She is about to make her first donation in her life. She stood at the border of the wilderness, silent, and then in tears. Sad narration: What I'm not sure about is whether our lives and those of the recipients will be very different, life will end, and maybe no one will really understand what happened to them.
What's odd is that no one tries to escape from the beginning to the end of the film. When the film just started, the orphanage was throwing a ball, and the ball was thrown over the school fence, and no one picked it up. All the children in the orphanage are terrified of the world beyond their borders, even more so than the fate of their organ donation. "Some people once escaped from the fence, but they were cut off and tied to a tree to die. Some people once escaped from the fence and died of starvation outside the fence." These rumors seemed to exist in everyone's heart as if they had seen it with their own eyes. When they were asked: How do you know these are true? Instead, they looked contemptuous: of course it was true, everyone knew it.
So what everyone knows is the real thing.
No one fled, no one objected. Of course, if the film again depicts some people fleeing and resisting, it will fall into a cliché. The reality is like this, before all the fate of the unknown and the known, you have no strength to fight back, and there is nowhere to escape.
Going back to the scene of the hug in the wilderness, the dying heart and body, the last cry, should have the most strength to fight back. However, Tommy was still lying on the operating table in the end. It was not that he chose this life, but the choice that he did not have. Therefore, the story itself is based on a fictional proposition, and its core is an unavoidable true proposition.
In addition to the plot, the acting tension of the actors is also surprising, and here I want to praise Carey Mulligan who plays Casey. In the film she has a power that erupts in silence. She uses a restrained but hearty acting skills to completely bring the audience into her world. Casey is the narrator of the film, from beginning to end. If it is not handled well, the role can easily be played bluntly, plainly, or go to the other extreme: pretentious and extreme. Carey's performance is like a sponge soaked in water - full, there is no deliberate rush of water, but as long as you touch it, there is a continuous drop of water. Dignity - whether she is laughing, silent, or crying, her expression is extremely solemn, with a haze that lingers. It's a long mourning that grows out of life.
A scene is very impressive: in the days of living in the country, Casey faced the alienation of his former friends, and there was nowhere to vent his huge loneliness and grievances. At night, Ruth came to her bedside and sarcastically made her sarcastic. Casey's chin trembled slightly in the dark, and the light from the camera was very dim, but the tears that accumulated in her eyes were clearly visible. The suppressed anger and bitterness erupted under a mocking kiss. Tears fell wildly, the muscles in the face tightened, there was no unnecessary sound, and there was no unnecessary movement. A person sits in the dark for a long time and devours sadness. That shot is very moving.
And finally Tommy was on the operating table preparing to donate, and she looked at him through the glass. Facing the departure of her beloved, all kinds of regrets, helplessness, and heart-rending pain, Carey's performance is amazing. She did not cry, did not pretend to be strong smile. She just stood there, grief-stricken, her eyes were filled with despair and sadness that ordinary people couldn't bear. Sadness with restraint, but with a more blunt force, comes from overwhelming mountains and smashes people.
Carey's interpretation in front of the camera is often just Qiu Water's calm expression, but the mental activities are completely expressed from the slight raise of an eye to a frown. So she's not jumping around and showing you the show, she's sinking in and delivering her emotions to the audience. Just like the blank space in Chinese landscape painting, there is nothing there, but there are thousands of mountains outside.
The film is very entertaining, the script is well written, and the actors perform superbly. Western directors and Eastern screenwriters make the film complement each other in terms of collection and release. There are not only vigorous emotional collisions, but also twists and turns of retreat.
At the same time, the picture quality of the film is also excellent, and the shots are very capable, and there is not even a single redundant shot. Every shot conveys emotion. Light and shadow change frequently, and the composition is exquisite. The soundtrack is even more jaw-dropping. The massive and low cello has been repeating a theme melody, low and decadent, conveying the taste of death; yet strong, ironically resisting the romance of death.
Many movies are so shocking in their plot that they are forgotten a few times in retrospect. But a movie that is emotionally shocking can leave a mark on your heart like a brand. The emotions when watching the movie will also be a knot. Whenever you think of this movie, the feeling of loneliness and sorrow will bite you again, dripping with blood.
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