Are you kidding?
Make a movie about the process of writing a biography of a homeless man?
Are you kidding?
The director of the movie "Rewind Life" really did such a thing and told exactly such a story.
There are many movies about biographies of real people, Mozart, Jane Austen, etc. have all been made into movies. In our general conception, it is the so-called "successful" people who need to be biographed for him, at least the outstanding people of a certain industry. What do the people who are oblivious to say have anything to say? So when I watched Rewind Life, most of the time I had to resist the urge to turn off the player. The protagonist Stuart can be said to be a heinous villain: violence, first-degree criminal, alcoholism, wounding, homeless, you can think of the label of "bad guy" can be put on him. The film starts with a flashback of Stewart's life from the crimes he tells about. So during the viewing process, two doubts have been bothering me: 1. What is there to tell about this "villain" story? 2. Another protagonist in the movie, Alexander, has so many people to write about, why choose such a character to write?
In our society, Darwin's theory of evolution is not only as simple as affecting the biological world. Sometimes it is hidden in people's concepts and minds, and it is often more terrifying. Survival of the fittest, survival of the fittest, such as in the face of the poor, some people will take it for granted that those people are poor because they are not diligent, smart or hard enough, and their poverty is their own reason, in other words, it is their own fault. But I never thought about whether it was really like this, or if there were other, bigger, uncontrollable reasons. When facing Stuart, he seems to be like this, why are there good normal people who don't do it and become like this? Can't you wear clean clothes? Why do you still want to be a homeless when you have welfare? Why break the law? Didn't he find it all by himself? If you watch this movie from a Darwinian point of view, you may never understand it.
It doesn't really matter what story the movie tells, what matters is how the director tells the story. And what I read in this film is that there is no criticism, no standpoint, no exaggeration, no compassion, and often this is the greatest respect. Stewart tells his story in flashbacks, so there's a lot of confusion throughout the viewing process that you don't understand why he's doing this. There's a scene in the movie where Stewart ties himself up, hurts himself with a knife, destroys the house, and yells. You can't find any reason or possibility to explain his crazy behavior other than insanity and self-inflicted blame. And all this, the director is not in a hurry to explain. It's like smiling and lighting a cigarette and hiding behind the screen waiting for you and me to read it slowly. In the step-by-step flashback process, in the process of Stewart telling Alexander the story step by step, we gradually know what Stewart has experienced in his life.
The most moving part of the movie is when Stewart chats with Alexander in bed while preparing a suit for his sister's wedding. After learning about Stewart's tragic childhood experience, Alexander asked Stewart one last question, if he had a chance to change a certain element to make his life different, which one would you choose, such as not being abused by his own brother, not entering the to that orphanage, or something. Stewart said if he could, he would choose that day not to unleash his violence. When a nine-year-old child who has been abused and bullied for years, realizes one day that his own anger and violence can make others afraid, he has embarked on a road of no return. So at this point, we understand why Stewart is in the situation written in the previous paragraph - he just wants to get the violent devil that tormented him out of his body. Because even an adult Stewart who has grown into thirty-three years old, in his heart, he is still the overwhelmed and inferior nine-year-old boy. Because from the day he was nine years old, the little boy in him had died. At that moment, Alexander's eyes were wet after listening to his story, and I, who was in front of the screen, understood this character. You don't understand him because you sympathize with him. Sympathy is so cheap and useless sometimes. It's not because you understand him that you can ignore what he does. But, you know, everyone's survival is not easy, and more respect and understanding are more important than false and rude labels and cheap sympathy.
The entire film is restrained and occasionally humorous, and even in the face of Stewart's tragic childhood experience, and finally Stewart's death, the director did not jump out of compassion and incarnate a moral saint. He just presents such a story to you in a slightly absurd way. This restraint seems so precious in front of some creators who consciously and unconsciously love to reason with you.
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