In Rome in the summer of 1966, Matteo once tried to change the reality. The first time was in the final exam. He was reprimanded by the defense teacher because he praised a poet who abused his parents. The atmosphere of independent thinking, go away. This is in sharp contrast with Nicola. Nicola advocates individual liberalism. He believes that everyone has the right to choose their own way of life. He also respects the choices of others and does not point fingers. At the same time, he also has compassion, which has been affirmed by the defense teacher. As a doctor, compassion is the most important. For this kind of liberalism, Nicola made a self-criticism at the end of the film, which was very profound.
The second time was to volunteer at a psychiatric hospital and found Giorgia who was being abused by electric shocks. Matteo tried to change the reality and took her to escape the hospital. The first thought was to take her home, naively thinking that telling her parents what happened to Giorgia in the hospital would change things. In fact, since Giorgia's stepmother came to her house, her father had regarded Giorgia as a burden. After a pointless dispute, they had to take Giorgia with them on their journey to the North Pole. Later, at the suggestion of her sister Adriana, she planned to send her to the well-reputed Giorgia mental hospital. The results backfired again. Giorgia was taken away by the police because of her abnormal behavior when looking for money. It was illegal for them to secretly take the patient away. The brothers could only sit and watch as Giorgia was taken away.
Matteo stayed up all night that night. In the early morning of the next day, he chose to leave without saying goodbye and set foot on the train back to Rome. Immediately after, he joined the army, a place where there was only discipline and discipline.
This should be Matteo's third attempt to change, and the discipline of the military may allow him to find a way to change reality. At this time, Nicola was already traveling alone, and he made a decision that he would not shave or cut his hair... let it be, live with intuition, and act. This is another contrast to Matteo.
The comrades in the army used a condom filled with water to tease Matteo in the bathroom, causing Matteo's angry counterattack and a stern warning, and almost twisting the perpetrator (Nuki)'s right arm. But a few days later Matteo confronted the captain for Nucky and was sentenced to three days in prison. Nuggy and Matteo have been friends ever since.
Floods in Florence brought the brothers back together after a long absence, with Matteo short-haired and a clean beard looking like a government soldier, while Nicola was unshaven and a homeless person.
In the city of Turin in 1974, Matteo was already a riot policeman, a squad leader, directing explosion-proof operations. The student's riot was Matteo's fourth attempt to change the reality, but unfortunately, Nuki was seriously injured under the trap set by the student. In his anger, he almost beat a student to death and was punished for it. Nicola went to see him in the police force and heard that the student who was beaten was not in danger, but Matteo didn't care about the student's life or death.
Matteo came to Palermo and applied for a transfer from Bologna to Sicily. At this time, Matteo had fallen into an inextricable contradiction after the last student riot, and he no longer wanted to change anything. He wants to close himself here and answer the commander: Discipline! Enforce discipline! I do what I am told, and do my own thing!
Matteo in this period has shown a mentality of succumbing to the world. One time I went to work with the officer and tortured an old man who found the body. The old man perfunctory and unwilling to reveal more content, for fear of involving himself, it is best to have nothing to do with him. Matteo smiled.
Looking for a mysterious woman
Matteo met Mirella in the summer of 1977. Are you looking for a mystery? This was the first thing Matteo said to Mirella. You should search for the soul, you should search within! Did you see that boy? You see his hands, full of confidence, strong, with a badge on his chest, the top student in his class. See that old woman? Wearing two rings, she was a widow and lonely. In that encounter, Matteo told Mirella that his name was Nicola!
It seemed that this uncontrollable emotion made Matteo start again trying to change the reality before, and he seemed to find a reason to try to change the reality again. Taking pictures at the slaughterhouse, Matteo was suspended for 15 days when he tried to drive away the father who had recklessly allowed his son to watch the murder scene, sparking an unpleasant altercation.
In the fall of 1983, Matteo joined the newly formed guard force, rented a house, and met Mirella
again at the library a few days later. She listened to Matteo's suggestion and became the administrator of the library. Mirella told her that she had been obsessed with him since then, so much so that her boyfriend broke up with jealousy. At this time, Matteo was reluctant to start any love after experiencing the death of his father, because he knew that he was a fragile person, and his life pursuit did not allow him to be trapped by love, probably mainly because he was afraid of the pain of losing. At the same time, he is also a man who believes that love is based on sexual needs, and that love is nothing more than a sexual instinct, and this is what he tries to restrain, as he can guess from the plot of his prostitutes and watching adult TV shows. It could be that they failed to restrain the flood of feelings in the end. On the way home from the bowling alley, their love finally reached a substantial level. It was agreed to meet on the seventh of the month, and Mirella was happy to wait at the entrance of the library, but until night fell, Matteo was nowhere to be seen. Mirella was disappointed and walked alone on her way home. Unbeknownst to her, Matteo's car was slowly following behind her. For all these years, he'd lived the life of a hermit, shut in, not sure if he could give Mirella a life that would make him happy. In the end, Matteo gave up, turned the car around, and turned away from Mirella.
New Year's Eve Farewell
What happened to Matteo and why did he end up killing himself? Why choose New Year's Eve? Why after calling Mirella? This may be the film's most thought-provoking question. Matteo was in the library at that time, and there was a feature in the film, and he borrowed the book Sherwood Anderson Racconti dell'Ohio (It is "Ohio, Winesburg" by American writer Sherwood Anderson, and the mainland also translated "Small Town Freak"). This should be the standard answer given by the director, or it can be said that the director's own view of Matteo. The book is about a group of eccentrics living in a small town in Winesburg, Ohio, distorted mentally and physically by emotional and sexual frustration. There, there is no normal communication between people, no group activities, no feelings between husband and wife, and it is like strangers, it is rare to see family happiness between parents and children, there is no friendship between neighbors, and lovers are hesitant. , do not understand each other, always end in a breakup. They end up either being misunderstood by others or dying alone. They each have their own needs, but they don't know exactly what they are looking for. They are always dreaming, and the dream is really vague. They always want to express their thoughts, but they are not good at expressing them. They are eager to communicate with others, and they close themselves off. .
After reuniting with his family in a hurry during the Chinese New Year, he went back to his place to shut himself up. Matteo remembered to call Mirella, first because he really missed her, and secondly because he promised Mirella to find time to talk to her in detail. Rather than revealing his feelings, explain to her why he is poor. But on second thought, these were just unspoken lies, and it would be hard for her to feel happy if she saw things like Matteo. When you know that the world is unequal, this is a fair statement, when you know that you have to endure the pain of giving up for what your heart desires, when you know that great people have to endure loneliness, and loneliness is often not worthy of ordinary people ...will you still be happy? And it is necessary to expose such lies to the public, why use such misunderstood truths to beautify one's own poverty? All this is just an unspoken lie!
New Year's Eve, when everyone is celebrating happily, seems to give us the illusion that the new year will bring new hope, better jobs, better health, and more money. In short, when the time comes, everyone can buy houses, land, and jewelry. Once they are bought, they belong to "we". Looking at all living beings, without exception, want to make money and want to shop.
At this time, I couldn't help thinking of what the fallen officer said to Nicola: Do you want to prove that I am crazy? This will facilitate my work as a lawyer. My wife and daughter will not know the truth, nor did I know it before yesterday. You work in a hospital, right? I believe there must be a company that will give you a commission, 5-10% is a fair price, I don't believe you don't know it, maybe you already know it, but turn a blind eye, like millions of Italians, until one day a judge walks in the door It is said that those commissions are illegal rebates, and that political donations under the stage are illegal. Wow, I am a thief, such shocking news! Not everyone who steals apples will go to hell, the world is fair! ? But they forgot to line up to donate money to me in exchange for our convenience, and now they want to change the world! Trust me, nothing will change, everything is an illusion! They only make fun of us stupid people, and the rest of us live on. This is Italy! This phenomenon is not caused by me, nor by you, but by our parents, believe me!
Yes, turn a blind eye and live in the world, this is what smart people do, but Matteo is tired of living. At the beginning of the film, he read a poem to Giorgia: Life is rare in seventy years, please make good use of every moment, the world Impermanence, fate is destined, the lamp runs out of oil, escapes from the mundane world, and lives only in secret, adding to the mundane worries... This is the concept that Matteo has always adhered to, and it is also the fuse that ultimately made him commit suicide.
Matteo tried to find a way to survive, but he failed. On this New Year's Eve, he chose to be Icarus, who flew out of the tower.
Icarus in Greek mythology
Daedalus, the great architect of Athens, killed him because he was jealous of his nephew who was more talented than himself, but was found and fled to Crete, where King Minos commissioned him Build a maze for the nefarious Minotaur Minotaur. The building is so ingenious that the Minotaur can't get out once he goes in, but Daedalus the architect himself can't get out after he goes in.
His son Icarus, smart and brave, built a mysterious tower together with his father, and could not come out for several days and nights. Relative to the sketch is still invalid. Icarus told his father that he had to find a way to fly out. So I looked for the feathers of the eagle, synthesized it with wax, possessed it, successfully tested it, and finally flew out. Father instructed: son, don't fly too high, the wax will be melted by sunlight; don't fly too low, it will be submerged by sea water; it is best to fly in the middle.
The child did not listen, and flew very high close to the sun, and finally the sun melted the wax, the wings fell off, and Icarus fell into the sea and died, becoming the sea of Icarus (Icarian).
Minotaur, symbol of desire. Architect Daedalus, who is the maker of the Mystery Building, symbolizes the one who formulates ethics, systems, morals, and regulations. The Mysterious Building symbolizes society, prisoners, and no one can come out, including marriage, law, and contract. In society, when people enter the store and see food, they cannot take it. Since they have no money, they break the law if they take it. Animals eat what they eat. The architects can't come out either, digging their own graves.
The only way is to fly. Matteo is a genius, but he is too manic, and he dies by flying high. His character is dictated by his stubborn wings, and he would rather fall to his death.
So far, I have been describing the whole story with Matteo as the main line, ignoring the plots of Nicola and others, but I have no intention of repeating it, so I will make a brief summary based on Mu Xin’s thoughts:
Matteo has the spirit of Apollo: wait and see , reason, thinking; Nicola has the Bacchus spirit: action, joy, intuition. What they have in common is instinct.
Human happiness does not depend on reason, material, but from emotion, intuition, happy action and instinct, so Matteo is rarely happy, while Nicola is happy. But Matteo is divine and Nicola is human, so Nicola would evaluate his younger brother as the Greek hero Achilles, but in fact Matteo is more like Icarus.
A question:
Who knows what the man who shouted outside the house was talking about at 1 hour and 17 minutes in the first film? (Before this, Matteo and Nicola were looking at the revised Latin manuscript: "In AD 1126, the first light came and pierced the sky..." Then they said: "He's right, we're wasting our time.")
Those who answer will be rewarded!
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