In fact, quite a few directors have already aimed their cameras at the city. Hepburn's "Roman Holiday", Woody Allen's "Love in Rome," and, today, "The Beautiful City."
There are no beautiful and handsome young faces under the camera, there are only old faces with layers of wrinkles, which contrast with the exquisite and gorgeous urban landscape of Rome, which exudes the atmosphere of twilight and decadence, and the irony is in full swing. Mi's flowers are gorgeous, but inevitably they will come to an end. A journalist living in Rome, who made a name for himself in his youth with a novella, has never written again. "I wanted to be the king of high society, and I succeeded. I didn't just want to party, I wanted to have the power to beat others." When he got old, he opened countless parties and walked around Rome's The streets and alleys by the river are empty and lonely inside.
The extravagant life is full of absurdity and nothingness. He criticized a self-righteous female companion at the party: "Stefan, you are fifty-three years old, living a broken life like all of us, you should not be high and low, but you should feel the same as us. We are all on the verge of despair, and all we can do is look after each other, accompany each other, and joke around." In a sober life, the empty shell of the body decays along with this gorgeous city.
Eventually some people left, and his old friend said, I'm going back to my hometown, and the city of Rome has let me down. No, maybe it's not just disappointment, it's helpless to sink, so I want to escape. Important memories of his life are buried in the city. They're all gone - old friends, first loves, lovers. Since when, the frequency of attending funerals is exaggerated like daily life. The green first love, with her death, the memory is opened, like a dusty box, when opened, it is a sweet and distant past. Later, his twilight lover also passed away, and he was alone in the world, wandering and feeling grateful. Sex, love, material things, and fame cannot make an old person feel nostalgic. Life is an existence that even tricks can't make it disappear.
So at some point when he was getting old and feeling his life, he had the idea of writing again. Write about the city, write about the impermanent life. "Usually the end of things is death, but first of all there will be life, hidden in this and that, and I can't say enough, in fact, it has already settled in the noise. Silence is emotion. Love is also fear. A beautiful light, Wild and impermanent, those hard, miserable and painful human nature are buried under the embarrassment of being born as a human being, and I can't say enough, but there are only glitzy clouds above. I don't care about glitz. This is the beginning of the novel." The protagonist, just like the outsider in Camus's writings, once realizes the absurdity of life, don't want to go back to the numbness and sinking of the past. You can only look at the world soberly and painfully, watching the funny world put on a funny puppet show. What are you living for, you start to think. The sense of absurdity makes you feel the unreality of life, the impermanence of something and the eternity of emptiness, which makes you feel detached from time to time. Politics, morals, emotions, everything is gone, gone. Life is consumed day by day in a beautiful city, and the body and mind rot day by day, blending into the beauty and dilapidation of the city. Song Dynasty Wang Qi's poem "A Small Garden in Spring and Twilight" says:
As soon as the residual makeup fades from the plum powder,
Apply the new red begonia.
It's blooming until the Tumi flowers,
The slightest thorn emerges from the berry wall.
It's blooming until the Tumi flowers. After the tea millet, no flowers bloom, so people often think that the blooming of the tea millet is the end of the flowering season of the year.
In the 63rd episode of "A Dream of Red Mansions", "Shouyi Hongqunfang held a night banquet", She Yue picked up a flower sign:
Xiangyun picked up the dice and rolled a nine, and counted it for Sheyue. Muskyue picked one out. When everyone looked at it, there was a Tumi flower on it, inscribed with the four characters "Shaohua Shengji", and there was an old poem written there, saying: "It's time for the Tumi flowers to bloom." Note: "Drink three times at the table. A cup for spring." She Yue asked what to say, Baoyu frowned, hid the signature, and said, "Let's have a drink."
Shaohua's victory is the fate of Tu Mi, and it is very similar to the tone of this film.
At the end of life, there is wealth, status, fame, and rich memories, but there is no green throbbing and eternal tears in the eyes.
One day, people will grow old and die in groups. Only this city, standing and witnessing, has never been silent.
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