The narrative of this film has a very distinctive feature: although the plot unfolds flatly, it uses a lot of blank space. With the help of the actors' wonderful performances and plot design, the film conveys a lot of implication, which is not written. There is a kind of fun in reading novels while watching movies.
For example: when Johnny was comparing the handwriting, she looked at him eagerly. At that moment, she hoped that Johnny would recognize her, but she didn't, and her eyes dimmed instantly. There was no line at this point, but it was heartbreaking.
The film does not directly show how Johnny betrayed her, how she was arrested, or the suffering she suffered in the concentration camps. It all appeared in a few words of her conversation with her friend, the landlady's wife, and Johnny.
How dreadful and difficult her life on the cruise ship was, she did not describe it directly, but only used one shot to explain the space behind the secret door where she once hid. Everything speaks for itself.
The heroine Nellie survived and returned from a concentration camp after World War II. Although the severely injured face was repaired through cosmetic surgery, the trauma and shadow in her heart were difficult to heal. In the first half of the film, her eyes are always terrified, and she walks staggeringly, cowering, as if still in shackles. She desperately needs to find the past, especially love - her husband Johnny. It was the obsession with seeing Johnny that supported her through the difficult time in the concentration camp.
However, when she found Johnny, she found that the other party no longer recognized her. Even Johnny decided she was dead at all, just thinking about how to get her inheritance. When Johnny found out about the woman who "looked like" his wife, he wanted to use her to impersonate.
Her friends repeatedly warned her that it was Johnny's betrayal that led to her arrest. However, she was blind at this time, how could she listen to it? Johnny has been her only spiritual sustenance for a long time, and she even thought up various excuses for Johnny to clear the suspicion that he betrayed himself. Until the friend committed suicide, the hard evidence that Johnny had divorced her appeared. At this time, she finally began to abandon fantasy and recognize reality.
At the end of the film, she sang "Speak Low" softly. At the beginning, it was a little jerky, but when she sang the second stanza, she finally regained the feeling and let go of her voice. At that moment, she was so radiant that she seemed to return to the stage of the past. When Johnny finally recognized her, he forgot to play the piano, and several in the audience were stunned. Comparing the two, she was so confident and so moving that she made the faces of everyone around her look like a clown. The song is over, and the lingering sound is not scattered. She left gracefully, leaving only a resolute back.
It's an absurd setting to pretend to be yourself. If it weren't for the sadness of the process, I would still find it quite humorous. Under this seemingly absurd setting, it is actually aimed at people like Johnny, unable to face up to his own ugliness at all.
Nellie asks: What if they ask about the concentration camps? Johnny said: "They won't ask, no one will. Later, Nellie told Johnny: Sure enough, no one asked.
He made Nellie dress up as before in the clothes she had bought in Paris. Nellie said: People who came out of the concentration camps couldn't come back like this. He said: He knew that the people who came back from the concentration camp were all in misery, but what everyone wanted to see was Nellie from the past.
These people just want to hide their ears and pretend that nothing happened, as long as they live happily and go back to the past. As for the blood and tears of those victims, forget about the scandalous things that you have done, just don't mention it at all.
This is so similar to Nellie at the beginning, eager to recover the past, return to the happy times of the past, and live in the old dream of Luo Zhi. When she saw clearly that people like Johnny had no regrets and deceived herself. He also realized his naivety, and finally realized that nothing could go back. When I watched the movie, I wondered what she would do when she found out the truth. Bloody revenge? Kill Johnny with one shot, as her friend said. Reproached face to face? She had enough reason to call him a bloody sprayer. But neither is right. She just held the piano and gently sang this elegy of love, but the mournful and moving song pierced the heart like a sharp knife. Such a subtle ending couldn't have been more appropriate. The film came to an abrupt end at the end, and the director handed over the choice to the audience. I don't think she will forgive these people for their betrayal, but she will not carry the hatred either. She will decide to leave and start a new life. Because she has bid farewell to the past, found herself, and started a new life.
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