The city of Paris, free, romantic and passionate, is like a naturally formed utopia. Both films seem to have ingeniously cast a hazy veil on Paris, deliberately distanced from the audience, but also made us feel comfortable, because we can see a world far away from reality, which allows us to live in this way. A place full of fantasy and even absurdity is stretched, allowing us to revisit the beautiful day we once had, the purest dream.
Let's talk about Midnight in Paris. Jill, an American who is planning to write a novel, and his fiancée, Inez, come to Paris for vacation, but there is a disagreement here: Jill falls in love with Paris and longs to settle here, while Inez, although not interested, only puts it as a tour. By chance, Jill wandered alone in Paris at midnight, but was inexplicably pulled into an old-fashioned car and traveled to Paris in 1920. Here, he met the Fitzgeralds, Hemingway, Dalí, Picasso... Everything was so incredible that it was difficult for him to even distinguish between reality and fantasy and make a choice.
Unlike "Midnight in Paris", which revealed a touch of humor, "Dream of Paris" is more profound and heavy. Also in Paris, the story takes place in the heroic 1960s. Matthew, an American student studying in France, met twins Isabella and Leo during a sport. Due to their mutual love of movies, they soon became good friends, and Matthew and Isabella also developed a delicate relationship. But as they spent more time together, they had become estranged before. Matthew finds that he can't actually get into the lives of the siblings, who are actually one, two parts of the same person, and like never-grown children, full of unrealistic fantasies and childish frivolities.
The directors of the two films, Bernardo Bertolucci and Woody Allen, seemed to have a piece in mind. Together, they create an opposition between rationality and irrationality, which, when melted into the film, is reflected in the characters. In the movie, Inez and Matthew play the role of "sober", with a calmer and clearer judgment on things, and cling to reality, but when they meet people like Jill and Isabella, Leo With such "dreamers", opposition arises.
Transcend, return to reality; transcend, return to reality. Such repetitions inevitably make the audience feel a little confused, because under Woody Allen's arrangement, the split between reality and fantasy seems to be gradually melting, and sometimes it even confuses people: what is real? For Gill, perhaps the golden age of the 1920s was his reality. Under the background of the easy jumping gypsy guitar song "bistro fada", Jill, who came to the "Golden Age", showed a clumsy and embarrassed form, which made people want to laugh out loud. But from it, you can see his novelty and desire for the unknown world. The Fitzgeralds, Ernest, Hemingway, Picasso, Dali and that "let's do it" and his genius composer Kerr Porter. However, when Gil told him about his incredible adventure with the masters the next day, Inez showed disdain, because for a "sober person" living in a rational world, these cannot be imagined. For her, the reality in front of her is the only real reality that belongs to her.
The same situation appears in "Dream of Paris", outside the window is the reality of riots, people are dying in battle all the time, but the world inside the window is like a Garden of Eden. Is this wave, like Jill's crossing, an unrealistic dream? Matthew saw this clearly. In front of the brothers and sisters full of idealistic fantasies, Matthew retained an almost ruthless rationality, especially for war. There is a confession in the film: "Revolution is not a feast on festivals, it can't be created like a book, a picture, or a splendid. When he unfolds, he doesn't appear elegant, serene, refined, nor sweet, amiable. , humility, restraint, or generosity. A revolution is a riot, one class overthrowing another..." At the end of the film, when faced with an out-of-control riot, Matthew pointed his finger at the brain and said it was violence, it was fascism , while Leo pointed to the rioting crowd.
The ending of the movie seems to be expected by everyone, and is so strikingly similar: Jill breaks up with Inez, who is about to marry him, and stays in Paris. On the other side, Isabella didn't even give Matthew a chance to dissuade her, so she and Leo rushed into the rioting crowd, leaving only Matthew's lost back disappearing into the vast crowd. The co-performance of the awake and the dreamer leads either to the comedy of Midnight Paris or to the heaviness of the Paris of Dreams, and the outcome is still the same: a doomed separation.
We can see the truth of life from "sober people" like Inez and Matthew. Maybe they were right, because the so-called time travel was just a fairy tale that only happened in the movies, and the student movement at that time was at best mislabeled by history. But at the same time, we should pay more attention to dreamers such as Jill, Isabella, Leo, and see that they transcend the factors and irrationality of real life. Here we experience the fiery passion, the beauty of life, Bright hope, and the wind of freedom blowing.
We can clearly guess the director's attitude from the movie, although the ending of the movie is not the same for the audience: for the former, midnight Paris in the rain and Jill merge into a beautiful and intoxicating picture; In the latter, only the empty ruins, the firelight in the dark night, and the crimson on the ground remained. But no matter what the ending is? For the rationality overflowing in "The Sober", what we experience is the director's disdain and ridicule, while for the irrationality at the other end, despite showing a trace of distrust, there is also affirmative encouragement from the bottom of our hearts.
Both stories in Paris throw us a question: should we be "awake" or "dreamers" in life? Undoubtedly, choosing the former is a better choice, because the rationality based on rigorous logic and mature thinking is profound, and it enables us to learn to be thoughtful, down-to-earth, and free from naivety and frivolity. However, once they occupy the whole of life, the profoundness of reason will also become a kind of shallowness.
Just like us now, most of them are "awake people" who have never dreamed! We advocate rationality and truth, but the irrational factors in life are gradually being swallowed up. Under the light of reason, we appear mature and sensible. But what is mature and sensible? But that means being disciplined, hardworking, obedient, and the like. But at the same time, we are bound by our hands and feet, measured by various standards, and limited by right and wrong. Maybe, we have a heart that wants to dream, but we always seem powerless in front of reason. We also want to do some free things, which are absurd and interesting. We don’t need to care about other people’s eyes, and we are open to the world. so-called "rational"
We see life too "through", knowing what to do and what not to do, what is possible and what is impractical. Reason is like a whip behind us, urging us to mature quickly, and the young and ignorant idealists have quietly transformed into real people. The direction of life points to the other side of utilitarianism, and we strive to achieve the most complete and successful life. However, as we drifted further away from the once purest ideal, and the cry from the bottom of our hearts became weaker and weaker, we seemed to be lost and always felt that something was missing. Less is Isabella's passion and freedom, less is Leo's simplicity and righteousness from the heart, and less is the incredible, novel and mysterious experienced by Jill... When we stand at the end of life and look back Throughout life, perhaps we will reassess the value of life. That kind of rational, immersed in reality, successful or perfect life is not what we want, because it is too ordinary, and the life of freedom and freedom may be the first thing we have paid so much for. The goal, only the result is usually the sweat of effort that blinds us, leads us off course, and the weight of reason weighs on our shoulders and stops us in our pursuit of freedom.
Nietzsche said: "Where life is dead, there must be laws piled up." In that era of strides toward rationalism, Nietzsche set off a trend of irrationalism. Under the rule of rationalism, people believed in science and were keen to pursue knowledge, but they ignored their inner world. With the rise of irrationalism, people have a new understanding that one-sided pursuit of external material life, and knowledge logic do not make people truly happy, and only by returning to their own feelings can they truly find the meaning of life .
"Dream of Paris" and "Midnight in Paris" taught me not to indulge and lose myself in dreams, but to guard the irrational corners of life in the rational nature of real life. This extremely precious but tiny part allows us not to be pulled into the abyss of the world too early, and in this too familiar world, to retain a little bit of wishful thinking, because such a little bit of wishful thinking makes us see the reality of reality In addition to cruelty, the world is beautiful and kind.
One of my favorite lines from the last movie that ends with Jill's words: "If you stay here, this becomes your present; before long, you'll start imagining another age as the golden age. This is the reality, and it is not satisfactory, because life is inherently unsatisfactory." People's interpretation of this sentence is usually attached to the level of the current reality. But I prefer to see what it expresses on the level of reality: irrational fantasy does not make us completely detached from reality, on the contrary, it makes us more attached to reality than rationality.
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