Although the story of "Like a River in Love" is not as heavy as death and redemption as in "Cherry", it makes people feel more desolate. At the same time, the director once again used the prop of the car window to the fullest to show the state of human life being squeezed and changed in a highly developed society. This time, the city that the famous Iranian poet-director wants us to see is Tokyo. A female college student, Akiko (Takanashi Rin), is sitting in a taxi to the "guest"'s house, listening to her grandmother's phone message. From the message, we can know that my grandmother got her phone number from her uncle. It seems that she heard that she and her friends are doing assistance and communication, and she came to Tokyo to see her. Grandma left 5 phone messages, hoping to have lunch with her. In the end, my grandmother couldn't wait for Akiko, and ate ramen at a ramen restaurant by the station. Akiko listened to her grandmother's phone messages one by one. Outside the window was the night in Tokyo, bustling, noisy, and crying. The night in Tokyo loses its mystique here. Because this time in the shot, it's too close to us. And its shadow reflected on the window is so distorted. Akiko smeared bright red lipstick on her lips and fell asleep on the back seat.
The girl Akiko's character is full of powerlessness in this film. This status of deprivation and bondage comes not only from the special occupation given to her by the film, but also from the actions of the character in the film. Akiko appears in the camera a lot of time, but most of the time, she is sitting in the car. In a small space, it appears statically. At the old professor's house, she sat on the sofa; after entering the bedroom, she sat on the bed and fell asleep quickly. Including in a taxi, she slept in the back seat of the car for more than an hour's drive. There is no doubt that this is a very tired and unhappy character. Not only that, but she was also exploited from the initiative and decision-making power. During the day, she was still sitting in the old professor's car. Her boyfriend came to look for ballast, but she was powerless to deal with it. Escape to school to take exams. Then he went to the bookstore on the advice of the old professor. After the lie was exposed, the old professor drove to the corner to pick her up. She was still sitting with her back to the camera. When the old professor went to buy medicine, she was still sitting on the steps at the door of the stairs. There are scenes in the video showing the old professor answering a work call, and there are scenes where he goes downstairs to a convenience store to buy things. According to his age, the movements are very fast; his boyfriend has more body movements, and he also works in an auto repair shop. The shot; only Akiko, who has been in a stagnant state since the beginning of the film when she answers the phone in the bar. Not one of her normal age, walking on the streets of Tokyo appeared. If there is such a scene, she should be young and energetic. In "Like a River in Love", Akiko is a character who has completely lost her initiative and sense of life for some reasons.
I haven't been to Japan yet, but I often hear people talking about Japan. Said it was a place worth visiting many times in a lifetime. In Abbasquia Rostami's "Like a River in Love," Tokyo appears to be just another city where humans struggle to live. You can't find yourself, you can't find love, you can only learn to lie in society. This fascinating cosmopolitan city is transformed into a place that simply connects people. And here, women and love can be sold as a commodity.
To say that this story has no beginning and no end is not a harsh assessment. We don't know what kind of background Akiko's female college student comes from. We might be able to speculate on the comment that her reason for social aid was to pay for her tuition. From the conversation, the only thing I know for sure is that when she first arrived in Tokyo, she began to help communicate. As for the other main character, a retired and well-known sociology professor, he learned from his neighbor "window grandma" that the professor has a daughter and granddaughter. But what seems to have happened, there is no communication between the professor and his daughter. The character information revealed by these fragments seems to be the Tokyo that the director wants to describe. The night view of Tokyo, from a distance, was originally the prosperity that surpassed everything in the world. But when Akiko looked out of the car window, the night was so ugly and so lonely. The night in Tokyo is so lonely again. The professor is on the second floor of his apartment facing the street, among the books in the room, all kinds of photos are placed. There are deceased wives and granddaughters. After the girl came, he entered his bedroom, and he just kept telling the girl to sit in the living room. Said to cook her hometown-style soup, the ingredients are cherry prawns. During the day in Tokyo, there is a young man who is Akiko's boyfriend. He is full of strength and recklessness, hoping to live according to his own wishes, and he believes that his ideas are correct, and that he can only understand society by entering into society, and he cannot learn "sociology" in school. In Japanese, only people who start working are called "social people". The word "society" appears several times in the story; the old man is a famous sociology professor, Akiko's major is sociology, and the boy is an authentic "social person". The day of Tokyo is neat streets and more lies, and the beautiful and clean city has finally lost its charm in Abbas's perspective. As social beings, we have to keep moving between lonely nights and peaceful days until we learn its rules.
The rule Akiko had to learn was the duality of society. During the day, Akiko is a college student. In the evenings, she does aid socializing. But the funny thing is Akiko doesn't lie at all. At the beginning of the story, in the quiet bar, the men and women who lived the night were gathered. The women were all good-looking, with delicate and heavy makeup. Akiko is answering her boyfriend's phone, she's lying, but she's not very good at it. Boyfriend suspects she is lying. He was reluctant to know where she was, and even the female companion who was with him answered the phone and couldn't dispel his doubts. Finally, she went to the bathroom at her boyfriend's order and counted the tiles on the floor. Obviously, the number of tiles in the bathroom of the bar where she was and the bathroom she claimed to be in would not be the same. Under her boyfriend's superb investigative skills, her lies will be exposed tomorrow. The girl is nude makeup, no eye shadow, no lipstick. In the room full of spring, she was like a wild flower in the wrong place. The girl looked embarrassed and didn't know what to do with her boyfriend.
The next day during the day, her boyfriend surrounded her at the school gate. The girl finally rushed into the school to take the exam. The boy got into Grandpa's car and asked: Who are you? The old grandpa answered tactfully, what do you think? The boy, who was not deep in the world, said that it was his grandfather. Grandpa didn't correct him either. So it's not strictly a lie. Akiko came out after the exam and sat in the back seat of the car. The old grandfather said skillfully, ah, didn't you just say you were going to buy a book? Akiko was very nervous and kept asking the grandfather what he said to his boyfriend. After the two left their boyfriend at the auto practice, she worriedly said to the grandfather, but I mentioned to him before that my grandfather was a fisherman. The grandfather said, it doesn't matter, you didn't say whether it was from your father's side or your mother's side. Mingzi suddenly realized, with a relaxed expression: Ah, yes.
So we learned the necessity and convenience of lying in this day and night. People say that people in love lie. The movie is indeed called Like Someone in Love. Ironically, none of the three are "in love". Akiko's feelings for her boyfriend should not even be liking, but not disgusting, but also confused about her own life status. Boyfriends don't believe in books, they only believe in their own social experience. But his social experience is actually pitiful. His understanding of love is to marry Akiko back home, because he believes that Akiko must fulfill his wife's obligations, including reporting all his whereabouts to him. Obviously, in his words, he also did not support Mingzi's reading. As a prestigious sociology professor, Akiko was specially chosen to come to his home, mainly because Akiko looked like his own granddaughter. Akiko undressed herself, sat on the bed in the bedroom, and invited the old professor to "warm her". The professor just kept sitting in the chair and said, go and sit outside.
At the end of the story, Akiko's mouth was broken by her boyfriend. Sitting on the steps downstairs of the professor's house. The neighbor is a grandma who can only see the world from the window, because she has a mentally handicapped younger brother to take care of. Grandma asked if she was the professor's granddaughter, and Akiko smiled and lied fluently. Grandma asked her, what happened to your mouth? Akiko paused and said: I have a toothache.
Maybe "Like Someone in Love" is to say that we can't help ourselves in society, and we look like someone in love when we don't speak our heart.
View more about Like Someone in Love reviews
