Man lives for the sake of living itself, not for anything other than living

Ivah 2022-12-26 05:33:58

The movie "Alive" is hailed as a living Chinese contemporary unofficial history, and it truly lives up to its name. This is a quiet film, without much crying, grief, and exhaustion, as if it was just a commentary of the protagonist Fugui along the way. The title of the film is "Alive", but throughout the film are the deaths one after another. The protagonist Fugui lost his father in the Republic of China, his mother died in the civil war, his son was lost in the "Great Leap Forward", and he lost his son in the "Cultural Revolution". During the Great Revolution", his daughter died. Every death seems to be an accident, but it is inevitable in line with the development of history. The era of turbulence and inhibition is the ruthless plunder of the people living at the bottom, making them and their families impoverished, from form to inner realization. As a bystander, watching him step on the ice floes with a mirage-like hope all the time. After the uncontrollable appearance burst, relying on the long patience of their own instincts, they continued to survive in a state of suffocation. Life is like a piece of sea, taking all the tragic incidents. Freud has an explanation for the causes of masochism: if a person falls into an inescapable pain, to the point of being unbearable, he will regard this pain as happiness, and in this way to seek relief - and in doing so, his values ​​have been reversed. This is the protagonist of this film, and also the ordinary Chinese people from the 1950s and 1960s to today, a real, paralyzed life state. By this definition, each of us becomes a masochist. Therefore, the audience is not only a bystander, but also a member of the story. Everyone's self is not only a scroll unrolled by history, but also a product of being squeezed by history. Reality offers no choice for how to live, and every step forward becomes a necessity.

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Extended Reading

To Live quotes

  • Xu Fugui: What did you name our son?

    Xu Jiazhen: "Don't Gamble".

  • Xu Fugui: If Youqing does as daddy says, our lives will get better and better. Our family is like a little chicken. When it grows up, it becomes a goose and that will turn into a sheep. The sheep will turn into an ox.

    Xu Youqing: And after the ox?

    Xu Fugui: After the ox is Communism, and there will be dumplings and meat every day.