"What can I do to keep you?
I give you poor streets, desperate sunsets
Moon in the run-down suburbs.
I give you the sorrow of a man who has been looking at the lonely moon for a long time. "
-Borges, "What Can I Use to Keep You"
In the small town near the sea in northern Europe, the cold wind blew rustlingly. The first thing that appears in the picture is the sea. The sea in an unknown town in northern Europe, the cold sea, with a gray tone, is depressing. Immediately afterwards, the camera turned to the heroine Rebecca played by Eva Green, sitting alone by the sea. She stroked her already bulging belly back and forth, with a satisfied smile on the corner of her mouth.
Rebecca and Tommy have known each other since childhood. On the seaside where the white waves were rolling, Rebecca saw Tommy for the first time, the little boy with freckled eyes who was walking towards her, immediately attracted her attention.
It is not difficult to see in the movie that Rebecca has matured earlier than other children since she was a child. Rebecca, who is still a little girl, is calm and restrained, and she is too cautious and disciplined in her words and deeds. There is no superfluous expression on the face. For Rebecca, who lives alone in her grandpa's house in a seaside town, Tommy should be the first playmate in her life.
Rebecca's trust in Tommy continued throughout the entire process of their acquaintance. From staying at his house at night, and riding a bicycle with Tommy to an unknown place the next day, Tommy smiled slightly, didn't say where he was going, just pedaled his bicycle, and Rebecca followed behind him. Until the reunion of the two, she didn't know where Tommy was going or what to do, but she just wanted to follow him, just like when she was a child. It's hard to tell if it's just a quarrel between the two children, or if Rebecca's love for Tommy has been a symptom from an early age. Rebecca's trust in Tommy was unfounded and deeply rooted.
The joy of being reunited was dissipated by a sudden car accident. In the matchbox with the snail corpse, there is a confession 12 years late in a deep sleep. Rebecca, who lost Tommy, was actually heartbroken at this time, and she even planned to go with him.
Rebecca's choice is willful, and even in the eyes of most people it is perverted and creepy. When all this involves ethics, it is difficult for us to see and explain it with normal eyes and behaviors. I have also imagined that if a person loses his beloved overnight, the pain and frustration are far from simple outsiders can understand. At this time, there is such a technology in front of me, maybe tomorrow, this world There will be a face that is exactly the same as your lover's face and a smile of resurrection. Ta is by your side, and everything is so familiar and touchable, as if she had never left. Will there be some people like Rebecca, regardless of the eyes of others and the risks involved, as long as their lover can come back to accompany the rest of their lives?
Rebecca makes a choice in the movie, and she doesn't seem to think too much about it and judge the consequences that will happen in the future. What shows in her is a resolute and unrelenting tragic grief.
Rebecca and little Tommy's conflicted relationship is a sensitive gray area, pointing directly to the correctness of cloning technology. As early as 1996, after the cloned sheep Dolly was born, the development of cloning technology from previously unimaginable to forward has great significance. At the same time, the debate on the morality of cloning has never stopped. If cloning technology is expanded in all human society, it is bound to be affected by the normal human relations order. Imagine that two identical leaves are infinitely multiplied. What are the consequences?
I believe that Rebecca herself knows that her love for the little Tommy born by her is not as simple as a mother's love for her child. When little Tommy was young, she could control his world, no matter what radius the compass wanted to draw in which direction, she could finally grasp its boundaries. The dinosaur toys that were put back, the meticulous care, playing with him, participating in every moment of his growth... The seamless love wrapped little Tommy tightly inside, absolutely warm. However, little Tommy will still grow up, which is the law of growth. One day the kite wants to break free from the string that binds it and fly to the new sky to achieve freedom. She can reproduce an identical Tommy, but she can't stop the growth of little Tommy. Growing up means new things and new worlds: he will have new toys and playmates, not just from his mother, but also from his peers. He'll make girlfriends, like every big teenage boy does. He would even take the girl home and get close to his girlfriend without hesitation under her nose. Rebecca cares, maybe deep down in Rebecca's heart, she doesn't even want to admit that she is possessive towards little Tommy. How could little Tommy be just her child, to her, he was still her former love.
So when he has his own lover, how can she be indifferent.
Halfway through the movie, I remembered a story in the second season of the British drama "Black Mirror", "Come back soon": a car accident took away Martha's boyfriend Ash, and at the recommendation of a friend, he used the advanced technology of evolution. Means, Martha used the information Ash left on the social network to shape an artificial intelligence robot - fake Ash. He would speak, think and act like Martha's late boyfriend Ash, even with a face younger than Ash. Facing Martha can meet any of her requests. The appearance of the intelligent robot Ashe dilutes the sadness of Masha's loss of her lover. She wants him to accompany him all the time. Even subconsciously, Masha has regarded him as the real Ashe. However, a series of events made Martha finally realize that he would imitate Ash's speech and actions, that he could provide daily companionship, that he could appear as soon as you needed it, but he was not the real Ash, The real Ash is flesh and blood, a living person, with Ash's unique joys and sorrows and the memory of falling in love with Martha. He is not an ice-cold robot in his bones, and all his actions and words are done through pre-set procedures and means. Including love.
In the ending of "Coming Soon", Martha finally can no longer regard the intelligent robot Ashe as the real Ashe, and face him day and night. Finally locked him in the attic.
Memories can be reproduced, but feelings when confronted with them cannot.
Going back to "Clone Husband", it is also a science fiction theme. Unlike "Coming Soon", it touches on ethics. Little Tommy, who has grown up and learned the truth, how should he face this absurd life? What to do in the future. The person in front of him should be called a mother or a lover. With Tommy's genes, little Tommy didn't know about the snails, matchboxes, small notes, and the secret love between two children at the beach many years ago. These are all proofs of love. What Rebecca wants to bring back to life is the original Tommy, she thinks that through cloning technology, a complete and identical Tommy can be born, and she can see him again, touch him, even if the new baby Tommy no longer has those memory. But the dead is gone, and the real Tommy, the one who greeted her at the seaside, who said she would wait for her to come back, who had always been loved by her, has disappeared from this world forever.
The shots in the film are all bland and restrained, and the music is rarely present. This is really a quiet literary film. In fact, the impetus of the plot is turbulent under the surface calm. Emotions explode at the end of the film to a peak. Little Tommy was at a loss when he learned the truth, and did not hesitate to use sex as a vent. Rebecca, who was lying on the bed, shed tears, and then her calm face was still filled with determination. At the end, the sit-in in the house, the departure of little Tommy, the closed eyes of Rebecca, and the heart-wrenching despair in the bottom of my heart. I don't know what kind of identity he was in when he said "Thank you, Rebecca".
All the absurdity returned to the original point at this moment, only she was left alone to stay in place. At that moment, I felt that the so-called ethics, preaching, right and wrong disappeared, and I could only see a woman's weightless love in this bleakness. She rediscovered him after twelve years of separation. She gave him a second life, sacrificing her youth to raise him, not hesitate to see him have a lover of his own. The love that started at the age of 12, and then spent a lifetime sculpting it.
Lost love, how can I keep you. With my remaining time to fight against the years, with my depleted heart and God, with my paranoia and patience, with the only body I have left and my determination not to be shaken by anything at any time. All this is because, in every ordinary moment when the sun rises or night falls.
You are all my dreams.
2017/7/20
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