In the undergraduate film class, one of the teacher's favorite words when describing a film as bad was: "This film is as bad as two hours, and I can't find a frame that can be used as a poster!" I think if he watched "Date", he would definitely turn this sentence back and forth: This is a spectacle of an image, and any shot taken out is a perfect still image. Although many stills are released from other films, the media use only two or three photos over and over again. "Date" is not. No matter in European or American media, whether in print media, online media or at the entrance of theaters, I have found countless beautiful stills before watching the film, but I always stubbornly think that these are all excellent. Selected special cases. Until I witnessed a perfect shot in the theater, like a poignant print, the black-and-white fragments with beautiful visual effects are shown lyrically. Perhaps because of this, today, when ultra-length movies are popular, this classic film of less than 90 minutes can stand out. If such an exquisite image lasts for two hours, I am afraid that it will be too much for both human and financial aspects. The simplification of the dialogue is another minimalist aspect of the film. Not only the silent Date/Anna, but also the Wanda with the most lines in the film, the amount of information in each sentence is huge, and there is almost no nonsense. In this silent and pure beauty, what unfolds is a story that unearths the tragedies of the past; under the surface of the road movie and the detective plot, it is a reconciliation of the soul and the soul. What emerges in the liquidation is not a black and white picture. Jews, Christians, atheists, Nazis, Stalinists, sinners, victims, weak and strong, the transformation may be just a matter of flicks. This is undoubtedly a metaphor of Polish history, an artist who has lived abroad for many years (director Pawel Pawlikowski's tracing of the history of the motherland, the reckoning of the history of the hometown, the re-exploration of the collective identity. In the torrent of history, everyone is guilty, and everyone is scarred. Although the film uses black and white technology, the true tone of its colors is melancholy and ambiguous gray. Pawlikowski was born in Warsaw in 1957, shortly before the start of the story of Date. At the age of fourteen, he moved with his mother to various countries in Western Europe and eventually settled in the UK. He studied philosophy and literature at university, and later made documentaries for television stations, and was also a scholar of German poetry. In an interview, he said that making movies is not a profession, but a freewheeling game. Life is very broad, and movies are only a small part of it. Pawlikowski didn't come up with his first feature film until he was in his early forties. His second fictional work "Last Resort" tells the story of a Russian mother who took her child to the UK to meet her lover. It is highly autobiographical and has won him an international reputation. The 2004 "My Summer of Love" (My Summer of Love) showed this documentary-born director's superb control of the screen. In 2011, he took Ethan Hawke into the water and performed an inexplicable "La femme du Vème" (La femme du Vème). The creator cleverly set the time in the 1960s, when communist ideals and revolution were the peak period of the ruling model. The characters in the film are looking for the memory of World War II in the eyes of this typhoon, where everything seems to be very stable, as if everything will continue like this. Some irony can be seen in the viewer's eyes, because we know what happened in Eastern Europe after that era. When we make choices based on the current situation, who would have thought that everyone's fate will be reshuffled in the future social and political storms? The Polish Christians who betrayed the Wanda Jewish relatives in 1942 would fear the party-state power in her hands by 1962, but what about in 1992? So Wanda's jump may seem surprising, even abrupt, but it is inevitable in the film's narrative logic. Such a devastated society can no longer withstand bloody settlements. Such drastic social changes can only be reflected in the life of each individual as the silent natural transition in the film. Even the bloodiest crime can be wiped out in twenty years. "There is no evidence anyway," the perpetrator said, and the victim silently accepted it. This is a liquidation of the soul, and no other requirements can be made. Agata as Wanda Kulesza is an old Polish drama player who has honed his acting skills on the theater stage to perfection. Wanda’s last day was her most shocking performance, from the desperate face in the bathtub to the natural abruptness of jumping. Agata Trzebuchowska, who plays the heroine, is the exact opposite. You can exhaust all the film databases. "Date" is her real debut work. No other work can be found before. Someone has dug up reports, saying that Trzebuchowska is a treasure that Pawlikowski dug in a street cafe, and urged her to play this role. Facts proved that this effort was worthwhile. Trzebuchowska replaced the lines with his eyes, and portrayed this "innocent girl" who is the easiest to make a face sharp. There is tremendous power in her timid voice, timid steps, and timid existence, and the ability to interpret this is almost innate. For ordinary people, it is not only their lives that are deeply shaken by the great changes, but also their identity. The unresolved identity, ambiguity, and anxiety are the clues throughout the film. The girl who grew up in the Catholic monastery suddenly discovered that she was a Jew, and there was a task that had to be completed before she vowed to dedicate herself to the faith. The anxiety of divinity and secularity fought an 82-minute tug of war. Communism believers try to use the future instead of the past to define their identities. From revolutionary fighters to spiritually disillusioned material girls, Wang Da is like a microcosm of Eastern Europe and even all the former socialist countries. The soundtrack of the film is also carefully selected, ranging from the famous Polish jazz actor Maria Koterbska to Mozart’s symphony, from the famous beat music "Jimmy Joe" (which happens to be a work in 1962) to Bach’s cantata "Lord Jesus Christ I Call you". Sacred and vulgar, innocent and worldly, forgiveness and hatred, future and past, when we think that everything is going to fall into a boring black and white dualistic pattern, the director smiled slyly, and resolved all grievances, hatred, elegance and vulgarity in the ambiguity. In the gray. Date’s lover Rees is a jazz player who focuses on saxophone. He told Date that his favorite musician is John Kechuan (John Coltrane, 1926-1967). This is not a random choice. Ke Chuan's later works were greatly influenced by the "spirituality" culture, and even had a strong religious significance in the 1960s. This may be a religious clue deliberately placed by the creator, or a hint of the spirituality of the character itself, or perhaps just a trick to please the girl: Lis’s name Lis means “fox” in the etymology of the Polish dialect, which has a cunning connotation. He also claimed to be of Gypsy descent. But just such an elf-like man who tempted a pious nun to taste the forbidden fruit of carnal desire, still unable to answer Date's question about eternity: "What then?" Fall in love and promise each other, get married and settle down, and then there are the cumbersome and troubles of life. . This is not the answer Ida wants. No one can give her the answer—only God can give her the eternity she wants. The film uses a lot of decentralization of the main characters in the composition, and the beautiful images can successfully remove the visual attention from the actor's face. Perhaps out of humility, or powerlessness, people take themselves from the center of life and offer other things, or Jesus Christ, or cigarettes and wine, or hatred and anger, or singing and dancing. But the important thing is that "people" are not in the center. No matter what idol we put in the center, its name is the same, but it is a kind of helplessness and a helpless sigh.
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