"Pain and Glory": Vector Formula and the Returning Teacher
If you ask, childhood/past, or mothers—where have they gone? Perhaps as Almodovar described at the beginning of "Pain and Glory": on the edge of a river.
And this river comes from farther away. Heraclitus, the mysterious wise man of ancient Greece, once said with emotion: "One cannot step into the same river twice." The passing childhood, the parting lover, the lost mother... Time often pierces our body at an unstoppable speed like a flying arrow, and causes decay that is not limited to the physical body.
In this way, it seems that life is not becoming more and more full with age, but it has been defeated-suffocating terrorism, as if hanging above the crown of life power.
It is precisely to face (bearing) these horrors that Almodovar tried to complete a rectification with "Pain"-if pain is what life feels, then this will not be a denial, but a more thorough affirmation : the so-called so-called The "lost" past, even the present and the future, are all mastered in the name of pain in a deep-rooted way (naturalized into potential and crystallized); the gems/crystals on the crown of life have never been due to twilight years. The fading, on the contrary, will be even more dazzling-although this kind of "pain" and "honor" may never be what ordinary people want to face and receive.
A. Kinematics: about rivers and flames
Back to Heraclitus, this wise man who listened to the teachings of the river seemed to put forward a word too plainly when faced with the operation of the universe-"fire"-but this is by no means such a simple typology on the surface. "The never-ending river", isn't what this picture marks is the direct perception of the rules of the universe and the time? Among all the phenomena/elements, what is more relevant than fire?
——Because "fire" is not only a noun/still life, but also a seed, a source of heat, and a law...Fire is the movement itself...
Coincidentally, Almodovar's film series often give people the feeling of "fire": from "Law of Desire", "All About My Mother" to "Bad Education", a kind of Spanish enthusiasm and color And temperature is as charming as fireworks... This is what we feel: a kind of "fire" phenomenology, magnificent melodrama.
However, "Pain" is slightly different, because here it is directly the encounter of "fire" and "river": a collision and identification, the fear of being annihilated, the pain of dying life and the exhaustion of creation... So, " "Fire" no longer appears in the posture of "Fireworks—Night Scenery" , but becomes pure burning, making a sense of twilight (though inappropriate) replace the dancing of fire; and then, in the impact of the river, the "fire" seems to be suppressed Under the mud bed (anaerobic)-it had to flow to the gap between the ashes and the embryo, thinking about the dynamics of the fire: a return, transformation, and force began to change.
And it is the introduction to the opening chapter of "Pain" that becomes this symbol:
The blue of infinite density—the swimming pool reconstructs the space like a flipped world, the “chair” is suspended above the speed of the fluid (a factor of stability and imbalance), and the pain under the body interacts with the pressure in a radial manner— Here, the pain is not disappeared or offset, but transformed into a visible "landscape": the diver's king posture, its majesty like a sculpture, the swimming pool becomes a palace, and the pain builds up the organization of this building...
Here, rather than saying that the pain is healed, it is better to say that it is displayed, and the diver will be honored as an astronaut; but perhaps more important is the "imbalance"-surfaced-this action seems to be It is a return to pain, but it is a necessity of life: after the body/identity is renewed, as we have seen, the man sticks out his head again and steps into another situation.
B. Vector Formula Fma: The King’s Parable
In a relative sense, there are two laws hidden in "Pain", which construct two circular palaces: a swimming pool as an absorption-palace, and a theater (cinema) as a launch-palace. The former is a form for the king, and the latter is an order for the king.
The king is both being produced and produced.
In a metaphor: a generative force F', a productive force F, m as a king’s body is also a permeable container of perception/movement, and a is a multi-factor operator (like a chair, it Connection time, speed...).
Absorption—In the palace, m=F'/a, the king is born out of thin air, the calculation of F'and a is like a collision between flints, and the body m is marked in the firelight, receiving the glory of the king; while launching— In the palace, F=ma, the king's body m spreads the inner energy to a, expands and emits it through it... and finally forms a productive and conquered domain.
The key to this rough metaphor lies in its vectority. Not only does every element have a direction (a king’s full body is engraved with aristocratic vector genes), but more importantly, the metaphor itself also has directionality, because it is positive. It is this kind of direction that is enough to constitute a return, a small loop on the macro level...
Therefore, we will see that the actor's performance in the theater will become a key to the cycle -because soon, the "chair" in the swimming pool dries down, it becomes strong again, and it landed in the theater .
The declining old actor was delayed in heroin, but now he has seized the opportunity: the lines of the surrounding vector, the blocky colors, and the simple scenery are re-enchanted under the reflection of his life, so these abstract dead objects can become The remains of another palace-and the actor is directing an event, even the generation of history, as a king...
The theater/cinema will eventually become a charming residence:
A productive king-F=ma-he travels back and forth between the script-the text and the plane-the screen, the body becomes a paintbrush (a movement of deformation); and the chair, the red wall, and the white screen, this is Madrid The skin, the background color of a city; finally is the emission, the acceleration space composed of color blocks and lines, a force F of emotional production, which is exposed in every posture of the body, it is as abundant as a river, overflowing every time Standing, walking, stroking, changes in distance, pauses and tremors of tone...
Therefore, it is not accidental that the ex-boyfriend who has been separated for many years returns late at night—because this is the logic of the returnee’s power, which has been opened by the “key”; because the theater chair he was riding on is special and the same. This operator connects the space of force released by him and this actor, and then his own history, with this infinite duration... The past, present, future, the duration of time is being integrated, the infinite reality, and more The infinite potential is attracted and gathered in this cycle of returning power-this is the "place" that "people" cannot do without, like the stage of the actors, like the mother's "village", like Amo Madrid of Dowa- a kind of generation-crystal, and then generation-city.
Immediately afterwards, the former lover will hold a new key and meet the aging male protagonist in a new cycle. He appears here as a returning teacher, and will stimulate an influx of force, and then exclude those tempting heroin (a kind of negative force, a kind of negation) from the infinite loop of return... As we have seen, once the power of return starts the cycle, it will be as unstoppable as a river.
C. Teachers who return: Education of love
Outside the door, the former lover, a shy and secret phone rang-love became something more uncontrollable than heroin.
The lonely, two old men, like cubs in the empty room—drinking for warmth and licking their wounds in the cave: Although there was regret, love survived, in Madrid and also in Buenos Aires... At the time of farewell, the cloudy eyes returned to clarity: Although life is full of cruel lessons, but love is gentle- love will eventually be a legacy.
The same instructive comes from the elderly mother. Her palace will always be in that old village (although the old people have gone), because this is where her love originated, a secret and dilapidated abode, the emergence of an eternal "home"... She longs to return, a kind of The symbolic ritual- life is always longing to (be) thrown into the palace of eternal return-and love, isn't it the synthesis of such a return power?
Since love is such a force, it must also find the most important "chair" as a connection-the movie is the chair of Almodovar-the chair in Fellini's "Eight and a half" The director's chair: Now it's handed over to Almodovar again.
Thus, in the male protagonist, a kind of king-like generation and production proceeded.
On the one hand, the hospital has transformed from a painful petri dish into an overhaul station for mechanical equipment, and the king’s body is being trained here: steel bars, MRI machines, endless painkillers, auscultation instruments and oscilloscopes-a collection of these metals and circuits From the burden of life to the extension of life; they went from life-saving "devices" to "things" used by life, completing a variation on installation art , and as we have seen, Almodovar Those human body models, data charts and pathological slices were added to "Pain", because this is what life itself feels (not dependent on the eyes and the lens).
On the other hand, another Almodovar-style play in play, a vector operation on "F-m-a": As we have seen, love has been poured into this film from the beginning like a river. ; And in the constant cycle of regressive force, the crystal-image continues to grow, more and more memories and characters enter the crystal, and the potential and reality negotiate each other, a kind of generation-the birth of the city... until the mother and son are on the floor. —Fixed frame of the shooting scene——A kind of gaze from the crystal, which is not only the eyes of the actor, but also the eyes of the director and the audience, as if there is a non-existent chair in the auditorium behind the screen...
D. There is no king's chair
In the end, perhaps the most gentle insight will have nothing to do with "kings" and "palaces"-because we believe that any body m will always have a free direction and unlimited dwelling possibilities in the name of life. Even if it's just an ordinary mason, a young worker who operates architecture, an illiterate who likes to paint, a clumsy but modest student...maybe he is the most gentle and angelic character in the film, just like in "Happy Lazaro" The simple but superb boy: He regards painting as a real career, a form and generation of space; and under the white reflection and washing of flowing water, he turns into a muse of strength and beauty, a kind of The first desire...
But more importantly, it is in such a person without a surname that we see the "chair"-proof of being promoted to art.
An inconspicuous museum, the curator found in a flea market: a lost work, a civilian artist who knows nothing about his potential, a simple creation... and more importantly, in this The back of the chair is still engraved with a communication that spans time-"a kind of eternal gratitude and remembrance", as we have seen, like a hint of the law of life.
On the way back, the female agent asked Salvardo, "Are you going to find him?"
——No, he is always with us.
"A person cannot step into the same river twice", but those who watch this river, will the river meander to come to them again?
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