My name is Paloma. Eleven this year.
Lives in a high-class residence, 2 Rue Eugène Manuel, Paris.
My parents were very wealthy, and the family was wealthy, so my sister and I were wealthy as well.
despite this. As lucky and rich as I am, I have known for a long time the end of my life. It's a goldfish bowl.
A world where adults spend their time, like flies banging against the same window. But for sure, I will not go to the fish tank, this is a decision made after careful consideration.
At the end of this year, on my 12th birthday, next June 16th, 165 days later, I will take my own life.
Eleven-year-old Paloma recorded the opening remarks in a dark room with a flashlight on the camera her father gave her. All images captured on camera thereafter can be called her last words, and provide the remaining adults with an opportunity to explore the reasons for her suicide.
She walked out of the room and recorded as she walked, saying that she couldn't live like a rotten gang in the future just because she wanted to die. What matters is not death, nor at what age, but what we are doing at the moment of death. In Taniguchi's manga, the protagonist dies while climbing Mount Everest, and My Everest is a movie. A film that reveals why life is so absurd. Other people's lives, and my life, if all is meaningless, then at least the soul needs to face it bravely.
At that time, the mother called Paloma all over the house, and when she appeared in the dining room, the mother said to her, Paloma, why are you hiding. Her father told her to stop recording to answer her mother's questions, Paloma put down the camera, her father went to work, her sister looked at Paloma with contempt, what a troublesome child, very eccentric.
Renee opened the window, turned on the TV, put on her sweater jacket, walked out the door, out of the building. A man who looked like a driver stood outside the building. He was a private driver hired by a resident in the building. Then a man came out, and the driver bent over to open the door for him. Renee pulled two buckets of garbage to Jean Pierre's door. He was a homeless man, and there was no warm mattress inside the door. When Renee handed the garbage to him, she asked him, don't you want to go to the shelter? Today it's cold. Jean-Pierre shrugged it off, saying, asylum? I really want you to see it for yourself, it's so much better here. Then he sang in a playful tone, and Mrs. Michel's cat was gone, and she was screaming at the window. She knew who would give the cat back.
Renee is Mrs. Michelle, whose husband died of cancer a few years ago, leaving her as a concierge in the building. Renee turned and left, and she had sympathy for Jean-Pierre, who was also a low-class person.
On the way back to the building, several streams of water suddenly poured down. It was Paloma's mother watering the plants on the balcony.
Paloma's mother went back indoors with the kettle, and there was still her beloved plant indoors. She stroked the leaves of the plant and said, "You have grown up, dear, you are so beautiful." Then he kissed the leaf. Paloma, who was recording the moment, said the middle-class housewife, with whom she had been in close contact for a decade, had psychotherapy, anxiolytics, antidepressants and champagne. Mother is still talking to the plants, no, it's not a plant, but a plant with a smiling face, they have a soul, but they can't speak, my mother continues to praise, you are awesome, you are so perfect, I will give it to you again You water a little, it doesn't take much. Paloma, who was both miraculous and tragic about her mother's performance, went on to say that she was vaguely aware of the decorative potential of her greenery, but stubbornly spoke to them as people. Later, when she was going to class, she told her mother, who was still caring about plants, that she was leaving. The second time, the mother responded to Paloma, but her response was shorter and more coping than those of the plants. It is better that the servant who helped her at home would also say to Paloma that it is very cold today. Be careful to keep warm.
Renee was cleaning out the cigarette butts her father had hidden under the blanket outside the Paloma home. The two exchanged greetings, before Paloma noticed that Renee was different. Paloma went to school, and Renee was throwing letters into the mailboxes of the corresponding portals. She starts her day at work.
One of the residents died of a heart attack, and all the residents in the building came downstairs and said, we were going to have tea together this week; Being able to get together this morning, perhaps Mr. Ardern might sense something was wrong. That sort of thing, like a post-play discussion, what should have been done in the first place, the protagonist could have been spared from a car accident or being murdered. Paloma was recording, and she felt that adults fear death, which is obviously a very common thing. Her servant signaled to Paloma at the gate that Renee's cat came out and asked her to carry it in, so as not to get lost. Paloma had no choice but to pick up the cat and enter the porter's room for the first time.
That room was defined as a vulgar, lazy, low-interest concierge room. After she entered, she found that there was a book on the table that she was reading -- Tanizaki Junichiro's "Praise for Shadows". The book explores the differences between the beauty of Eastern art and the beauty of Western art. Shadow means a sheltered space, an undisturbed space, and it means that Renee, the concierge, has her wonderful secrets. Paloma began to feel that the concierge was not as ordinary as everyone thought it would be. Since she likes Japanese culture, she is studying Japanese as a second foreign language.
Paloma's sister's boyfriend and her parents came to visit. At that time, Paloma was drawing a grid of the countdown to 165 days on the wall of the room. Their mother led them into Paloma's room. They took a cursory glance. He left, said hello but didn't hear Paloma's response and left, imitation fluorine was just a procedure, a fake greeting, a mechanical action.
Mother and sister in the kitchen preparing food and drinks for guests, or mood. When filming her sister, Paloma said that her sister is a typical example of the theory of red goldfish in a fishbowl, bent on avoiding the neuroticism of her mother and becoming a better young girl than her father, and life for her is an eternity The war, must destroy others to achieve victory. At this time, Paloma's father came back, and her mother rushed up to hug her father and told him the news of the resident's death in the morning. The mother couldn't control her emotions, and suddenly became very sad, and hurriedly took a sip of champagne. She, wished she could remain calm during the dinner, which she feared would make her boyfriend's parents uncomfortable.
Dinner has started. The mother told her boyfriend's mother that she had seen a psychiatrist for ten years. She talked about a dream of her own, in which she dreamed that all her teeth had turned black and fell one by one. The psychiatrist said to her, dear madam, Freudians would say it was a death dream. Mother said and took another sip of champagne, while her sister frowned beside her. Paloma on the side observed everyone at the dinner table. She saw her boyfriend's mother steal the meat and feed it to the cat under the table. The dish had too much salt, but she told her mother that the meat was very delicious and she rarely eats so much red meat. When the mother heard the praise, she was suddenly sad again and burst into tears. The dish was not made by her, but prepared by the servants at home. She left the table crying. The boyfriend's mother was shocked and embarrassed.
Later, her boyfriend's father and Paloma had an argument about whether Go was invented in China or Japan. Paloma likes Go, so she told what she knew about Go, but her father told her to shut up and asked her to return. In the room, Paloma once again felt that the world of adults is real and fake. She's a smart kid, and a kid who thinks she knows more than adults, and in this movie, with the camera in her hand, as an observer, she thinks adults are anyone in this building, They are all people who live in fish tanks. They are human beings who are bound without knowing it, and who think they are noble without introspection. They are used to dealing with them, and they also lose their sincerity. At the same time, she is also a "prophet". She thinks that she can see the future of others, that is, to enter the fish tank to live. It is immutable and inevitable. Every time she sees it, she decides to commit suicide.
Paloma shared the elevator with the new occupant, a Japanese soldier named Grand, and the two talked about the porter in the elevator, both of whom thought the porter was someone with a secret.
Xiao Jungran had a conversation with him when he moved in. At that time, the landlord took him and asked Renee to prepare everything the new occupant needed. When talking about the previous resident, Xiao Jungran asked. Renee, what kind of person do you think he is, Renee said, I don't know the people here very well, this family is no different from other families. The landlord said, yes, a happy family. Renee said that all happy families are very similar. Little Jungran continued, and every unhappy family has its own misfortune. This is a passage from the novel "Anna Karenina" written by Leo Tolstoy (although, I'm not interested in this kind of Aegean story that suddenly caught my eye, but it doesn't look like the story. The point is here, forget it, otherwise it really feels awkward, blunt, and unrealistic.) However, it is still unacceptable to be able to see a person's special features with just one sentence. In the later period, Xiao Jungran's explosive and fast attacking love for Renee didn't quite understand, and the look in his eyes that seemed to have seen Renee in his previous life was too strong, but he felt wretched. I want to tell Renee to run .
Renee went back to the house, went into her hiding place, the room with three walls of books, and took out the book "Anna Karenina", how could Renee be tempted. Heartbeat is indeed a dangerous word. No spoilers ahead.
Jungran invites Renee to dinner. With the help of her cook friend, Renee went to the beautician to get her hair done and put on the evening dress she borrowed from the laundromat. On the day of the appointment, Renee felt both nervous and ashamed. The shame was that she had betrayed her beliefs. As a well-known loner concierge and a self-confessed recluse, she had already decided to close her heart to the outside world. There is too much involvement, but the appearance of Xiaojungran, one treats her as a neighbor, and the other says that one person can have dual identities. With just a few words, will she leave the room? Renee is confused and scared by her change.
Aside, Paloma continued her suicide plan, which was to steal her mother's sleeping pills every day. She thought that her collection of medicines was almost enough. Her mother told her at the dinner table that she advised her to see her psychiatrist. Even smart people have times when they are helpless. Sober but not happy. Paloma hit back at her mother's point of view, saying, "I think only psychoanalysis is comparable to religion in terms of continued pleasure in pain." Her father asked her why she answered this way. Paloma went on to say that her mother told everyone that she went to see a psychiatrist for ten years, just to open the champagne, but she forgot about the same ten years of antidepressants, and believed that both. It doesn't matter. That is, the pain clearly exists, but the mother chooses to pretend to be deaf. After listening to this, my father thought for a while, poured himself a glass of red wine, and asked Paloma if he wanted a drink too.
Paloma went back to her room. At night, while everyone was asleep, she took a piece of her mother's sleeping pill and put it into the fish tank. Watching the goldfish take the sleeping pill and surfaced, she flushed the dead goldfish down the toilet. .
My sister sent Paloma to the porter to draw her attention to a very important letter. Paloma thus gets the opportunity to visit Renee frequently. Paloma takes the camera to Renee's room and asks her to say something, such as introducing herself. Renee said she was withdrawn, eccentric, old and bad-mouthed, unremarkable, there was a cat in the house named Ryan whose paws stink when she was angry, and that people in the building didn't like her, but because she fit a Typical image of a concierge - grumpy, always watching TV, with a fat cat around, and the smell of food from a cheap restaurant in the house. After Renee's introduction, she asked Paloma what she wanted to know, and Paloma moved the camera to another closed door. She said, what are you hiding behind this door. Renee took her in to see the three walls of books, the dim reading light, a comfortable sofa chair, and a fat cat that followed. Paloma went back and made the perfect hiding place in a 3D card.
Another Saturday afternoon, Renee went to Xiaojungran's house to watch a Japanese movie she had made an appointment to watch. She brought snacks, and the two spent an afternoon of getting to know each other like confidants. When leaving, Renee saw the photo of his deceased wife hanging on the wall of Xiaojungran's house. The two told each other about the widowhood. Xiaojungran said that he didn't know about Renee's husband's death. Renee said that because He is just a concierge, no one cares about the life and death of a concierge. Renee suddenly felt that she shouldn't sink so deeply, that there would be no results.
Paloma told her parents that she would be a concierge in the future, and her father and mother agreed, saying that they would do their best to help realize this dream. Here, Paloma said that when she grew up, didn't she decide to commit suicide on her twelfth birthday? Perhaps it was Renee who made her understand that she would have her own hiding place too, and maybe she could find it if she looked. For example, to be a concierge, she went to tell Renee, Renee disagreed, saying, you will be a princess in the future. Just as he was talking, Xiao Jungran came again, and he invited Renee out to dinner, saying that he hoped to spend his birthday with her. Renee refused, thinking it shouldn't go on. She was afraid of expecting too much and being disappointed. Paloma was puzzled and asked her if there was anything else tonight. Under Paloma's questioning, Renee cried uncontrollably. Paloma hugged her tightly. I don't know why, that picture is like two people with the same illness comforting each other, you can clearly feel Renee's inferiority complex in front of Xiao Jungran, who is a hundred times better than herself And the painful state of mind, and Paloma, is a child who is not understood by her family, she has no object to talk to, no character who understands her, only Renee can really see her.
Renee eventually accepts Jungran's invitation to wear the suit he bought for her. Renee, who was dressing up, heard the sound from the toilet. She took out a glass and scooped the resurrected goldfish out of the toilet.
When Renee and Jungran walked out of the building, they met the landlord. The landlord didn't recognize Renee. Jungran said it was because she had never seen you.
The two went to a Japanese restaurant, and Jungran told her, we can be friends and do whatever we want. Renee, we can be friends and do whatever we want. Renee hooked Jungran's arm on the way back. From the bottom of her heart, Renee was very moved. In such a classy and cruel society, there are still people who can find her as a little star in the vast dark night. Her beauty is the kindness of the soul, the knowledge of books and reason, and the skin like a hedgehog, but her heart is soft and delicate, a real elegance.
Renee returns to her hiding place and opens the Anna Karenina that Jungran gave her.
Above, Paloma crushed the sleeping pills collected, and packed them into powder in a glass bottle. She looked at the bottle that was about to kill herself. Tomorrow was her twelfth birthday. Selfishly, it would be nice if the story ended here.
Renee, who had read a book all night, was busy in her room with a smile on her face, doing her porter work as usual, pushing two garbage trucks. Jean-Pierre was dancing on the side of the road, and Renee told him not to stay there, it was in the middle of the road and it was dangerous. Jean-Pierre still disapproved, and continued to sing in a teasing tone, Madame Michel, has your cat been lost? At this moment, Renee turned her back on her previous attitude and walked out of the middle of the road, trying to stop Pierre's dangerous movements, when a car hit her.
Renee is dead. Paloma stood in front of the building and cried. She suddenly felt that death was a terrible thing. It's such a painful thing.
Just like this, everything comes to an abrupt end, is this death? Never see the people you love again, never see the people who love you again, if this is death, it's as tragic as people say.
Paloma and Jungran organize Renee's belongings together, and Jungran gives "Anna Karenina" to Paloma.
What matters is not death. It's what people do when they die.
Renee, what were you doing when you died. You are ready to love.
I think the film is about waking up, a little girl who wants to die, and a middle-aged woman who decides to keep her distance from outsiders. But what strikes me the most is Renee's little warm, undisturbed hideout, presumably the hidden longing, laziness, and, perhaps, a shameful escape lurking in my mind. I often say that if I can, I want to go to the forest, build a house, and live a life of farming and fishing, similar to Thoreau's "Walden Pond" and Mr. Liang Shiqiu's "Elegant Sketches", even in a humble environment , but freedom is the biggest goal, and being free from worries is the state of pursuit. If it is possible, I am quite thinking, then why not? There are too many. If I want to list it, the biggest one should be my family who cannot get rid of it and follow it all the way. Therefore, this plan may have to wait for a long, long time. When I am in my 60s, I may be able to obtain it. The so-called freedom I think now, or maybe at that time, I will feel that it is not very free, in fact, the forest. However, it is only after experience that you will know which is the best. As said in the film, what matters is not death, but what you are doing at the moment of death.
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