First, start with the words and essays of "Jiang Chengzi". Su Shi wrote this article ten years after the death of his beloved wife, Wang Fu, when he first served as the prefect of Michigan. In the article, Su Shi, like Isaac, returned to the past through a dream, and met his wife. The verse expresses his infinite grief and mourning. However, it is worth noting that Su Shi’s own image in his dreams is "dust-covered face, temples are like frost", while his wife Wang Fu, who died young, is the opposite of "Xiao Xuan Chuang, dressing up", a peaceful and happy image. look. If such a description is shot one by one, it should be somewhat similar to Isaac's dream of returning to memory in "Wild Strawberry".
In "Wild Strawberry", Professor Isaac revisited the old place, reminiscing about the past. In the dream of his childhood memory, all the brothers, sisters, relatives, and friends are the vivid, youthful and beautiful images of the past in his memory. In the dream when he returned to his childhood, the brothers, sisters, relatives and friends he saw were still the youthful and energetic faces in his memory. But Professor Yi Wei alone is Professor Sack, he is in his own dreamland with a fascinating face and old age. He cannot go back to his past, he cannot enter their world. Why?
In "Jiang Chengzi", Su Shi faced the situation of losing his beloved wife, but still had to go through the ups and downs of his official career in the officialdom of real life. It was reality, and it was the blow of fate that continued to torment his face, allowing him to continue to struggle in real life. But his wife passed away at the beginning, and she never suffered anymore, because she transferred all the pain to the living people. Just like what Watanabe said in "Norwegian Forest", Watanabe would sigh with emotion when his beloved friend Kiyuki committed suicide in his teens: the dead will always live at the age when he died. Because the living people have to continue to survive and accept all kinds of real torture. That's why there is such a huge contrast between "Dust covered face, temples like frost" and "Xiaoxuan window, dressing up".
In "Wild Strawberry", why is it not like this? At the beginning of the film, Professor Isaac said: He is an old scholar, his wife died very early, he had a son, and then learned from his daughter-in-law, Marianne, how much he made her and him. The son hates it. I agree with everyone that this is because of the indifference of the heart caused by Isaac's experience as a child, or his alienated fear of others, which makes him indifferent and ruthless towards other people. He is isolated in his own world, but people cannot endure such isolation forever. That's why he devoted himself to medical research, hoping to use all kinds of reason to numb his emotions, let his soul get a kind of sublimation, make himself transcend human limitations, and make himself transcendence. But when he gained academic achievements, when he was old and needed to face death, he passed his dreams and restarted thinking about his life. He is human after all, and he is afraid of loneliness after all. Recalling the scene in the movie, when he returned to his dream to be judged, the judge completely denied his various achievements in medical science. In that dream, he could not answer even the most basic medical knowledge, which also completely condemned all his intellectual efforts to be denied as futile. And the punishment the judge gave him was "loneliness" that he could not accept anyway. Isaac can't go back, can't return to the world of the vivid and loving person, but he has been continuously tortured by reality and reason. Although his suffering was not the torture of Su Shi's life and death and reality, it was a torment of loneliness and indifference that was more profound. That's why they are all "faced with dust and frost on their temples."
These are the inspirations from Su Shi for understanding the mental state of Professor Isaac in the film. It is their similar dreams that give us important clues for interpretation, allowing us to understand Professor Isaac's spiritual dilemma. Of course, Isaac in the film eventually changed a bit. The encounter between him and the three young people and the dreams during the journey made him more and more aware of the power of love and true feelings. Finally, the old man fell into a dream peacefully and peacefully. Those pains, won't come to haunt him again in this life, on the road of dying.
View more about Wild Strawberries reviews
