After all, you can have companions when you watch a movie, but you can only come to experience the movie by yourself. Life is like this, we walk together on the road, but the ups and downs can only be tasted alone.
With or without company, pass by
No matter whether they are together, whether they are prosperous and lively, or lonely and deserted, in fact, they are always alone.
At the end of "Old Man of Mountains and Rivers", the heroine "Tao" dances alone in the snowflakes flying all over the sky. Below my feet is the eternally silent land of my hometown, next to it is the river that is frozen in the next spring and still flowing slowly, behind it is the ancient pagoda that has stood for thousands of years and still does not fall down, surrounded by a bottomless night of emptiness. The mountains, the space, the river, and the years are the time and space of such a boundless and endless history, which only serves as the background for her to dance alone. The mountains and rivers are still there, where to find the old people? She is an old friend, you, me, him, every individual who comes and goes alone between heaven and earth, watching fate overturn, tasting joys and sorrows, and finally going back, dancing alone in the arms of her hometown, even if there is no audience ,so what.
"Mountains and Rivers Old Man" is a sad but not sad movie. Its sadness lies in the helplessness of the humble individual in the torrent of history, in the helplessness of life's struggle in the trick of fate, in the helplessness of human beings who are eager to understand but are eternally lonely. But the movie is restrained and restrained, without dramatic ups and downs, it hides sadness quietly under the surface of trivial life, but it is birth, old age, sickness, and death, but it is love, hate, gathering , scattered. When the wheel of fate rolls over, the cry of every ordinary individual is too weak to evoke a single echo in the vast and vast background of the times. So simply, put away the useless tears, grit your teeth, endure silently, don't say a word, even if you are crushed into powder, at least there is still love and righteousness, that little bit of warmth, that stumbling care, just It is the meaning of our existence in the world to experience hardships and yet rejoice.
1. Life is like a traveller in the world.
Let's go back to the beginning of the movie in 1999. This story begins with three ordinary youths in the county town: Tao, Jinsheng and Liangzi. Tao is a pure and happy female teacher with a red face, a red coat and a green scarf, who will perform at a cultural evening. Jin Sheng and Liang Zi are two suitors who adore her. The first part of the film revolves around a love triangle.
In 1999, when Macau returned to China, the clouds of the 20th century slowly dissipated, and the curtain of the 21st century was about to begin. Standing at the juncture of the two centuries, the surface was calm and undercurrent.
In this small county town in Shanxi, China, everything is still so calm, as always, the three young people enjoy a carefree friendship, and people are happily preparing for the upcoming county-wide cultural performance, which is the afterglow of a bygone era The last trace of gentle glances under the shroud, but some things have quietly changed, and they walked forward involuntarily with everyone wrapped around them without hesitation.
The first signal to break the tranquility was Jinsheng's red Santana.
Jin Sheng has a flexible mind and a business vision. He belongs to the trend-setter of the times who is good at seizing opportunities. He runs gas stations, buys coal mines, and engages in venture capital. The first group of people in the same generation to grasp the wealth. But there is another side to Jin Sheng's character. He is domineering, domineering, narrow-minded, competitive and controlling, which may be a plus for success in business, but not necessarily a virtue in love.
Jinsheng's method of obtaining love is almost overwhelming. He drove the red Santana representing wealth to show off in front of Tao and Liangzi, which shows that the former partners have stood on different starting lines. If the boy carrying Guan Gong's sword in the movie represents the simple and innocent years of the past, As the teenagers drifted away, the protagonists of the movie also bid farewell to the carefree youth in the face of the impact of this red Santana, and began a new era of adults. This era is accompanied by wealth. The polarization, accompanied by the explosion of information, is violent and dizzying.
With the foreshadowing of Red Santana, it is not surprising that Jinsheng used a coal mine position and Liangzi as an exchange of love. In his world, there is nothing that cannot be settled by money. Money is his morality. The extreme adoration of money led him to name his son Le-dollar.
Jinsheng's attitude toward money determines his attitude toward love, so can we also infer his attitude toward money from his attitude toward love? After he got Tao, because he was jealous that Tao might still miss Liang Zi, Jin Sheng even wanted to kill Liang Zi with guns and explosives. Does this crazy unscrupulous behavior mean that he was equally unscrupulous when grabbing wealth?
Jin Sheng is a typical representative of this materialistic era. He is smart, ambitious, cruel, and perhaps lucky. He achieved the so-called "success" in the secular sense, but has he really succeeded? This is to be explained in the third part of the film. But I think the original intention of the film is not to criticize people like Jinsheng, nor to explore what is real success or failure. Maybe there is never a real winner or loser on the stage of life. Movies just record or show a certain kind of life, and this kind of life is with you and me.
In stark contrast to Jinsheng is Liangzi. Liang Zi has a calm and gentle personality. His love for Tao was warm and ironic. After the crash, Tao said that the car was imported and would not break. Liang Zi added with a smile, "Aren't you domestic?". In the face of Jinsheng's provocation, he can also reply without being arrogant: "Where can I get this rice from Liang Zi." In the movie, Tao and Liang Zi are obviously more relaxed when they are together. But sometimes we meet the right person, but we don't necessarily know what we really want at that time. In the end, facing Tao's choice, Liang Zi could only leave the stage sadly.
Liang Zi, who has lost his love, has not been favored by his fate. God is never fair, and the fate of individuals is full of accidents. In the turbulent tide of the times, countless Liang Zi can only be like a single leaf and a lonely boat, swaying involuntarily, based on various fortunes. , bumping on the top of the waves, or silently sinking to the bottom of the sea.
The film did not explain why Tao made such a choice. Maybe there are elements of vanity, maybe there are realistic considerations, maybe he was moved by Jin Sheng's enthusiastic confession, maybe both, but it is more likely that he is young and ignorant. Almost all of us decide our love when we don’t understand love. In addition to love, there are further studies and employment. We all make major choices in life when we are ignorant, right? Feiye? Only a lifetime of years can be left to test.
In the movie, when Tao told his father about his choice, the old man's hesitant expression showed his doubts about this choice. Knowing the daughter Mo Ruofu, the father knew that the gentle Liangzi was more suitable for the daughter who loved freedom and unfettered, and the father expected his daughter. The future is uncertain but it will never be smooth sailing. But the old man still said nothing. Maybe the old man knows that everyone has their own destiny, and their own path can only be walked by themselves. In the movie, the sunset outside the train shines on the old man's wrinkled face for a long time, which is the most unforgettable scene for me.
In the world of life, suddenly a traveller. In 1999, that year, Liang Zi went abroad. That year, Jinsheng and Tao got married, and that year, the plane fell from the sky. The protagonists in the movie start their respective lives at the beginning of the new millennium, what will await them?
2. Looking at each other with a sense of loss and knowing that it is the
time when the old friend came to switch to 2014, the closest era to us. Some people leave and come back. Some people who thought they were together forever, but never looked back.
Once upon a time, we thought that life could be as happy as the drama on the stage, but in the end, we bowed our heads again and again under the trick of fate.
Liang Zi came back with a whole body of injuries. Once, he threw the key on the roof in a fit of anger, and resolutely said that he would never look back. Now, with his wife and son, when his life is about to come to an end, the only thing he can do is to return the leaves to their roots. Liang Zi stared at the struggling and roaring tiger in the zoo's cage for a long time and said, "The world is so big, how can there be no room for people?" Countless people have said this sentence countless times, but the answer is that there is nowhere to go. Time dilutes personal grievances, no matter how strong the love and hatred have been, they are so insignificant in the face of powerful time and cold reality. The hometown is still the same, the personnel are completely different, how many thousands of words, only lightly turned into one sentence: convenient?
Jinsheng is gone, and after completing the primitive accumulation of capital, he goes to another adventurer's paradise. What he took with him was Tao's only son. The man who once stood on the street and shouted, "You bully me, you know I care about you, you bully me" has become a strange man on the other end of the phone. This part of the movie didn't even give him a single shot. No family fell apart and didn't experience pain, but all the thrill was hidden behind Tao's words, "You are just like your father, you love to take care of people. ." The old man has left, and everything has melted into clouds.
Tao, who lost her husband and son, at least still has her father to accompany her, but no one can accompany you to walk with you all your life. When your father dies, he died on the journey. When his son comes back, he will leave again in the end, even if the train leaves again. Slowly, separation is still doomed from the beginning, and what we have is now deprived.
What is life? In the second part of the film, the truth of life is peeled off to us, and it is almost cruel to let us see what is birth, old age, sickness and death, and what is separation and separation. "Everyone can only accompany you for a while", there is nothing you have all the time, nothing you can't lose, and you are always alone. Facing Jin Sheng's departure, Liang Zi's illness, father's death, son's separation, crying, pain, and experience, perhaps the only thing Tao can do is to cherish these memories, just like she picked them up and left them on Liang Zi's bed. The red invitation card, gently brushed the dust of the years above, and then cherished it and kept it as a souvenir.
Jin Sheng, Liang Zi, father, son, love, friendship, family, these are the most important people in Tao's life, the most important feelings in the second part of the film one by one, and the curtain ends abruptly. We often compare life to a river that never turns back. The Old Man of Mountains and Rivers feels like a river. It does not describe a certain story in detail, but only shows the process, so the life of the protagonist spreads slowly like a river. , flows quietly. Whoever said that all stories must have a beginning and an end, who said that the cause and effect of life can have a clear why, people who once loved each other hurriedly separated at the next corner, it turns out that every experience of ours is just life The waves on the river, I don't know when to rise, I don't know when to stop, the wind comes and the waves, the wind passes without a trace, the turbulence passes, the excitement passes, and it returns to calm in an instant, and finally there is only the water of time, rolling forward, never resting.
What is the meaning of life if life is just a dream that passes by in vain? After all, there will still be some things left, such as the dumplings in the shape of wheat ears, such as the key that tightly protects the chest...
3.
The third part of the movie tells us a story about the future. Story, will the future be any different? That's not far from ten years away, that's the far side of the ocean.
The dilapidated and shabby Chinese county town has been replaced by an Australian city with high-rise buildings, the dusty sky of the motherland has been replaced by a spotless blue sea and blue sky, and the Chinese aunt who eats melon seeds has become a Hong Kong female teacher who speaks foreign languages. What about people? Still the same loneliness.
I think the theme of this film is about loneliness. Loneliness is not only about life being alone between heaven and earth, but also about people being around. I don’t know you.
The Bible records that in order to prevent mankind from building the Tower of Babel together, God created different languages so that mankind could not communicate. Language is a tool of communication, but the original source of language is produced as an obstacle to communication. So we can use language as a metaphor for the eternal loneliness of human beings. Think about it carefully, aside from myths and legends, the form of language is the product of loneliness. It is because of loneliness that human beings rely on language to communicate.
The film uses the form of "language" to set off the theme of "loneliness". After Jinsheng fled, he could only communicate with his dearest son through Google Translate. The difference in language is only an appearance, and the depth is the separation between father and son. Jinsheng's loneliness is also manifested in the deprivation of the environment on which he lives. In China, he once asked for a shot, but in Australia he can easily collect a room of guns, but he can no longer find an opponent. What is more lonely than losing an opponent? Is it something? Who's to say that the current Jinsheng is happier than the one who showed off triumphantly in the red Santana in the first part? Jinsheng at this time is no different from the caged tiger in the second part of the movie.
Lonely than Jinsheng is Dale. If Jinsheng who went to Guobei Township can still recall his past life with a big tea jar and a group of old men from the same background as him, Dale, a man who even forgot his mother and mother tongue. A child is a complete orphan in spirit. Tole's loneliness comes from the loss of a new generation of immigrants to their own culture. Culture is the spiritual home of a nation. It’s not scary to say goodbye to one’s homeland. What’s scary is to abandon one’s own culture. Forgetting one’s mother tongue means losing one’s own culture, and losing one’s own culture means losing one’s own roots. No matter where you are, you will have no sense of belonging.
Based on this, the love affair between Dale and the female teacher came naturally. The female teacher played by Zhang Aijia is from Hong Kong. She was a group of overseas immigrants when she returned to China in 1997. She was alone and her life was lost. She is not only about the same age as Tao, but despite the difference in life background, her encounter is not different from that of Tao, she is just another Tao on the other side of the ocean. What he was looking for in Joy was not only the sympathy of the fallen people from the end of the world, but also the warmth of a mother, but I think the more important thing is that he wants to find the answer to break the loneliness.
So we see that in the movie, the female teacher acts as a bridge between father and son through translation. Similarly, it is also the female teacher who firmly urges the hesitant to play: go home, go home. He has a key, the key represents mother, home, hometown, motherland. She is not his key.
Where your house? Even if the wanderer knows to go home, can he still go back? Dale and the female teacher are blocked from returning home. In the scene at the airport, the two have their own concerns and want to talk, but they finally break up. There is no need to say anything. No amount of language can make one person fully understand the other. The two souls who once warmed each other are destined to return to their loneliness.
Where is the sunset in the township pass, the Yanbo River makes people sad. In the present, in the distant future, how can we entrust our souls that have no place in the world, the film asks questions, but does not tell us the answers. Although the movie could not give us a bright ending and ended with the desolate gesture of dancing alone in the snow, when Dale called "Tao" affectionately to the sea, the resonance of the mother far away in the motherland made us cry Flow all over. Blood is thicker than water, and love will last forever. At that moment, we realized that maybe the reason why people are human is just because of the word "love".
Postscript
The sky leaves no trace, but the birds have already flown by. Those people I met in my life, maybe you have disappeared from my life, maybe we will never meet again in this life, but I will always remember you, it is because of your company that I have the courage to finish this lonely life. journey. At the end of this article, I want to give Ye Qianwen's "Treasure" in the movie to everyone who has ever appeared in my life, to you, dear friend, to treasure, forever.
Suddenly silent, the air
stopped on the way, it makes people look back at you again, your
eyes are getting red , you can't
hide the attachment and sorrow
for many years, I don't know how to say
where I still care about
you A
cool
future or Bai Xuefei If you ca n't
want to leave
Holding hands, shaking hands, breaking up and waving
goodbye
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