"Old Man of Mountains and Rivers"

Dora 2022-08-21 13:00:35

Two men and one woman are three good friends, and both men fall in love with a girl - a very common love triangle story, but Jia Zhangke's shooting is natural, vivid, full of life, and very realistic. Actors are not handsome men and beautiful women, at best they are decent-looking. Zhang Jinsheng has the temperament and dress of a fashionable youth in a small county in the 1990s. Liang Zi is like all young men with poor conditions, with a vague and taciturn face. And the heroine Shen Tao is not beautiful either, she is a little rustic, with a medium-high appearance, bright, lively and capable, and looks like a girl in a small county. Jia Zhangke's stories about ordinary people have a particularly down-to-earth sense of reality.

Zhang Jinsheng and Liang Zi both like Shen Tao, but the strength is too great, and Shen Tao's choice is obvious. Men are too poor, is it just like women are too ugly? There is a sense of tragic powerlessness.
In fact, Zhang Jinsheng is not a good candidate. He persuaded Liang Zi to be arrogant, dismissed Liang Zi for bullying, and the impulse to buy a gun to kill is arrogant and arrogant - Zhang Jinsheng is full of slots, but Shen Tao is like a blindfold.
Maybe not really invisible. It's just that everyone's options are limited. Usually people just choose between A and B. A is better than B, so choose A. Of course, A is not without problems, but when people are in love, they cannot always be as rational and objective as bystanders.

Shen Tao and Zhang Jinsheng got married, and Liang Zi left home and threatened to never look back. After the love and hatred of the three people when they were young, the film was just released, and the four characters "Mountains and Rivers Old Man" were typed.

Liang Zi told Shen Tao that he would never go back. If he is the male lead, then he will definitely meet the nobles in a foreign land, make good luck, stand out, and finally return home - but he is not. He is just an ordinary person, who has never read any books, has no specialties, and has no luck - leaving his hometown, he can only be a miner.
Fifteen years later, Liang Zi married a wife and had children, lived in a shabby rental house, and contracted lung cancer, which seemed to be an occupational disease of miners. Liang Zi's life was a standard template for poverty - he must have struggled and worked hard back then, but in the end he could only accept his fate.
The reunion of Liang Zi and Shen Tao may be the saddest version of the reunion of old lovers. When Liang Zi, who was poor and sick, took the 20,000 yuan that Shen Tao gave him, he didn't know what kind of mixed feelings would be in his heart, and he couldn't express his emotions.
At that time, Shen Tao and Zhang Jinsheng had already divorced, but I think she should never regret her choice. At least, she is rich now.
Always solve life problems first, then people have the spare energy to talk about feelings.

I don't really like Shen Tao's attitude towards his nine-year-old son. Pulling down the child's scarf in disgust; yelling at the child, forcing him to kowtow in front of the grandfather's spirit; rudely interrupting the child's chat with the stepmother and arguing with each other; taking the child on the slowest train... Of course I can understand, understand her right The love of a son and the pain of losing a son—it may not be appropriate to say that I understand, but I can only say that I understand. I understand that she despises her son for wearing a scarf, because it is the aesthetic of another world that is out of her reach; she understands that she yells at her son for forcing him to kowtow because she is saddened by the loss of her father; she understands that she hates the harmony and intimacy between her stepmother and her son. Because she lost both her husband and her son... I understand that she takes the child on the slowest train because she wants to spend more time with her son.
But the child only politely said "delicious" when facing her carefully wrapped wheat ear dumplings; the child did not want to stay with her for a while longer. Facing the spiritual position of his grandfather, the child was at a loss and had no grief over the death of the stranger.
It's really a tragedy, and then no one is wrong. Including Zhang Jinsheng.

Zhang Daole is not a beautiful boy either, just like the young people who can be seen everywhere in life, with a plain appearance and only youth. When he and Zhang Aijia went to bed, I blurted out: Oh, I thought he had an Oedipus complex with Zhang Aijia, but I didn't expect they fell in love with him. The domestic cat said that this is the standard Oedipus complex. The domestic cat says why you are in this tone.
I just realized that my tone was full of prejudice and discrimination. The love and sex of young men and older women seems to have a disdain and ridicule in the first reaction - such a prejudice, perhaps from the deep-rooted traditional concept of marriage and love. Or maybe it's jealousy, a kind of deep jealousy in the subconscious, because in ordinary life, when a woman is older, she will no longer have the chance to fall in love.
Traditional biases are ubiquitous and far-reaching. If you do not think carefully, you will inevitably fall into the narrow thinking of prejudice.

Zhang Aijia asked Zhang Dale: How do you plan to introduce me to your mother, teacher, sister or girl friend? Zhang Dale was speechless, Zhang Aijia smiled and did not ask further. At the beach, Zhang Aijia said to Zhang Dale: You are free.
Zhang Aijia's words, with a pun, have a sense of understanding, tolerance and calmness.

When I was young, I always liked to investigate whether there was love between men and women, and whether it was true love. However, today I understand that many times, some warmth and joy are enough to support a journey together.

View more about Mountains May Depart reviews

Extended Reading

Mountains May Depart quotes

  • Mia: The hardest thing about love is caring.

  • Mia: Time doesn't change all things, that is what it has taught me.