Juliette Binoche, born in 1964, is 55 this year.
She is still graceful and slender, but the years have left marks on her face.
She is still beautiful, but she will never be a girl in her twenties.
People always say, why is the role of Chinese middle-aged actresses so narrow?
Women in their thirties, forties, or even fifties, if they no longer have youthful beauty, they will no longer have a decent show. And older actresses, it seems, can only play supporting roles.
Our society seems particularly unacceptable to women's aging.
Juliette Binoche's new film Who Do You Think I Am , seems to have the answer.
From outside the play, it answers the question of what roles an actress in her fifties can play without maintaining a girly state.
From the play, it analyzes the denial, escape, confrontation and interpretation of a woman in her fifties with a successful career.
Claire is over fifty, a literature professor, divorced, and living with two sons.
Her boyfriend's detached attitude made her think of monitoring him through the Internet. She created a fictional 24-year-old girl named Clara on Facebook, and then met her boyfriend's photographer friend Alex.
Claire used the photos and videos of her niece Cartier to make Clara the real Clara on the Internet.
Clara has the youthful beauty of Cartier and the soul of Claire.
As the exchange deepened, Alex and "Clara" gradually developed feelings.
Love made Claire find the girl's heart. She hid behind the screen, hid in the earphones, and sprouted like her first love.
She became like a young man without her cell phone, impulsive, dancing at academic parties, and even having sex with Alex on the phone in the car.
But when Alex offers to meet, Claire backs away. She frequently made excuses for rejecting offers to meet. In the face of the other party's insistent request, she did not dare to come forward to reveal her identity when she arrived at the date. She could only pass by with low self-esteem and regret. In the end, she could not face this unseen online dating and chose to separate.
Alex couldn't accept the reality of his brokenheartedness, and his depression led to his death in a car accident.
The story of the whole film unfolds in the communication between Claire and the psychiatrist.
In the relationship she described, she could not avoid facing her own desires and emotions, cowardice and inferiority, and the pain after losing everything.
She then turned her story into a book.
In the book, after breaking up with Alex as Clara, she appears in his life as Claire. They are in love.
But she is gradually unable to determine whether Alex loves her or is looking for Clara's shadow in her. After all, Claire gave Clara her soul, and her voice.
She wanted to find out to whom Alex's love was given. Is true love a collision between souls, or is everything gone without appearance?
If the face is old, is the soul meaningless?
In Claire's book, she doesn't hear Alex's answer. She let herself die in a car accident before he could make a decision.
This is her guilt, but also her inferiority complex.
Their relationship began with lies, lie after lie, and spanned insurmountable years. So much so that in Claire's imagination, she doesn't deserve happiness.
Deep down in her heart, she would not let herself go.
Why would Claire choose to hide behind another woman's exterior? Just because that sac is young?
The psychiatrist finally cut open Claire's disguise bloody. The niece Cartier stole Claire's ex-husband. Instead of moving to Norway on her own, as Claire describes, she moved into her ex-husband's house and became a new mistress after their divorce.
Deep down, Claire wanted an answer.
Soul and skin, which one is more important? Do people really give up their loving souls for the sake of their skins? Faced with the law of natural aging, middle-aged women are no longer worthy of having young love?
So after this real relationship passed away like a gust of wind, Claire was left alone in the whirlpool to suffer.
She would never wait for the answer, or rather, she finally did.
Alex isn't dead, he has a new love and is going to be a dad.
From the beginning of the love story, everything is fictional.
The fictional protagonist, the love in the virtual world, and even the ending is a lie.
But stripped of identity, family, wealth, appearance, the sincere soul is true. As he ages and has been baptized by wind and sand, he still longs for love and desire, recognition and warmth.
"Who Do You Think I Am" shows us a middle-aged woman who has taken off all labels. She's a divorced woman, a mother of two, and a brilliant professor, but that's just her label, not her heart.
Women should not deny their own value because of aging, and the struggle against the years is rooted in the spiritual level, rather than staying on the appearance forever.
Middle-aged actresses also shine beyond their age because of the existence of such roles.
There are also many excellent middle-aged actresses in China.
They are forced to fight against wrinkles and sagging skin, and are forced to put themselves in the shell of a girl forever, until they can only be willing to be supporting roles, or simply choose to stay in the shadows.
They also deserve a role like Claire, no longer youthful, but still charming, and can become absolute protagonists without being attached to a family.
-END-
Original: Yi Xiaomeng
First published on the public account: a little movie
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