After a lapse of 20 years, Jean Reno, who played the uneasy killer Lyon, interprets another role that is not too cold in "Summer in Provence". This time he is the one who "stays away" in the film Grandpa - Paul. The film's formulaic plot setting, conventional ideas of intergenerational reconciliation have made it doomed to be a work that will soon be overwhelmed, and the film's beautiful scenery of Provence and Jean Reno's strong endorsement also make it doomed from time to time. was brought up.
01
The endless fields swayed in the wind, the winding mountains stood quietly in the distance, and the bright sun shone through the trees on the dining table. Stone table, wooden chair, wind blows, leaves move. The gentle color matching with low saturation is enough to tease the softest place in people's hearts. The running of the bulls, the market, and the musical dances unique to the countryside add a touch of fun to the slow and leisurely time.
Light, comfortable and free. It's hard not to be touched by this paradise-like life for the audience running back and forth in the reinforced concrete urban forest. This is what "Summer in Provence" gives us outside the plot - the healing power from nature, and it is also the natural geographical gap between the grandfather Paul who lives here and his three grandsons who have lived in Paris for a long time.
"Summer in Provence" tells the story of three children who settled in Paris. Due to the divorce of their parents, their grandmother took them to a small village in Provence and spent a two-month summer vacation with their grandfather whom they had not met in 17 years.
The grandparents and grandchildren are bluntly arranged to live in the same space. Whether it is for the three children or the grandfather Paul, they are full of unwillingness and helplessness overflowing the screen. Children who have been domesticated by urban life always need all the city's iconic media such as movie theaters, KFC, WIFI, air conditioners, and social networks to satisfy the trendy, individual, and lively spiritual world. As for his grandfather Paul, who has been living in prison for seventeen years, he has gradually lost his expectations and desires for the happiness of the parent-child relationship, and any form of interruption from anyone is a burden to him.
02
Director Roslyn Burch trapped the grandparents and grandchildren in a small village in Provence. The purpose is obvious - to let people see the stagnant blood is thicker than water flowing again, and the indifference between generations is in a lazy romance. Once the land is warmed up again, wounds that have been intentionally or unintentionally inflicted can be stitched up and healed.
In the film, the director gave space to explain the three major propositions of life: friendship, love, and family affection.
The reunion of Grandpa Paul, played by Jean Reno, with his old friends is a commentary on friendship, and it is also the first time that children have entered Grandpa's inner world. The cool motorcycle full of mechanical feeling is not difficult to deduce the tough guy image of Paul when he was young. The unbridled rock music can also reproduce the style of the wild personality. The photos left by traveling around the world more vividly show a bold and brave man. grandpa.
This is the first reconciliation between two generations. This reunion made the three children put down their self-proclaimed sense of superiority in the city and re-examine the once youthful and invincible old man in front of them. This reunion also enabled Paul to pick up the enthusiasm and strength of his youth again, and with the blessing of friendship, he gained the recognition of the younger generation and thus self-identification.
The love line between Leia and the pizza shop owner is the second reconciliation between two generations. Contrary to Leia's open-ended behavior of wearing scantily clad, pierced earrings, and kissing on the street, Paul's conservative paranoia to protect his granddaughter leads Leia to elope with the pizza shop owner in a fit of rage. But when he learned that this man was not a good man, his grandfather Paul got on a motorcycle again, crossed mountains and rivers, and rescued Leia, and in the frank conversation between the two, Leia regained her confidence in love.
In this part, the director is actually trying to present a deeper gap between generations, between cities and villages, that is, the gap between ideas. Leia in the city is open, and Paul in the country is conservative; Leia in the city is indulgent, and Paul in the country is self-love; they are completely different, but in the end, Paul saved Leia, which probably means that the country makes up for the city. The shortcomings, complementing is repairing.
The third reconciliation was between Paul and his grandson Adrian and his younger grandson Theo. When Paul took Theo to watch the white hens hatch eggs, catch the little rabbits, water the vegetable garden, and pick apricots, when Paul calmed Adrian's complicated mind under the olive trees, he taught him how to During the land relationship, when Theo inadvertently held his grandfather's hand, when Adrian was leaning against his grandfather's arms to relax and sob, who can say that their family is weak and their grandparents are not in harmony?
03
"Summer in Provence" can be said to be a very unambitious film. Although the symbol of rock and roll is introduced in the film, it does not emphasize the blood. Although it shows the conflict, it ends the conflict in a gentle way. Between grandparents and grandchildren, between generations, between cities and villages, the patchwork is always lively and pleasant. Dissolve in the atmosphere and scenery.
At the end of the film, Paul once again emphasized the answer to the gap between urban and rural areas in his dialogue with Adrian: "People in Paris don't see the passage of time, they get up during the day and go to bed at night, while in Provence, the morning light is blue and the noon is scorching hot, The curves of the Alps at night, from which I can see the passage of time."
The arrival and departure of the three children fully shows that the slow life in the countryside is a comma in the city, where people rest and return to the trend of the city again. The two may not be separated, but accompanied by each other, just as what exists between generations may not be unfamiliar, but the time to slow down and coexist.
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