Look at "Night by the Sea Alone" again, in January 2018. During this time, Hong Sang-soo made "Claire's Camera" and "After", and I started filling the living room bookcase, and had a housewarming party with my friends. Being alone can already bypass the whirlpool of emotions and become more calm and profound.
Looking at the photo of the director, he has gray hair and a lot of thoughts. When a smart man reaches middle age, will his head and heart be as smart? Are smart men not cowardly men? Do cowardly men still need women to save them? This time, I started to be curious about Hong Sang Soo.
There are some constant elements in Hong Sang-soo's films. He likes to explore the changes in time and space in structure, and he likes to show the push-pull state of the relationship between the sexes at the wine table. He also likes to leave some pauses in the film as a metaphor for the whole story.
In "Alone", Hong Sang-soo used the three-stage structure with ease, and jumped to present the three periods around Young-hee's feelings:
Act 1: Young-hee goes to a small German town to relax, accompanied by an older girlfriend, waiting to meet the director on Saturday.
Act 2: After returning to China, I came to Gangneung, watched the director's movie in tears, and reminisced over a drink with my former friends.
Act 3: Walking on the seaside of Gangneung, meeting with the director's team, confiding to the director the pain of not being able to love at the wine table, and getting the director's response that he is a coward.
The correct chronological order should be Act 3 - Act 1 - Act 2.
I tried to restore the whole story: Young-hee fell in love with a director who already had a family, and it was terrifying. Two oppressed people decide to be apart for a while, and meet for the last time, and the pain is profound. Young-hee fled Seoul to live in Germany, and still has a faint connection with the director. After a while, the director may have made an important decision and came to Germany to meet her again. It must have been a meeting. After the meeting, Yingxi was even more determined. She wanted work and love. After returning home to meet the seniors in Gangneung, facing the careful temptation of friends, Young-hee occasionally mocks her timid life after drinking, but most of the time she can take it lightly. Food, drinking, parties, speech, and love are all the highlights of an ordinary life.
"Alone" is Hong Sang-soo's affectionate confession to Kim Min-hee. From his debut to "Alone", from the bottom of his heart, Hong Sangxiu is still a sullen middle-aged literary and artistic muse who has been chasing inspiration. One day, when this muse is attached to a living woman, the director seems to be unable to suppress himself any longer. In the narrative of the film, the plot is not important, neither is the succession or the succession. Kim Min-hee is the protagonist and the only one is the center.
The whole movie starts with Young Hee's emotions. In order to show her emotionally controlled beauty, the director downplayed all the characters around Kim Min Hee. The supporting roles only have side faces, back views, and even voices without pictures. Whether it was the older girlfriends in Germany, the seniors in Gangneung, and the staff of the director's team, they all had expressions of disappointment in life. They pampered Young-hee lovingly and praised her angry beauty. They hid in the beautiful and peaceful city, breathing lightly. When Young Hee expressed her desire to live in Hamburg/Gangneung, they couldn't bear the sudden confession, so they replied, "It's beautiful, think about it again." It was really powerless.
The push and pull of the relationship between the sexes at the wine table also continued in "Alone". The three-act scene depicts four relationships between men and women.
The first is a German couple. Through dialogue, the mistress is strong and the husband is gentle and submissive. This is common in Europe.
The second pair is an older Korean girlfriend and an absent husband. The girlfriend is a taciturn and independent person. She said lightly that she got married because she needed a husband. She slept in separate rooms for ten years, and separated when she didn't need it. In the Asian gender context, this cool destructive force has the power to destroy all confidence in a man.
The third pair is a senior and a girlfriend who opened a cafe in Gangneung. From the descriptions of others, Jiangling senior was once a young man in his prime, but now he is a middle-aged man who reluctantly picks coffee beans in front of his angry girlfriend. When the girlfriend drank too much and wanted to kiss, the senior just said "Oh, why are you like this", while being pulled by the collar and kissed.
The fourth pair is the director's couple. At the beginning of the relationship, girls shyly created opportunities to meet, and boys' initiative to hold hands is only logical. By the way, the boy who plays the director's couple is Brother Zhengfeng from "Reply 1988". Looking at his thick lips and embarrassed expression, I feel that it is very good to push him down.
Four pairs of men and women, covering different cultural contexts, from the beginning of love, to marriage, to the failure of marriage. Whether men are present or not, they are weak and powerless, subject to the power of women. This may reflect Hong Sangxiu's view on marriage. If you insist on the premise of "men are cowardly", then you will be swallowed up when you enter marriage, or you will gradually lose yourself in surrender. It is better to fully admit that you are a coward at the beginning, and don't walk into it. Female enchantment. Once you enter the marriage, the little bit of love that was still in the original love stage will be entangled by habits and become nondescript. When I wanted to leave, I had already lost my feet.
Some people say that Hong Shangxiu advocates "embarrassment aesthetics", which is a bit interesting. Not only is the dialogue awkward, the blank space is awkward, and the atmosphere is even more awkward. Movie-goers don’t cry or laugh. It’s like eating in a school cafeteria and seeing the menu says fried bitter melon with cantaloupe, in order to satisfy curiosity and fill their stomach, they have to endure it.
A lot of awkward dialogue in the film is actually quite meaningful. Take two paragraphs to feel it.
(1) Young-hee and his girlfriend went to a friend's house in Germany. The hostess asked, "Do you often eat pasta in Korea?"
Young Hee replied: "I was really hungry."
The hostess kindly said, "You can eat a little more."
Yingxi said word by word: "I was really hungry."
The hostess is embarrassed: "I'm glad you like it."
Young Hee: "I was really really hungry."
Hungry here is not just because Yingxi is not good at English and can't understand the hostess's dialogue so simple. Eating sex is also, Yingxi has repeatedly admitted to the world that she is a woman with a lot of desires.
(2) On a drinking occasion with friends, Young-hee sharply accused everyone of being unqualified for love. (The Korean literal translation is really long-winded, but there is a special kind of decisiveness when arguing)
Young Hee: I've done everything, and when the time comes, I want to die. I don't want to think about things that have no value at all. I want to fade away when it's beautiful!
Senior: I also thought so, no matter what, it is better to live. People don't live by thinking alone, they live because they want to live!
Young Hee: Seniors, stop pretending to have a headache! Seniors are also obsessed with living because they cannot love, right? Not qualified to be loved, but has been playing the game of love. Have you ever met someone who is qualified to be loved?
Senior's girlfriend: Do you have to be qualified? It's good to love someone, isn't it? Why do you have to be eligible? Can't love someone who has nothing?
Young Hee: Shut up all of you! They are all unqualified people, they are all despicable, they are all content with lies, and they are all doing dirty things! Also said that this is good, this kind of person is not qualified!
This awkward discussion about "is there any qualification for love" is completely Hong Shangxiu's mockery of himself. In the secular world of order, no matter how much the parties emphasize true love, it is also an embarrassing cheating relationship. In the adult world, the simplest parts are the hardest to achieve, and therefore life is meaningless.
Most bizarrely, Hong Sang-soo inserted the character of a strange stranger into the film. Sometimes I can see it, and I will greet Yingxi and ask her what time it is. Sometimes Young-hee couldn't see, but seemed to be interacting, with strangers cleaning the windows and opening the door for Young-hee as she walked to the balcony. He even left on the beach carrying the sleeping Young Hee.
Who is this strange stranger? My understanding is Young Hee's desire, which is the "monster" that is always mentioned in the movie. Desire turns Young-hee into a monster and makes her even more beautiful. At the Silver Bear Awards ceremony, Kim Min-hee dressed in a black dress and spoke carefully, almost timidly. With tears in her eyes, she seems to be more sensitive and vulnerable than Young-hee in the film, and more charming. The director who thinks he is a coward also has desires, and he cannot tell whether it is the worldly love of a man who loves a woman, or the abstract love that is fleeting and indescribable in human beings. Women are often present, but youth is rare; youth is often present, but beauty is rare. Who is qualified to love? The director who can summon the courage to embrace Kim Min-hee at the festival is unknown, let alone the more cowardly, who are all disqualified for love.
View more about On the Beach at Night Alone reviews
