What is summer? Summer is the season to go through the cold winter, get through the spring rain, grow vigorously, and wait for the harvest. There are only two seasons in Vietnam, the dry season and the rainy season. The title of the film "Three Seasons" literally translates to "three seasons", and the director added a season for Vietnam - the season of hope.
Love for three seasons, three stories and two seasons, from beginning to end, symbolizing hope at the end. The seemingly trivial trio, (three stories) intertwined with seemingly nothing, staged a wonderful symphony. It's like, enjoying the heartyness brought by "midsummer", sitting and waiting for the happy autumn harvest.
"Love Three Seasons" is also translated "Forgetting Love Season". Why forget love? Why forget about love? The tone is slow, the story is bland, and the ending is peaceful. But just like this, the pain of grief flows loomingly in the film.
The poet and the lotus-picking girl, the tricycle driver and the prostitute lotus, the American soldier and the young Woody. Three stories unfold slowly with Vietnam's stickiness and dampness. People who read the story cannot guess the meaning of the story, but the director hides deep meaning in these three relationships. The three stories seem to be independent and connected, and run through the director's profound thinking on the heavy history of the Vietnamese nation.
Poet Teacher Du is Vietnam destroyed by war
Mr. Du, a forgotten existence, a former young talent who suffered from leprosy and a disability, lost his fighting spirit and closed himself up. He once wrote countless beautiful poems, but he closed his pen after being severely injured. . Rather than saying that he was self-enclosed, it would be better to say that he was abandoned by the world.
In post-war Vietnam, there were two extremes, the poor people at the bottom and the capitalists in the ascendant. On the one hand are the scars left over from the war, and on the other hand, with the opportunities brought by the Western powers, this nation has undergone great changes in the vicissitudes of life and the waste to be rebuilt. In the end, the poet was completely abandoned by this complex and ever-changing world. He chose to be speechless and no longer sing praises to this once proud nation.
"Women's fate is like raindrops, some fall into the slums, and some fall into the rich." The old lotus-picking women always sing the song of fate, which is a metaphor for their own sadness and inability to control themselves. It also implies that the poet feels self-pity, indulges in the glory of the past, and is unwilling to face the sadness of the future. Until the young lotus-picker, Xin; she hummed the traditional Vietnamese songs that her mother often sang, and shuttled through this lush lotus pond. Her vibrant singing aroused the poet's awe for tradition and inspired the poet's desire to revive . Finally, the singers of the Vietnamese nation began to sing loudly about the life of their own nation. Xin is willing to become the poet's hand and record the beauty of the new beginning for him.
The lotus nüxin is the traditional bond of authentic Vietnam
The Vietnamese people have experienced the pain of a century of history. In a society where the gap between the rich and the poor is sharply divided, most Vietnamese people still retain their simplicity, kindness, tenacity, cleanliness, self-confidence and cheerfulness. Xin represents the most authentic Vietnam. No matter how many winds and rains this nation has gone through, it still embodies the traditional human beauty belonging to the Vietnamese nation; just like Xin, it is healthy, young, sincere and kind.
Xin is not only the inspiration for the folk singers, but also the link between the past and the future of the Vietnamese nation. In the early morning, facing the dewdrops, the lotus-pickers shuttled through the streets and alleys of Vietnam with holy lotuses. Her eyes recorded the most primitive Vietnam after the war. On one side are high-rise buildings, on the other side are shabby houses; on the other side are the accompaniment of wine and laughing under the bright lights, and the hard work of sleeping on the street on the other side... A fractured and layered Vietnam can be seen from Xin's perspective.
Xin carried a pole, walked and watched; there were old people, women, and children who bought lotus flowers that Xin cultivated with heart, like a tradition passed down from generation to generation. But one day, Xin's lotus flowers could not be sold. She followed the crowd and saw not far away, a minivan filled with fake lotus flowers sprayed with perfume. She put down the lotus flower in her hand, stepped forward, and asked why others bought fake flowers? The answer is that fake flowers are more fragrant than real flowers, and more importantly, fake flowers are far from withering. At the end of the clip, the director fixed the camera on the fragrant lotus flower in the Xinluo basket. In Vietnam, where the old and the new alternated at that time, the turnaround was like a real and a fake lotus flower, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.
Tricycle drivers and prostitutes are a true portrayal of post-war Vietnam
After watching the "Tricycle Driver" by French-Vietnamese director Chen Yingying, you can know that the life of the people at the bottom of Vietnam after the war was extremely difficult. The tricycle driver Hai is the representative of the working people at the bottom of Vietnam. In front of the camera, he is always positive and cheerful, and when he has no business, he always reads a book. This shows that the people at that time were full of goodwill in the face of suffering and held firm ideals for life.
Lian is Hai's guest. She used to be an unwilling realist who wanted to obtain a pass to enter the upper class through her own body. In the face of Hai Chunqing's sincere pursuit, she has always been indifferent, because she has long since sealed her white and pure dream in the most secret and soft corner of her heart. The lotus was the symbol of Vietnam's social and political situation at that time, and wanted to hug the thighs of Western powers, so as to take this opportunity to get out of the predicament.
The story of Hai and Lian is the only love scene in the three stories. Hai used the money won in the competition to buy a white traditional nightdress for Lian; he gently and devoutly cared for Lian to fall asleep; when Lian fell ill, Hai took care of Lian carefully, and Hai scratched Lian's back over and over with his hands, as if he was a little bit Wash the lotus dusty soul. Gradually, Lian realized that in those days when she seemed to be intoxicated and laughing, she was full of powerlessness to reality and traps that she could not resist. In the end, Hai and Lian came together. At the end of the film, Lian was wearing a white Vietnamese traditional dress, and her happiness was overflowing on the avenue under the colorful leaves. The combination of the sea and the lotus also represents the romantic and innocent heart of the Vietnamese nation despite the difficulties and adversity.
Vietnam's past and future
The encounter between American soldier and young Woody is accidental, but there is a certain logic behind the story.
Woody is an orphan, and when he appears, the sky is cloudy, like entering the rainy season in Vietnam. He relied on the sea and some grown-ups to take care of him, and when night fell, he would carry a suitcase full of cigarettes and gadgets and make a living by selling them.
There are actually not many clips of the American soldier. The most scenes are that he always carries a small bench and sits in front of the high-end hotel he temporarily rents, staring blankly ahead, quietly looking at a dilapidated small restaurant opposite ; as if looking for something? It's like waiting for someone to come back.
That night, Woody went to a bar with his suitcase as usual, and sold his items when he met people. The American soldier was drinking alone in the bar. After drinking, he suddenly saw a watch in Woody's box and motioned for Woody to sit down. It may be because of the emotional backlog for many days, he began to talk to Hu Di, saying that he was about to return to the United States, and the purpose of coming to Vietnam this time was to find a girl who was stationed in Vietnam and was with a Vietnamese prostitute... Hu Di listen He asked Woody to drink. Driven by curiosity, Woody accidentally got drunk. When he woke up again, the soldier was gone, but the box he depended on for survival was gone. .
Realizing the seriousness of the matter, he searched for it in the bar without being humble or arrogant. He accidentally provoked the gangster and was beaten, and left the bar in despair. Walking alone in the rainy night, his tears were mixed with the rain. He was crying. When he saw a group of children playing football on the water-filled road, he instantly forgot the trouble of losing the box and joined them. . Woody has the pure innocence of his age. In the end, Woody found his box. The innocent and kind-hearted man yearned for the beautiful world of animation. He also dared to use his weak shoulders to hold up the sky of an orphan who was younger than him. So Woody will come out of the rainy season, into the fragrant summer, and into the autumn when the sea and lotus are full and rich.
The American soldier also found his daughter before he left. He once brought huge damage to this land. The damage left by the war is not only for the victims. After he returned to the United States, he still could not get out of the shadow of the war, and his life was nothing. It is also because they have committed sins and want to be redeemed.
The idea of this passage has made the director controversial. Some people criticized the film for putting the whitewashed Vietnam in a Hollywood frame and hanging it on the wedding bed of the American movie for those wedding guests who married the United States and Vietnam to enjoy. Some people also questioned the director, saying that this is a deep-rooted colonial mentality, or that it is a self-righteous obscenity with Vietnamese culture... For director Tony Bao, who left Vietnam at the age of six and immigrated to the United States, this may be in his eyes. The most real Vietnam does not turn a blind eye to the suffering, does not deliberately avoid the sin of ethnic division, does not forget the suffering of history, and does not underestimate the crisis in the future, he uses his lens to let people see the tough and simple vitality of the Vietnamese nation.
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