The whole film is bland, ordinary, without exciting climaxes or heart-pounding critical moments, just so gently narrated, 12 years in 166 minutes. It's a movie, but it's more like life.
There is a short comment lamenting: I really want to see Mason's childhood playmate again, he looks so cute. The last shot of him in the film is of the Mason family moving for the first time, driving on the road, and he is chasing after him in his car, Mason looks at him, and the childhood playmate is never seen in the film again. because of the persecution of his stepfather, after he shaved a 3mm round inch and wore a haircut he didn’t like in class, the beautiful girl who handed him a note; and a pair of children of his first stepfather; And those friends who were chatting and bragging in their youth...
they never showed up again.
When Aomame was about to get a gun in "1Q84", Tamaru told her, "Chekhov said that if a pistol appears in the story, it must be fired." small props. The symbol of six bullets appeared at the beginning of Jiang Feng's "Murder for Him" novel. When the novel was about to end and people almost forgot about the six bullets, they fired them. The biggest BOSS fell to the ground and died unexpectedly. Outside and within reason. There are always foreshadowings in the novel, and a character or prop will not appear for no reason. When this character or prop appears, there will always be care or corresponding explanations behind. This makes the whole story interesting and vivid and more eye-catching.
But life is not.
Maybe Mason will send them a letter after moving, maybe he will go back to see them occasionally and get together for a while; but it is more likely that when he grows up, he will have a new life circle and friends, and gradually forget each other, even if they get together again. At one point, I was embarrassed and speechless after talking about the parents, because there was no more common topic.
This is also our life.
The only thing worth mentioning is the obvious before-and-after reference in the film-it can no longer be said to be a foreshadowing, it can be seen that this is deliberately done by the director.
After the mother remarried for the second time, the biological father came to pick up the siblings while chatting with the stepfather. When the camera turns, the mother is discussing construction with the plumber who repairs the house, and after the discussion suggests that he better go to college. A few years later, when his son Mason was about to go to college, the three of them were chatting in a cafe, and a man in a suit walked up to introduce himself as the plumber back then. Bachelor's program at Texas State University.
This clip can already make the audience feel emotional again and again in the entire bland movie.
But not too much. If there are too many coincidences, foreshadowing, and support in a film that tries to express real life, it will be self-defeating. Because life is boring.
Therefore, Bai Yansong said: "Only 5% of a person's life is wonderful, only 5% is painful, and the other 90% is dull. People are often tempted by the wonderful 5%, endure the pain of the 5%, and in the 90% The
day before yesterday, when talking about "The Day After Tomorrow", the umbrellas held by people in the storm were tattered, and only the ribs were left. And gave the example of "The Bad and the Bad" to illustrate the sincerity of a director in the details. In this film, it is the TOYOTA that shows Linklater's sincerity. As the protagonist grows up, he gradually grows old. After a few years, only the two characters YO are left. Let the audience feel the passage of time from the details. Saying that it is an advantage is actually a deficiency. The reason is that the performance is too revealing. Several close-ups are given before and after, and the force is too strong and a little deliberate.
3. I just thought there would be more.
I always thought there would be more possibilities in life.
"Possibility", what a wonderful word. When we were in middle school, we simply and passionately believed that after the exam, there will be an extremely bright future. When we grow up, we have many dreams waiting to be realized. Infinite future.
When I read Zhang Dachun a few days ago, he said in his preface "The Necessity of Occasion": "In the past two decades, with the various changes in Taiwan's society, clichés have become a disaster. Among them, the sentence I hate the most is: "Provide Another possibility." Sometimes this sentence also incarnates as "Maybe there is another possibility." Or "We have many possibilities." The pluralistic society has not yet come true, but the optimistic imagination and false expectations about pluralism But it has already taken root in the hearts of the vast majority of people, as if everyone can independently develop a rich life. "
Of course there are many possibilities in this world, but most of them will not come true.
Slowly we found that there seems to be an invisible boundary in the middle, like the four masters and apprentices in "Wukong Biography", in front of them, found a block Transparent wall.
"Do you choose any direction and you will swim to the same fate? "
I don't know.
But the little monkey in "Huaguoshan" has not yet become the Monkey King, and his sadness is real:
"But," Squirrel lowered his eyelids, and said a little sadly, "There are so many in this world. There are so many things you can't do, aren't you always unable to be happy? "
...I always wonder, in this world there are the sun, the moon, the distant mountains, the clouds, there are so many things that we can't see or touch, can they be touched? If they can't be touched, how do I know if they're actually there? "
"Huh?" The squirrel tilted his head to look at the moon in the sky, "What are you talking about, no one can understand." The
monkey stood up and looked at the sky: "Since they are there, they are things that can be touched, so no one can really touch them?" Really out of reach? If a place is never reachable, does that place still exist? We come into this world knowing that there are things that can never be met, things that can never be done, and it makes me sad to think of that. "
If the transparent wall and the monkey's sadness that Tang Seng encountered are not true because they are myths, then the BBC's "Seven Years of Life" seems to bring people the same thing.
When I heard about this film, the first thing that came to my mind was the British BBC documentary "7 Up", which interviewed fourteen seven-year-old children from different classes in the UK, and re-interviewed every seven years: seven-year-old, ten-year-old Four, twenty-one, twenty-eight, thirty-five, and forty-two. I only saw twenty-eight years old. It is probably to discuss the current situation of the solidification of British social class. In the film, children from well-off families get a good education, which provides a better prospect and vision from the foundation. They can easily go to Cambridge and Oxford, and most of the orphanages are reduced to society. Lower middle. Later, I saw articles like "It's Hard to Have a Tall Child in a Poor Family", and there were many discussions such as "Life is a relay race, but you treat it like a 100-meter run", "The end of your life is only the starting point of others", "Upward The flow of people is the result of the joint struggle of several generations.” It is undeniable that these are all facts, and it is the facts that are the most frustrating and even hopeless.
And I don't want to let you fall into a dark circle and can't extricate yourself, I'm a good person. So now I will tell you the previous three stories/life has a "Happy Ending":
Tang Seng finally crossed the invisible boundary; when the little monkey grew up, he became the Monkey King and went to the sea and set foot on the clouds , touched the moon; and "Seven Years of Life" has a Nick. The precocious farm boy was admitted to Oxford University and later became a university professor.
The charm of the future lies in its unknowability.
At a certain point in your life, you may feel that the thousands of possibilities you have fantasized about before are all jokes. Because a society always has the bottom group in the majority, like a pyramid or a mountain peak, maybe many people can only climb from the foot of the mountain to the mountainside and see the scenery below the mountainside, but the scenery on the top of the mountain, may never be seen.
But I will slowly figure it out: even if you are at the foot of the mountain, as long as you work hard enough, at least you can go to the mountainside to see the scenery in this life, and even if the opportunity comes, you will not know how to climb to the top.
And after you climbed to the mountainside, you have expanded many possibilities for yourself, and there are many paths for you to choose from. Perhaps you have found the life you want right here on the mountainside. It's just a desperate climb up, ignoring the scenery along the way, it's unknown whether the ending is happy or not.
In addition to looking at the scenery in life, there are many other important things.
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