The previous opening is the climax scene, from chasing to fleeing and then cutting to returning home after 35 years, the whole forty-minute opening establishes the tone structure and suspense of the whole film full of nostalgic memories, followed by the return of everyone's youth The era of that era, the reconstruction of the atmosphere of the whole era, the youthful growth of young actors, social rules, brotherhood, and boys' sexual enlightenment plus the fateful ending pointed out in the previous opening, coupled with the master's soundtrack is really classic. The slow but not lengthy pace of the film, as well as a lot of foul light and shadow scenery under the camera, draw the audience into the magic of the film, which is completely a classical style that is no longer seen in modern times, probably even Scorsese can't make it.
However, everything inevitably has a sense of rupture when it reaches adulthood, especially when the protagonist returns to the core of the Gang of Four as soon as he is released from prison, it seems to be too fast to start talking. However, from the prohibition of alcohol to the operation of gangsters who intervene in manual labor, they have always been closely related to the theme of profiling American society. The breakup of the male and female protagonists is not only the sexual frustration that has been laid out, but also the split between two kinds of society and life choices. , do you want to stay on the street and be your own master, or do you want to follow the top and climb up? That scene really mixes male contempt and grief, breaking with first love, first longing, and past times in the worst possible way.
The protagonist's pull distance between Max and Deborah, with a modern vision, can of course make a lot of ambiguous erotic associations, but for the protagonist, Deborah left him, and later Max also let go. Words to leave him. It was only when they reunited 35 years later that he found that his old friend and lover finally got together. The protagonist caused a tragedy in order to preserve everything in his youth, but it was also a tragedy after the two of them climbed to the top of society, and it was also a fable of American society. In fact, halfway through the movie, who the Mirror Man will be after 35 years has been revealed, and there is no need to wait for the truth of the last paragraph to be revealed.
Maybe I missed something in the plot, but the suspense that has been laid out from the beginning seems to be incomplete in the end. For example, the tragedy caused by the phone call was not actually performed in the whole film. It just explained the past with dialogue, or the beginning. It doesn't seem to matter who is chasing the protagonist? The movie uses flashbacks to add a lot of memory to a scene. The suspense of the truth and the impact of the reversal are diluted by the long sentimentality. Until the end, I always feel that one or two scenes are missing. It is not very clear and straight. What happened, although the length of the film has already exceeded four hours, is it the ten minutes that are still missing?
Although I haven't seen the previous version, but the full version has many paragraphs that are obviously of very poor quality. It can be seen that they are added parts, so you can also think about why they were cut out in the first place. There are a lot of paragraphs laying out the clues of the mysterious mirror-hiding person, Minister Bailey. Even before the protagonist meets him for the last time, he shows up for a long time to explain the details of his political crisis. Of course, this complements the social issues part of the film, but But it's actually the worst part. In addition, there is a large episode where the protagonist meets Eve after breaking up with Deborah and seeing him off at the train station. Others include a clip that echoes when they fell into the sea when they were young. It's not unreasonable to cut a lot of paragraphs, but in terms of the pace of the movie, maybe a lot of cuts in the middle and back sections will cause the structure to be somewhat unbalanced. It's a pity that the quality of these deleted paragraphs in the restored version is really bad, or that's right. Viewing made some impact.
And then the soundtrack of Yannio Molly Connais is really moving, but it can be tiresome to be bombarded with repeated music for four hours all the time.
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