Arts Federation finally decided on Heyman, and their slogan was: On August 25th, audiences across the country can walk into the cinema and enjoy the "last little mourning of summer" together. At this time, nearly half a year has passed since the singing and dancing craze of La La Land at the beginning of the year. There is no news of Moonlight Boy, and the most heart-wrenching movie among the three Oscar films has finally made its way to the big screen in the mainland. The Oscars in 2017 made a big oolong, and the best picture was transferred from the singing and dancing prosperous world of La La Land to Moonlight Boy, who is extremely correct in art and politics. Fans on both sides confronted and ridiculed each other, with one side rejoicing and the other describing it as "a desecration of art". The Heyman crew, who are also three popular films, just applauded with the best actor and the best original script. The entire crew seemed to have inherited the film's mourning. They nodded, they clapped their hands, and they smiled. Like Li, played by Casey Affleck, even if he returned to that small town, he was still outside the town, and he did not belong to a group with people, and he always set up a wall for himself. The beginning of the film is gloomy. The director fills the vacancies in the whole world with dark colors, whether it is Boston or the seaside town north of Boston. The sky is full of high-contrast lighting styles, the bright places seem to be visible at a glance, while the dark places are dramatic and unspeakable past. Terrence used a lot of "twilight light" in "Days of Heaven" and only shot for one hour a day, so when the protagonist drove away in the car, the distant scene under the setting sun and the distant figures, bitterness poured up the minds of the audience. And in Manchester by the Sea, when Lee received the call, he still had a shovel in his hand, a taciturn and irritable man who had been stripped of his immutable blue-collar disguise by life. We have all met people like Li in our lives, or to be more cautious, we may even have been such people, or are such people now. Work by the rules. Every day in life, just look back at yesterday's trajectory to know today's schedule. You can't get out of the past and you can't escape. My favorite hobby is lying on the sofa and watching a boring comedy. , to be absurd and uninteresting, so as to be indifferent to the pain and forget it. We always want to forget some of the wrong things in the past. It is difficult to make up for it, so we use forgetting to cover it up, but forgetting happens to be the most uncontrollable thing. Capocratic thinking tells people, "Man, if you do know what you do, you will be blessed; if you are ignorant, you will be cursed." We want to forget, but forgetting is itself The pain was unbearable. This is not a redemption film in the traditional sense, or even a redemption film in the traditional sense. It is a redemption film, it is not the "Shawshank Redemption" we know well, the protagonist digs a path to a bright future in prison, defeats the warden, and gets a new life, nor is it in "The Killer Has No Vacation" Ralph, who accidentally killed a little boy, waited with guilt in the ancient city. It's not "Flying Over the Cuckoo's Nest", the protagonist saw the light over the high wall, let alone "Seven Pounds". After helping seven strangers, he gave up his suicidal thoughts and met true love, inspirational and warm. "Manchester by the Sea" has no redemption, it just sinks into the deep, freezing cold.
The rhythm of the whole film is very slow, which is not similar to a boring film in the traditional sense. Unlike Antonioni, Kenneth smashes the story into pieces and arbitrarily pieced together a work that can be called a great work under the accompaniment and light. He is a bit of a narrator, neutral and peaceful, never taking sides or magnifying external conflicts. The director abandoned the classical mode narrative structure and turned to the embrace of realist narrative. In this film, we and Lee are both bystanders, he is watching his life, we are watching him, maybe many spaces away, there are people watching us. It is really suitable for this film to use realism to write the script. It has no special effects, and it does not take the eye-catching scene of "Victoria" in the editing. Most of the conflicts come from the characters themselves and the past self-entanglement. The protagonist Li put a fire on the fireplace before going out. He was afraid that his two daughters would freeze in winter. He went to the store to buy daily necessities. He drank a lot and did not drive out. On the way, he seemed to have forgotten to put on protection, but on second thought, it might not be a big problem. When he came home with the paper bag in his hand, there was only a blaze in front of him. When the police questioned him, he narrated a little bit with red eyes. He thought he was about to be arrested, but the police officer across the table just looked at him sympathetically, "You just made a serious mistake, we all make mistakes." He robbed the police The gun was aimed at himself, and everyone rushed up to hold him and persuade him. He was unable to speak, and could only say the sentence, "please".
This is the core conflict of the film. Li can’t reconcile with himself. Everyone thinks that the wheel of life will roll forward. It’s been almost ten years. The idea developed. No one has to forgive ourselves. The education we receive is "go forward, the most important thing is how long you can stand on this stage", but we always have to allow someone to live in that broken world and surround ourselves with sadness Entering a small world, calm and silent, like an outsider in Camus's writings. In "Shame", Bergman fixed the camera at the corner of the table, and Xi Du's eyes were affectionate and long. In this film, the camera is often aimed at Li's unshaved chin. At this time, Cassia Fleck bowed his head, he was a classically styled actor. His grief was not in pain, but deep in his bones, trembling in forbearance, neither crying nor laughing, only when the camera moved closer to his face did it show signs of grief. "I don't want to move to Boston, all my friends are here. I'm a member of the hockey team, I'm a member of the basketball team, I have two girlfriends, and I'm going to the boat twice a week." Patrick was finally on the night of the funeral. And Li really ignited the fuse that broke out between the two, and he got up and yelled. He couldn't leave the place where he grew up because his father died, and Lee couldn't accept to go back to this sad place again. This place is a scar that he can't heal, he walks forward to escape the town, but the blood stays.
We say time heals grief, but in reality, grief is like a wound that itches and scabs, but it never goes away. So Lee sat down at the dinner table at the end, and Patrick asked him, "Why don't you stay?" He kept all the reasons, all the sleepless nights he tossed and turned in his throat, and all that was left was, "I can't do it. arrive."
Admitting that you can't do it is never cowardly, on the contrary, it is courageous. Li was not a "depressive pseudodementia" in psychopathology, his memory didn't decline rapidly, he just became apathetic and reluctant to talk, he used to say, "I don't know". At the end of the film, no one can escape the trajectory set by life, Patrick does not have to leave, he is adopted by Uncle George, and Lee returns to Boston to continue his day-to-day work, heavy labor, and people without too many people. Communicate, have a sultry drink in front of the bar at the bar. Maybe they will meet again, maybe not. From a photographic point of view, the tension of the contradictions of the characters unfolds in the push-track shot. Lee, played by Casey Affleck, is driving a pickup truck, and his eyes always extend parallel to the outside of the car. The protagonist in "Othello" died in static photography, the frame was still, and his heart changed from turbulent to a dead lake, so he finally committed suicide. In "Manchester by the Sea", the protagonist's inner world never seemed to fluctuate too much, whether it was when he heard the news of his brother's death, or when he faced his ex-wife whom he hadn't seen for a long time, the two met on the road. Weeping bitterly, the camera pulled back, and then it was frozen in the gap between the two of them. She wept bitterly and apologized, and he stuttered and raised his head, still in the same tone. "You don't know, it's no big deal, it's nothing."
The two meanings of "There's nothing there" are perfectly integrated in this passage. Life is like this, some things have passed, some things have happened, there is nothing in my heart, and there is nothing unacceptable about these things. Life has always been a quiet funeral, funerals should not be beaten drums and gongs, let those who go go quietly, and those who live live silently. Real life does not talk about cause and effect. It is a kind God who will not say to you, "I will repay you accordingly." Life is like a boat sailing on the sea. Next, a big wave hits, and there will be no eggs. In the end, as they walked, tomorrow may not become a bright future, yesterday may never become a past that can be talked about with a smile, and Li may never truly reconcile with himself. The director filmed the back of them fishing on that yacht, and the characters are slowly pushed out of the edge under the telescopic lens, dim, the film is a product of a chaotic and sad reality, a tool used to tell a story, and it is also a self-consciousness. The repeated torture of life. So the dust settles and nothing changes, no villains wanting to destroy the world, no superheroes flying over cities like Tennyson's poem to the creek, "Though people can come and go, I never look back."
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