It's not easy, it's definitely not easy.
After hurriedly skipping some movie reviews, I feel that they are all discussing the development of the plot and love, and they are deeply involved in dreams and reality. But I always feel that the director wants to express something more.
The following is divided into three themes according to the lines that have appeared in the play. I hope that one day I can find more things when I brush for the second time.
Dream and reality
Rather than thinking of David in Vanilla Sky as a dreamer, he is a creator whose subconscious mind, his longings, and his fears all make up his dreams.
When Freud explained childhood fantasies and creations in The Creator and Daydream, he described the creator's behavior as follows:
....use a current occasion to design a picture of the future according to the format of the past
If you taste it carefully, what appears in the dream has a meaning.
1. Vanilla Sky
The vanilla sky appears at the beginning and end of the dream. At the end, Tech support explained to David that he fainted on the street after coming out of the disco that day, and from that time, his dream began. In real life, he climbed up alone and defeated the board with the help of his colleagues, but the loss of true love, the disorder of his brain, and the inferiority caused by facial defects all made him suffer. So he signed the contract and killed himself.
In the dream he temporarily got everything he wanted, Sophia who came out to save him, his restored face, his friend.
While showing Sophia around the house, he said that Vanilla Sky was his mother's collection. The sky after falling into a dream can be seen as David's thoughts about his mother, as well as a shelter, powerful and warm, just like his biological mother.
If the beginning of a dream is like the beginning of a drunken banquet, then the end of a dream is more like the liberation after tasting the ups and downs.
Just in response to the repeated phrase "The sweet is never as sweet withput sour", even if life is not as happy as a dream, David still chooses to face reality.
2. Mask
The mask is the cover of David's inferiority complex. He has been emphasizing that "I haven't changed", but his face is the strongest blade, tearing through his lies and exposing the wound to everyone who cares about living or not.
When the subconscious world began to move in a positive direction, David's face was healed; when his fears began to take over most of his consciousness, the world began to crumble, and he was interrogated and masked again under false pretences. But the meaning of wearing a mask at this time is more like escape, he began to realize the problem, either he is crazy, or the world is crazy. So the moment he took off the mask in the EL building, his face was broken again, which proved that he was aware of the truth, and the illusion didn't work anymore.
3. Psychiatrist, friend, Julie
As Tech support said, the doctor is David's desire for fatherly love. As a son-in-law whose father died young, he has never experienced the unreserved care of father's love. It can be seen from the few words that this father is not a qualified elder. His entire autobiography only mentions one sentence of his son. He is a business giant, stubborn and conservative.
The friend's behavior and words are more like David's distrust of others. He always felt that someone was hurting him, the board of directors, Julie, one by one maliciousness filled his life with fear, so in the dream he also set himself up in order to find the so-called "evidence". His subconscious allows his friend to own an expensive coat and camera, thereby deceiving his best friend behind him to deceive him, harming him, and even trying to steal Sophia. But out of this frame, in real life, do friends really do these things? For Sophia, he really liked it, but he also said at the beginning that he and David were the best friends, above friendship; for Julie, she was indeed his goddess, but he didn't go out with him to frame David. She said "Hey my buddy said you and him are buddies", which was more like an unintentional sour remark. But all of this is maximized in David's subconscious.
Julie is David's fate, his guilt, the beginning of his pain, his fear, and his unwillingness, so after the subconscious collapse, the person he loves becomes the one who ruined his life. The nightmare started.
To sum up, we can see that David is a typical playboy who is not bad in nature, he understands art and understands women. He hasn't played enough yet, but he hopes that his shares will not be robbed. He is soft-hearted and not very responsible. I don't think he's ashamed to be secretive because he's a boyfriend and girlfriend with Julie, but he's really just a buddy.
I really like the American movies of the 90s and early 2000s, the narrative style, tone, soundtrack, there is an unreal feeling of romance and magical reality coexisting together. In order to maintain this vague sense of dream and reality, the director has been misleading the audience from the very beginning, such as the empty street at the beginning, the dream mentioned from time to time, and the person who was almost killed, so I always thought this was about It's a story about the mental problem. But at the same time, it gives some small hints from time to time, such as repeated sentences:
"I'm from Ohio"
“The subconsious is really powerful”
"What is happiness to you?"
Or an advertisement for Existing life. Looking back at the beginning, I found out through the content of the dialogue that in fact, what we have been watching is the "dream", repeating the dream of reality, thinking that I already know the answer, but I didn't expect it to be put again. The director is still very good at controlling the audience's emotions. leaving little clues. This is one of the reasons why I said at the beginning that this film is not easy.
I feel that this trick of repeating the details of dreams is very similar to what horror film would use. Putting it in Vanilla Sky also enriches the content of the film, and the effect is very good. It's a pity that I searched for information, and the director didn't come from a horro film background. I was depressed.
Every passing moment is a chance to turn it all around
A hundred causes must bear fruit, David's retribution is——? Originally, this fantasy was filled with "himself", but after thinking about it carefully, the director repeatedly mentioned the meaning of this sentence, didn't he just hope that the audience would realize that retribution is all about cause and effect. All the little things you do, the little choices you make, will shape a different outcome, for better or for worse.
What if he didn't get in that car, would he die? If he had been well versed in business since he was a child, wouldn't he have met Julie? If he said one more sentence and one less sentence, what difference would the result be? It is a pity that there is no if in this world, for better or worse, they are just a journey on the road of life. You can choose to resist or you can choose to obey, just remember we have to be responsible for all the decisions we made.
About Sophia and David:
"I'll tell you in another life when we are both cats"
This character is so beautiful, she is unwilling to hurt this already scarred man no matter what.
"I'll see you in another life when we are both cats"
The sweet is never as sweet withput sour
The director is very smart. He knows how to leave clues, so that the audience will have a sudden understanding and increase the viewing experience. This sentence is repeated, not only a famous aphorism, but also foreshadows the final choice David will make, which is closely related to his ending.
After reading it, I have been thinking about which sentence of tech support made David leave the dream. I thought that what he wanted was happiness, because the soul always asked "what is happiness to you", and his pain was due to the vague, confused thoughts of reality, but tech's words just solved the problem, the truth always It is accompanied by waking up, knowing that David, who he is in, can ask tech to help him maintain his dream, while he continues to live here.
The answer to the question actually lies in "what is happiness to you".
If you think about it, it's actually strange. Generally, the question is "Are you happy", and then ask what is happiness to you, or in reverse order, the two questions always go together. But it seems that all three characters who asked this sentence left the opportunity to think to David. The first time was before his death, when Julie cried that he was playing with his feelings; the second time was inadvertently mentioned during the doctor's interrogation. What about the third time? Throughout the film, David never said it, but he was always looking for it. "what is happiness to you" can also be understood as what exactly you are after. The answer lies in the sentence "I'll see you in the next life when we are both cats" at the end, and the terribly handsome smile.
Someone on iQiyi commented that he imagined all this because of his excessive pursuit of appearance. I saw this hot comment before I watched the movie, which led to a great misunderstanding of the whole film. But is it really so? During the meeting with the doctor, he made it clear that he only wanted a brain with normal thinking and no headaches. This was not a boiled duck, and he did not say this for the sake of face. The role of the mask is more like making him feel like the rich second-generation rich with style, wit, and high emotional intelligence from before, rather than this scary face that can hardly think and is boring at a glance. Appearance makes people care about because it always gives people an impression. Such an impression basically does not serve the heart, it is only a person's pursuit of perfection, but it will affect one person's short-term view of another person's heart. David's friends and Sophia have been trying to persuade him to take off his mask. They didn't go to have sex with David because of his face, but his inner inferiority and mental discomfort did not allow him to do so.
So after so much experience, he realized that living in reality and staying awake is what he has been pursuing. The sweet is never as sweet without sour can also be understood as cherished when lost.
Maybe this reason is a bit far-fetched, but if you watch the movie carefully, you will understand what David's happiness is to him.
"Paper and Technology - Reality and Dream"
David's identity is actually very interesting. He is the boss of three magazines, but whether it is a holographic camera, 3D projection, the company Existing Life, and the words and deeds of the people in the play, they all indicate the way of information dissemination in this era, more like the so-called so-called In the "future world", like the time and space we are stepping on today, technology has become dominant, and even reading books have electronic versions. Thinking of the conflict between the old era represented by the protagonist and the new era he lives in, it is not difficult to think of the connection with reality or dream. From a deep level, dreams represent technology, because people’s body and mind have long been attributed to technology. We are addicted to these electronic products that can bring short-term happiness, but they are increasingly empty and drift with the flow; reality is related to those things people stick to, such as traditional , such as paper books, or real knowledge and hard work, critical thinking and culture. David is a paradox. He is a high-level person in the upper class and should be at the forefront of technology, but he doesn't care about it. His attitude towards the two is also ambiguous. However, after discovering the pain of the collapse of the dream, he chose to jump out and face the reality of his life that was miserable but still existed, and left EL's support and control over him. This also implicitly expresses the director's attitude towards technology in this film,
The ethical issues of Existing Life are worth exploring,
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