The original article @ Dear Wang Er is published in the Middle Reading App
The Beautiful Tales of Sicily is the last in Donatore's trilogy of life, but the first of all the trilogies I read.
In "The Beautiful Legend of Sicily", others see a beautiful and miserable love in the war with the charming Sicilian scenery, and what I see first is the ignorance and impulsiveness of our youth.
At the beginning of the film, a young boy gets his first bicycle. I remembered that the first time I learned to ride a bicycle but would not get off the bicycle (the old bicycle is very big and tall, there are beams, riding up but can not get off), had to ride on the street for an afternoon, when there were few cars on the street is very safe, I rode through the streets, until the sun was about to set, only to find a mound slowly fell down, with the legs to support the car to go home, as soon as I entered the door proudly announced that I learned to ride a bicycle, and very cleverly saved the embarrassment of not being able to get off the car.
The little boy in the film saw Marlena that day and fell madly in love with this married woman, and has been secretly with Marlena all day ever since.
Seeing this, I remembered that when I was in elementary school, I overheard Banhua and a few people discussing secret activities after school, so I decided with a few dead parties to follow them and find out. After school that day, we secretly followed them, but at that time, there were not many people on the roads of the small county town, and there were not many buildings, let alone the traffic like today. Soon they found us and began to hide and seek with us, and later, they actually tried to get rid of us in two ways, and we had to act separately, and after more than an hour of dodging, they finally agreed to take us to a place, on the condition that it was absolutely confidential.
After we swore to heaven, they took us to a large yard, and then we met an old grandmother, a five-year-old, living alone in her seventies in this abandoned factory, making a living by picking up rags. When they found grandma, they often brought some food to the grandma to eat, and at that moment I suddenly knew my own naivety and saw the kindness of others.
There is a passage in the film about the mischievous students who take advantage of the deafness of Marlena's father, who is a teacher, and say that they want to go to Marlena's bridge.
Seeing this, I always think that at the first three o'clock, because I was dissatisfied with the school's sudden replacement of our chemistry teacher before the middle school entrance examination, and replaced by a particularly abusive female teacher, I, Ah Rong, Yongsheng and I were deliberately late when they came to her for the first class, and discussed shouting every other minute to report that one person went in, and after entering the classroom, told the teacher to pee, the next one said that the went, and the next one said to go to the hut. We deliberately did not use the words "going to the toilet", but used the more vulgar saying to be funny, in order to achieve the purpose of causing everyone to laugh and disrupt the classroom, waiting to see the teacher's angry and corrupt appearance.
When I saw the adolescent ignorant and impetuous little boy masturbating the image and the widow Marlena, who was gorgeous in appearance, elegant in demeanor and noble in conversation, as the object of sexual fantasy, I remembered the scene of watching the wool film for the first time.
It was after our college entrance examination results came down, our partners were admitted to college, and some people proposed to look at the legendary wool pieces. So someone borrowed a CD from the brother of the classmate, and then coaxed until the parents slept, a few of us locked the door, the window was stuck with a newspaper, and then secretly looked, at that time, everyone did not read, both excited and scared, so when we watched it did not dare to open the sound, so the first time we watched was a silent film.
The middle part of The Beautiful Tales of Sicily is sad and infuriating. Marlena, who was alone in an empty house because of the war, was harassed and oiled by men every day, and was rumored and ridiculed by women. She had to trade her flesh for food in order to survive, and after the death of her father, the U.S. army liberated Sicily, but she was completely and openly tarnished in person and dignity. Humiliated and discredited, Marlena had to leave the town.
At the end of the film, when her husband Lino returned to the town with Marlena, Marlena was accepted and respected by the people, and the rumors and ridicule of the past were dispelled and dissipated.
Putting aside the factors of war, Marlena is actually a series of sacred symbols that open up the germination of our youthfulness, starting with the hunger and thirst of the flesh and ending with the soothing of the soul. It is like a river of spring water flowing eastward. "After a few spring breaks, we all went from boys to men.