Glacier Think Bank Researcher | Even Kiyokawa
I can't remember exactly when I started enjoying cooking.
Maybe I had the code to cook in my genes, because after all, my dad had cooked at home all his life.
But of course, when I was younger, I didn't care about cooking. After all, I still have big journalistic dreams and ambitions to change the world.
Cooking is a very solemn thing, making a menu, buying vegetables, matching spices, counting the time; drinks, appetizers, main courses, desserts; tableware, tables, plates. Guests may not eventually discover the mistakes you've made, but the imperfections will leave you scratching your shoulders.
So cooking is like a kind of cultivation. If you are not a professional chef, this kind of cultivation can generally begin in middle age, starting with a clear understanding of life.
Photo/Douban
I'm not saying, I'm like the old white. I'm different from Lao Bai in too many ways. But I can probably perceive the old white.
When I came out of the cinema, I was inexplicably a little sentimental. It was supposed to be a light comedy, sentimentality was not its color.
01
Is it a feminist film? Of course.
Director Shao Yihui's WeChat avatar is RBG, Ginsburg, a U.S. Supreme Court justice who just died in 2020. Ginsburg is known for being feminist.
Miss Li is a single mother, soft and weak. But the muscles in the body just got a horse.
After a one-night stand with Lao Bai, she heard the sound of a gentle breakfast downstairs, and she slipped away with her shoes, afraid that Lao Bai had thoughts about her; and her mother huddled in the old bungalow that had been dilapidated, the room was small enough for a mouse to turn a corner, but when she heard that Lao Bai wanted to lend her the house, her idea was to escape, and even the little shoemaker knew that she was afraid; pulling a little girl of British nationality alone, insisting on putting her in the sky-high international primary school, because she was finally asked to "return" to England.
She has strong professional ability, so she can train the staff on the set to look like a grandson; she has a strong personal cultivation, so even Lao Wu can see at a glance that she is different; she has strong network resources, so Lao Bai's final exhibition is handled by her.
This is a modern urban woman with complete self-independent thinking and survival ability, and nothing can tie her up. This is the reason why Lao Bai was weak, wandering and helpless in front of her. She is the dream of the old white.
▲ Ma Yili as Miss Li (photo/Douban)
Gloria is another modern urban woman.
My Taiwanese husband is missing. She became a rich woman with money and leisure.
What is the meaning of her life? Is she a canary? No, no, no。
She's just a woman who follows herself. Her husband is excellent, and so does she live; her husband is dirty, and she still lives like this.
She does not have the strong sense of meaning of Miss Li, and it may be that she does not have the bondage of Miss Li. But she knew herself too well.
She loves old white. So at the moment when KTV sent Lao Bai away and closed the door, she was devastated. But freedom was too important for her, so she immediately smiled again.
She bought his paintings for Qian Laobai, of course, not as a prostitute, but as a free one. It's like she said to the old white: I'm too dangerous. Her way of life is a danger to both sides: the loss of freedom for herself, the unpredictability of life for the old white.
▲ Ni Hongjie as Gloria (photo/Douban)
Bebe is another modern urban woman. She lived with Lao Bai for more than ten years and had a child.
Then she cheated on the northern man. She didn't fall out of love, she just "made a mistake that all men make". But this time, Lao Bai divorced her, "too cruel".
All she wants is equality. We don't know if Lao Bai has made a mistake. But that doesn't matter, what matters is equality between men and women.
She just made a calculation error once: she didn't expect Lao Bai to be so "cruel". Ultimately, the problem is with Lao Bai.
But she also willingly endured the consequences of such a miscalculation. Urban women are mentally mature, so she accepts the results and becomes friends.
All the things she said in the showdown between the three women were insincere, what leftovers, what second-hand, were nothing more than psychological massage of the self.
▲ Wu Yue as Bei Bei (photo / Douban)
Yang Yang is another kind of urban woman; Lao Bai's mother is another kind of urban woman; Miss Li's mother is another kind of urban woman...
In the end, every woman you see in "Love Myth" is a unique urban woman.
But isn't that what Shao Yihui wants to tell you? Don't define any woman by any type, because as long as women are independent, conscious, and self-respecting, they are unique.
But only if everyone is able to withstand the pressures of independence, freedom and equality.
02
But does this movie end up only about women? Or are independent women the subject of this movie?
"Love Myth" is not "Sex and the City". It's even beyond Sex and the City.
Whether it is men or women, as human beings, our ultimate challenge is ultimately life, life is supreme.
The film is like a slice of life from the beginning. It does not, and does not want to explain, the origin of these people, it only explains the background of these pornographic men and women.
No one tells us how Lao Bai and Bei Bei met and had children, how Lao Bai became a cook, a drummer, a poet, a teacher, and a painter, and no one tells us what kind of ideals and ambitions Lao Bai had when he was young.
Of course, we don't know how Miss Lee met the British, what the British did to make Miss Lee lose two apartments, and what the British are in now.
Even when we and Lao Bai were curious to explore, Miss Li said that the matter of a dead man should not be said again, cutting off all our routes.
What is Gloria's Taiwanese husband doing? How do they work together? Whose money is her money, because it doesn't look like her Husband in Taiwan.
What happened to Bebe and the Northern Man? How is the property between her and Lao Bai distributed?
We are all just dragged into their lives, watching them rejoice, pretend, and refuse to reciprocate.
But we are vividly moved by their lives and their attitudes towards life. Because they live too seriously.
Old White chased after Gloria and said: "Not worth it, not worth it." What do you mean? Does he say his art is not worth much? He didn't take his art seriously? If so, he would not refuse the unreliable exhibition places that Lao Wu found for him.
But for him, art, or idealism, the world... Whatever you call it, above, life is supreme. What is life? It was at the beginning that he superimposed everything on top of each other: the teacher, the painter, the cook, the drummer, the poet.
Go to the small shop to haggle, buy beer, send something to your son, and fight with the old crow...
He could even dress himself up, no, should be very obedient. In the WeChat call with Miss Li, he wrote and deleted, deleted and wrote, just to give the other party a correct response.
However, he seemed to have escaped his soul alive, and finally could not pass Miss Li's pass. Because Miss Lee is a love myth. The goal of life is not for life itself, but ultimately to the constant proximity of myth.
There is a myth about life in each of us. The name of this myth is called the love myth. Because life itself is a love.
No matter how old you are, long live love, it is not love, it is life. Ordinary people like us have to be close to God in order to have meaning.
Lao Bai's life is as plain as water. But a few tears from Miss Li in the theater made him see God. Then there was the courage and strength to chase the myth.
Chasing myths is like a bound Prometheus. Every day there will be vultures coming to take away our flesh and blood, and then we have to repair ourselves to meet the pain of the flesh and blood of our lives being diminished the next day.
Behind every fluttering setback is the pain of flesh and blood being torn apart.
Why can't Lao Wu pass Sophia Roland's pass? For this is his love myth, this is his Holy Roman Empire, this is all about his life.
If life is incomplete, then he would rather be taken away by a vulture every day, but also keep his own myth about love, about life.
So when he thought Sophia Roland was dead, his myth collapsed, and he lost the meaning of living, living.
Lao Wu is a mythical person. So Lao Bai said that there was no such day as Lao Wu. But he still wanted it.
03
This film is a Shanghainese film, according to the interpretation of many articles, it is a two-kilometer radius of Wuyuan Road.
So is the scene of the Shanghai French Concession set up in the film important?
It's also important, and it's not important.
Importantly, because only middle-aged people in the French Concession in Shanghai can have such a unique story. Little shoemakers also want to drink coffee, uncles walk the streets in pajamas, and women can be themselves freely.
But what's not important is that if this happens in other cities, if people can live so seriously, so seriously about love, so serious about myths, they can also live such a glamorous beauty.
It's just a pity that about the absolute majority of China can't live such a soul. If you want to live with a soul, you must have an incredible mythological belief in life.
Faith requires courage. It is when the dust of the times is flying in the sky, and we all know that every grain that falls is a mountain, you still firmly and persistently believe in the myth of love.
All serious life requires heroism; and all life is glorious and is born to death.
In the end, I can probably guess where my sentimentality comes from.
Lao Bai's last painting exhibition is called "White Hard Not Hard". Most of our days are hard work in vain; but in the end we say it is not hard.
For all heroism comes from the innumerable calamities of life; and if in the end we can become a frivolous and persistent person, it is because we see the truth of life.
I was amazed that a little girl from 91 could see such a complex principle of life.
One possibility is that she has a great talent that will allow her to speak to the soul of the Old French Concession in just a few years; or another possibility that she also has such an obsessive and indomitable love myth.