Reprinted: Memories

Recall

Liu Weixin

The French film "Memories" uses a funeral to introduce three generations of the family: grandma, father and grandson. The grandson's name is Roman, his grandfather has died, and during his grandfather's funeral, he is interspersed with shots of him running— it turns out that he ran to the wrong cemetery. By the time he arrived, the funeral was over. Dad was certainly not satisfied, but Grandma said to him, "Your grandpa won't be angry, he loves you so much." ”

It's a movie that can't be determined who the protagonist is. Is the protagonist Grandma Madeleine? This is an 85-year-old man, her husband has just died, and she suddenly fell again. Her three sons, not convinced that she lived alone, sent her to a nursing home and then sold her apartment without her consent. Grandma ran away from the nursing home and didn't know the end. Papa Michelle can also be the protagonist. In his 60s, he had just attended a retirement farewell ceremony at the Postal Bank, a full-time estate consultant who had never made a mistake in his career for more than 40 years, and now seems to be in a retirement crisis, with no interest in anything, a red light in marriage, and a worry about his mother. Grandson Roman, a 20-something high school graduate, works the night shift at a hotel and is obsessed with finding the girl he loves all his life. On the one hand, he cares for his grandmother, on the other hand, he has to worry about the relationship between his parents, and he has become a link connecting various relationships, and he should also be the protagonist.

I don't know if the director intends to show all the confusion at all stages of life, the film allows us to see such a scene: young people are both yearning and hesitating when facing love; middle-aged people (or young elderly people) have an anxiety about marriage and family; elderly people have their own different views on old-age care, loneliness, and death. At the funeral he attended with his grandmother, Roman met a girl, and they just looked at each other, but the girl made Roman miss it. Roman would even ask a strange cashier at a gas station supermarket, "How can I find the loved one in this life?" Dad complained to Roman: "Your mother is not talking to me anymore." In Michelle's view, his wife Natalie, although not yet retired, has a retirement crisis. Natalie, on the other hand, believes that it was her retirement that drove Michelle crazy, that he was lifeless and didn't look right. Grandma Madeleine was sent to a nursing home by her son, she just wanted to go home and was homeless. In fact, the nursing home was neglected, Madeleine ran away, the hospital did not know it, and the police department could not find anyone.

"Memories" is about a heavy topic, but it uses prose-style French humor and warmth to dissolve all sadness and pain, but it gives the film a warming power. Although Grandma Madeleine has lost her home, she is not a self-pitying person, she is strong, self-respecting, and free. The only thing she wanted to do was to return to an elementary school in her native Normandy— she had left with her parents in the third grade only because of the war, where she had memories. Roman finds her runaway grandmother by the sea and accompanies her to school. Grandma sat in the classroom and went to class with the children. As they parted, each child painted a portrait of Madeleine. For Roman, he was able to fall in love with his female teacher, Louis, thanks to the cashier at the gas station supermarket, and when Roman asked him how he could find the love of his life, he said: "Stop waiting." "Louis is the result of him stopping waiting. And Daddy Michelle, who has always loved his wife Natalie, also beat up the imaginary Natalie's lover, in fact, this is a story made up by Natalie. Michelle said to Roman: "Without her, I am nothing, she is my passion." Natalie also told Roman about her and Michelle's love affair: "My first year of teaching, at the age of 22, one day, I got off work and heard someone shouting 'Miss, you're very beautiful, I wish I'd never seen you'. All the students looked at us. That person is your dad. In order to solve the marriage crisis of his parents, Roman instigated his father to go to the gas station supermarket, and the cashier seemed to be a life mentor, and also gave Michelle a golden and jade saying: "When you can't move forward, you have to find the beauty of the past." Next, the beautiful picture that appears in the film is that Michelle repeats in public what she said when she first met Natalie decades ago. People asked Natalie, "Who is he?" She said slightly shyly and proudly, "Fiancé." Then she took Michelle's arm and left together.

Grandma suddenly collapsed in the hotel and died. At the funeral, the speaker said, "Love is a gift we share with each other. Roman's new girlfriend, Louis, did not catch the funeral, just as Roman ran to the wrong grandfather's cemetery at the beginning of the film. But the film ends with Roman and Louis kissing on the halfway point of a stone staircase on the street.

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