Original | Li Xiaomo
It's the weekend again, and it's my movie time again.
This week I revisited a French movie I saw 10 years ago when I was in college, "The Grace of the Hedgehog."
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What story does the movie tell?
in Palomar
It's not the kind of movie with a strong plot, where the rhythm is like soothing light music, flowing softly and then stopping abruptly.
The film mainly tells the story that takes place between three people.
The first person is Paloma, a girl from a wealthy family in a luxury apartment in Paris.
His father was a parliamentarian, a typical successful man, busy at work, with a bright future, who valued work far more than his family. The mother is a woman who has received 10 years of psychological treatment, has taken antidepressants for a long time, kept chatting with flowers and plants, and is a little nervous. My sister was an ambitious college student who wanted to be more successful than her father and was keen to compete.
The girl said: "My parents are rich people, and my sister and I are rich people in the future. ”
Girls are very precocious and have an over-age assertiveness and insight. She doesn't like to talk to her family and always likes to hide and sneak observations.
She felt that the lives of adults were meaningless, like fish trapped in a fish tank and flies hitting glass. So she decided to commit suicide 165 days later, on her 12th birthday. She was carrying out a secret suicide plan, stealing a sleeping pill from her mother's pill box every week, saving enough doses, and ending her life on her 12th birthday.
One of the last things she wanted to do before committing suicide was to make a documentary film about her family, with the aim of revealing the absurdity and meaninglessness of life.
The second person was the janitor of the apartment, her name was Renee, and everyone called her Madame Michelle. Her daily job was to open and close doors, do hygiene, distribute letters, and deliver couriers.
On the surface, she is a gatekeeper who is very much in line with everyone's stereotypes.
Here's her self-introduction:
"My name is Lenny, 54 years old, has been a concierge for 27 years, this building has a total of 5 luxury apartments, the rooms are very spacious, all live in people. I was short, ugly, bloated, and my feet were calloused.
I never went to school, and I was always a penniless, cautious, and insignificant person. Living alone, there is a fat and lazy male cat, and this cat is obviously characterized by licking its paws when it is in a bad mood.
I'm cold, but polite, and people don't like me, but accept me. Because I fit perfectly into the role of a janitor: ugly, old, snarky. I watched TV endlessly every day, surrounded by the fat cat that was napping. ”
She seems to have a bad temper, is harsh on people, is not attentive to all the residents, and loves to answer all the residents, such as the apartment rules to open at 8 o'clock, someone asks her to accommodate it and open it in advance, she will say unceremoniously: you will come back later, and then resolutely slam the door, half a nonsense.
She looked like a hedgehog.
Just when you thought she was an ordinary concierge watching TV and passing the time, she pushed open the door in the inner room, which was a room full of books.
The third person is the new tenant of the apartment, Kobayashi Geran, who is well-dressed, elegant, tasteful, and generous. He respected everyone he met and was a true gentleman.
The fate of the three people began because of the cat.
The girl found the cat that the female concierge had lost, sent her back, and the two gradually became friends.
On the first day of Kobayashi's move, the old owner introduced him to the concierge, and the concierge inadvertently muttered a kind of "happy families are mostly similar", and Kobayashi continued with a sentence "Unfortunate families are different", which is the first sentence of the opening chapter of "Anna Karerina". Kobayashi's concierge also had a cat, so he asked her for the name of the cat. Her cat's name was Tolstoy, the author of Anna Karenina.
Coincidentally, Kobayashi also likes "Anna Karelina", and he also has two cats, one named Levin, who has always been called Kitty, both of whom are characters in the novel "Anna Karelina".
A concierge, her cat's name is Tolstoy, blurted out a famous sentence in the novel. This aroused Kobayashi's curiosity.
He invited the concierge Rennie to his house for dinner, and the more he talked, the more he found that Renee talked a lot, paintings, movies, books, she had unique insights. Through the disguise of the concierge, he saw the elegant and interesting soul inside.
The interaction between the two people is increasing.
But Renee felt that his bloated, ugly, and low-status self was not worthy of the rich and handsome Kobayashi, and felt that he was just delusional.
But Kobayashi's heartfelt appreciation and respect, as well as the girl's encouragement, made her gradually open her heart.
Love quietly sprouted between two men and women in their fifties and sixties. But just as Lenny opens his heart and prepares to love, a car accident brings Lenny's life to an abrupt end.
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What exactly is elegance?
To be honest, when I first saw it, I didn't understand it very well.
I was impressed by two things:
The first is Lenny's study, full of books, and it is shocking to see it at first sight.
It was at that time that I began to yearn to be like her, to have a study of my own, full of books I liked. Every day for hours inside, separating myself from others, without anyone disturbing me, and letting books take me through the world of thought, between different lives.
The second is her death, finally someone saw the elegance and beauty in her heart, finally there was someone who understood her and admired her, to love her, she finally let go of her defenses, let go of arrogance, ready to love bravely, but she died so unexpectedly.
My heart was broken.
But when I watched it 10 years ago, I didn't understand what elegance was, why did Kobayashi and the little girl think that the female concierge was extremely elegant? I don't understand why a reclusive, bloated, scruffy female concierge would be considered elegant.
Some people said in the barrage that it was because the female concierge loved to read very much, and "had poetry and bookishness in her belly."
But if a person reads to show off his intelligence and erudition, to gain advantages and status that crushes others, and to gain a sense of superiority from them, is he still elegant?
For example, Yang Qihan, who was ridiculed by the whole network group because he was not kind and was cheated of 1 million, graduated from Tsinghua University and read more than a hundred books every year. His famous phrase is "Are you more knowledgeable today than you were yesterday?" "But is he elegant?" Did he "have poetry and bookishness in his belly"? He is nothing more than a clever, highly educated, and self-interested nuisance.
It can be seen that reading more books does not necessarily make you an elegant person.
What exactly is elegance?
She is elegant, firstly because she does not want to show off, not to appear smart, not to overwhelm others, not to read for any utilitarian purpose, she is purely reading as a way of life, reading a room of books has never been complacent, not to exalt herself, not to belittle others.
She is elegant, secondly because she respects others from the bottom of her heart, whether this person is an adult or a child, whether it is a rich man in good clothes or a poor and homeless man sleeping on the street, whether he is literate or uncultured, whether he is Alzheimer's or mentally normal.
How did she end up dying? It was because the homeless man who greeted her every day, I don't know if it was because of the drugging suddenly danced in the middle of the road, she was worried that the other party would encounter danger, anxiously persuaded him to return to the side of the road, and unconsciously walked to the middle of the road, and as a result, she was hit by a car. She genuinely cared about the life and death of this impoverished, street-dwelling, often incoherent tramp.
This kind of care is very elegant.
If a person embraces social Darwinism, thinks that the tramp is the scum of society, does not care about their life and death, and thinks that they deserve to die, then will he be elegant? No, it won't.
Heartfelt respect is not the same as condescending, superior friendliness and alienating courtesy. This elegance also appears in Kobayashi.
In fact, the people who live in this apartment are all well-educated elites, and there are few acts of arrogance or impoliteness, and to be polite to low-class people is what their cultivation requires, so they are more condescending, with a sense of superiority and friendliness and alienation.
The little girl Paloma wants to go to the concierge often, and Lenny says she needs to get her parents' consent first. So Paloma's mother took advantage of Lenny's arrival to deliver the mail and asked for her permission. He was clearly begging the other party, but he wouldn't let Lenny in.
Renee dressed up and ate with Mr. Xiaolin, but one of the wives who greeted her did not recognize Renee, because Renee was a functional person, they never seriously looked at her face, they never cared about her life, no one knew that her husband died of cancer, no one knew her name was Reney, even though Renee had been a concierge here for 27 years.
But Kobayashi treats Lenny as an equal person to communicate, really cares about her, really interests in her, really wants to listen to her, invites her to dinner, invites her to his home, really respects her, really appreciates her, and finally really pursues her seriously, not basing on social status, wealth, appearance, occupation, age and other things.
Elegance is not discriminating in the treatment of people encountered, not based on wealth, social status, appearance, education, occupation and other things to distinguish others, such people are very pure in heart, Lenny is a very pure heart, Kobayashi is also.
She was elegant, perhaps third because she was very frank and would not pretend to be someone who was not herself in order to elevate herself.
She hadn't done her hair for many years, she hadn't bought new clothes, and when she received an invitation to dinner, she had done her hair and put on clothes borrowed by friends, which was a sign of respect for Mr. Kobayashi. As a result, because she was not used to chopsticks and used a spoon to eat noodles, she was embarrassed to get the noodles on her clothes, she very frankly admitted that this was not her own clothes, but someone else's, frank herself cramped, frank that she had not interacted with people for many years, and began to look a little lonely.
Even if they wear the most exquisite makeup, wear the most expensive clothes, and appear on the most advanced occasions, they pretend to be a person who is not themselves in order to elevate themselves, and they will never have anything to do with elegance.
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Why arm yourself into a hedgehog?
Disguised as a hedgehog, in order to be able to live purely in the world of self.
Lenny is a little cool, she doesn't need people to like her, she's not afraid of people hating her, she's impatient and explains to people who don't understand her and aren't interested in her.
She seems to be uninhabited, which is very convenient and free. So she was able to live an atypical concierge reading life in secret and in her own right.
"We are all lonely hedgehogs, and only people with the same frequency can see each other's innermost unknowable elegance."
We don't really need to be liked by everyone, and having one or two confidants is happy enough. Getting along with people of different frequencies is very strenuous and hard. And people of the same frequency, as long as they meet, will easily recognize each other.
Some people say that the cross-class love between Mr. Kobayashi and Lenny is fake, but what if it is friendship? Still fake? Isn't love important? Isn't it also good for two people to be friends? People whose souls are committed do not have to live together, they do not necessarily have to love each other, as long as they respect and appreciate each other and often share each other's views on life, it is actually enough.
I'm so sure because I've made such friends.
Still, I can't let go of her death, though the author says it beautifully.
"What matters is not death, nor is it at what age to die. It's about what you're doing in the moment of death. Lenny was preparing to love. ”
[This article was originally published on the personal reading public account: Late Night Desk (ID: shenyeshuzhuo)]
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About the Author:
Li Xiaomo
Former Hainan Special Administrative Region Reporter, professional reader, has published the best-selling book "Please Stop Invalid Socializing".
Personal reading public number: late night desk (ID: shenyeshuzhuo)
Personal diary public number: Li Xiaomo's diary (ID: lxmmovie)
I believe that a person's reading history is often the history of his ideological growth and ability development.
Write an in-depth reading article every time you read a book, and a high-quality book list every month. Don't sell inferior chicken soup, don't say the right nonsense, welcome attention, stars and tops.
Let's read a book together