Author: Zhou Zhongmou, Associate Professor of the College of Arts and Master Supervisor of Lanzhou University
Released in 1988, "Scenery in the Mist" is the masterpiece of the famous Greek director Theo Angelopoulos, which won the best film award at the 45th Venice Film Festival. The film tells the growth journey of the sisters and brothers in search of their father, and at the same time contains a variety of symbols and metaphors, which has a profound life revelation meaning and is intriguing. After many years, revisiting this film has a lot of feelings.
The film's sister Vera and younger brother Alexander have not had a father since childhood, and the mother says their father is in Germany. So the sisters and brothers plucked up the courage to step on the train to Germany. During the journey to find his father, he experienced various things and met all kinds of characters. Among them, there are the young Orestes who gave them selfless help, and the truck drivers who caused them harm. After countless twists and turns, they eventually reached the Side border and boarded a small boat under the cover of night to sneak across the border, but were found by the sentries on duty. After a burst of gunfire, the picture fell into darkness, followed by a thick fog of white. The fog gradually cleared, and a large tree appeared. The two brothers and sisters ran hand in hand to the tree, hugging each other tightly.
On the surface of the story, "Landscape in the Mist" looks like a road movie. The film revolves around the journey of finding a father, and in the experience and experience of the sisters and brothers, realistic thinking and human nature analysis are carried out. In the innocent eyes of two children, adult society is full of incomprehensible rules and behaviors. They were kicked off the train by the ticket inspectors and taken to the police station by the police, where they witnessed the crying of the runaway bride and the death of a horse. The indifference and selfishness of the adult world, the cowardice and meanness of human nature, etc., also make them suffer the pain of growth.
For example, they meet their uncle on the way, but the uncle refuses to acknowledge his kinship and says that the so-called "German father" is just a lie of the mother, causing their father-hunting journey to fall into a huge void. Alexander had to work for bread, as the restaurateur demanded, and transformed from an innocent natural man to a social man who adapted to the rules. The cowardly truck driver does not dare to declare war on another strong driver, but chooses to be violent to young Vera to satisfy his shameful desires and show the ugly and despicable side of human nature. When Vera's pain is relieved by her admiration for Orestes, she is surprised to discover that Orestes is gay. This cruel fact prompted her to resolutely leave with Alexander and march forward. The growth process of the sisters and brothers in the film is the process of constantly injuring and self-healing, and it is also the process of constantly adapting to various rules.
Under the cloak of the growth narrative of the journey to find the father, the film expresses a reflection on the modern industrial civilization of the West. When Vera and Alexander are taken by the police to find their uncle, huge chimneys, buildings, machines and other modern industrial facilities appear in the picture. In front of these tall buildings and equipment, people appear very small, symbolizing the squeeze of modern industrial society and the coldness of human relations. At the police station, a woman dressed in black kept repeating "the rope around his neck fell"; when snow fell from the sky, the policemen also repeated "Oh, it's snowing" in their mouths, and they ran into the streets, looking up at the sky like sculptures, motionless. The single discourse expression and the rigid mechanical action posture are metaphors for the boring, lifeless and degraded way of emotional expression under the discipline of modern industrial society in the West.
What best reflects the film's concern for Western modern industrial civilization is the plot of the troupe having nowhere to perform and facing dissolution. Ancient Greek civilization is the earliest civilization that appeared in Europe and one of the sources of Western civilization. Drama was an important form of ancient Greek civilization, and Aristotle wrote a book devoted to the art of theater, Poetics. In modern industrial society, Greek theater groups are ostracized and cannot even find a place to perform. The decline of drama symbolized the decline of both Greek civilization and the decline of Western civilization. Not only that, but in the Greek civilization, theatrical performance was communicated with the gods. The dramatic death in the modern industrial society of the West, that is, the death of God, the death of God. The film thus turns to the thinking of religion, which has a deep meaning at the philosophical and religious level.
In the West, the word "father" refers to both father and God. The absent and absent father in the film is also a metaphor for the absent and absent God. "At first there was only pitch black, then the light appeared, and then land, rivers, lakes, mountains, flowers, and trees..." The story told by the sister to the younger brother at the beginning of the film hints at God's absence. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche declared that "God is dead." There is a story about Nietzsche about the "Horse of Turin". Nietzsche was on the streets of Turin when he saw the coachman beating a horse, so he walked over and hugged the horse's neck and cried bitterly. In the movie, there is also a scene of Alexander crying bitterly at a dying horse. Similar situations construct the "death of God" connection. In the film, the sculpture of the right hand with the index finger broken in the sea is reminiscent of the index finger that God and Adam will touch together in Michelangelo's Genesis fresco. A broken index finger means a broken connection between man and God. The image of "fog" in the film is exactly the symbol of people's confusion, confusion, confusion, and spiritual dependence in the context of "God is dead" and "father is absent" in the modern industrial society of the West.
Therefore, the journey of the sisters and brothers in the film to find their father is not only to find their own father, but more like to represent human beings to find God again, to find faith and spiritual refuge, with the tragic meaning of "knowing that you can't do it". Although they are weak and faltering, they have clear goals. Compared to them, the other characters in the film appear empty and confused. On the surface, Orestes provided a lot of help to the siblings, but mentally, they also provided support for the aimless Orestes. The tree at the end symbolizes the spiritual belonging and the inner dependence. Although the film has clearly told that the tree in the fog is nothing more than an imagination of a piece of damaged film, the firm faith and courageous steps of the sisters and brothers fully embody the power of spiritual belief and bring hope to the audience.
In fact, isn't this also the case in life? Many times, like the sisters and brothers in the film, we walk in the vast fog, feeling confused, afraid, and flustered, not knowing whether to continue to go forward, or stand where we are, or where we are when we retreat. But if we firmly believe that there is a beautiful scenery at the end of the fog, we will pluck up the courage and walk down without hesitation to reach the spiritual home and destination. (Zhou Zhongmou)
Source: Guangming Network - Literary And Art Review Channel