A few years ago, my cousin, who worked at the Disabled Persons' Federation, offended a friend who got along well because she bluntly said that the friend's child might have "Down syndrome." The friend refused to accept the news and never contacted his cousin again.
At that time, my cousin and I were new mothers, and we felt that the health of our children was very important, and we couldn't understand how there could be a mother who didn't recognize her child's health problems.
Until I watched "Pretty Mom."
I can't admit that my children are different from others. Everything I did was to make him like everyone else.
Sun Liying, played by Gong Li, is a single mother. She divorced her husband early because she had a defective child— her son, Zheng Da, was hearing impaired and couldn't hear without hearing aids.
And Because Zheng Da can't hear, he can't speak, and most of the time he can only make a whining sound. Sun Liying has worked hard to teach her children to speak.
Her efforts have undoubtedly been very fruitful. But this "effectiveness" is insignificant compared to normal children. Zheng Da Neng spoke, to be precise, it was Zheng Da Neng who pronounced it.
Full of hope, Sun Liying sent her son to take the entrance exam for primary school. In the examination room, Zheng Da's face was full of nervousness, and he vaguely recited the text he was most familiar with: "A crow is thirsty, looking for water everywhere to drink..."
But the teachers present sounded like he was just whimpering. The exam naturally did not pass, and the principal kindly introduced Sun Liying to the deaf children's school, but Sun Liying refused without hesitation.
She wants her son to go to school like a normal child, and she firmly believes that the child will become more and more normal. However, the children in the school were not friendly to Zheng Da, they were full of curiosity about Zheng Da's hearing aids, and they couldn't help but laugh at his vague words.
In the children's quarrel, one of Zheng Da's hearing aids was smashed, and Sun Liying was furious - a hearing aid, five thousand pieces! This kid is also too ignorant! He didn't know how important this thing was!
Zheng Da did not know. He didn't know why other children said he was deaf, why he couldn't go to school, why he didn't live with his dad, why others didn't wear hearing aids.
This is Sun Liying's most helpless moment. She didn't have much of an ideal, she just wanted her child to be the same as other children, just like that. But she couldn't tell the child why he was different from others, she couldn't, and she didn't want to.
In the face of a life of suffering, beautiful appearance is useless, but a drag.
The title of the film is "Pretty Mother", gong Li actually does not apply powder in the film. She does the roughest work, working as a washing maid in a factory, selling pirated books in underground crossings, delivering newspapers through the streets, doing part-time work for other people's homes...
Don't say pretty, she can't keep even the most basic neatness. Looking at her image, we often can't remember that she is also a woman in her prime.
In her thirties, tall and good-looking, she was supposed to be the most beautiful flower. But a child with a hearing impairment absorbs too much of the nutrients of this flower.
There is only one moment in the film when she is glamorous — she takes a bottle of good wine from her treasure and prepares to go to a classmates association, and she expects her classmates to lend her some money to buy her son a hearing aid.
She carefully drew lipstick in front of the mottled mirror, and she asked her son: "Zheng Da, is your mother good-looking?" The son said vaguely and sincerely: "Mommy is good-looking!" ”
She was really good-looking, she used to be the class flower in school. But she did not expect that she did not participate in the classmate association, so she decided to leave. Because she heard her former classmates outside the bathroom say: "Sun Liying's son can't hear, born, no cure." ”
She turned and left the hotel, and on the bus home, she drank the bottle herself. Maybe she didn't understand it herself, wasn't she ready to borrow money from everyone? How can I hear others talk about my son and can't accept it?
Beauty is easy to attract sympathy, and it is easier to attract covetousness. Sun Liying's family, where she works part-time, is only a single man, and he does some business, and his income is mixed and bad. When he was proud, he advised Sun Liying that "thirty years of Hexi and thirty years of Hedong will be fine", but when he was frustrated, he needed Sun Liying to persuade him.
He took out a wad of money, thinking that he could make Sun Liying submit, such a beautiful woman trapped by money, what reason did she have to reject herself? He did not expect Sun Liying to resist desperately, and even grabbed a kitchen knife in a panic...
In the end, he still wanted to take money to appease her, but he didn't think that this was her salary! Sun Liying, holding her cheeks reddened and swollen, took the money to buy a hearing aid for her son, and at that moment, she burst into tears. No one knows whether she is hating her own powerlessness or whether she is glad that her son finally has "ears".
She longed to rely on something, but after trying to the end, she found that she could only rely on herself.
After Sun Liying's divorce, her ex-husband remarried, but she still used to go to him when she had something to do. She is very strong and does not fear hard work to take care of the children, but she is also very fragile and always wants to find a shoulder to lean on.
She said she was used to "finding a unit for big things, finding men for small things." However, Zheng Da could not go to school, and she had to resign in order to take care of her children. And the ex-husband died in a car accident, the unit, the man, she can't find it.
She had a female classmate named Ōtsuru who gave her a lot of help, and she once leaned on Ōtsuru's shoulder and said, "If you want a man." In her heart, she always hoped that a man could support a family with her.
The school she enrolled her children in had a male teacher who sympathized with both mother and son, but had limited ability. He wanted to help them, but he couldn't give much.
She took the initiative to help the male teacher clean up the house, hoping that he could say a few kind words in front of the principal and fight for another exam opportunity for Zheng Da. The male teacher also took the initiative to teach Zheng Da to draw, hoping that the child could find his own interests and hobbies.
After the death of her ex-husband, Sun Liying was almost insulted by the boss of the hourly worker, and in the face of the male teacher's caring inquiry, she could not help but lie on his shoulder and cry bitterly.
At that moment, she found an outlet for her emotions, but she did not expect it, and it was only that moment. She sighed at the male teacher: "If only Zheng Da's father were still alive." The male teacher panicked and quickly took his coat and left.
He understood the hint in her words: "If only someone could help me take care of the children, if only someone could make me rely on." ”
But the child's biological father still avoids this child, how can an unrelated male teacher expect him to share the burden of his own life?
She cried and said to the child: "You have been bullied to find your mother to vent, and who is your mother looking for when she is bullied?" Who am I looking for?" At that moment, she finally admitted that her children were different from ordinary people, and she wanted someone to help her, but she only had herself.
Is maternal love innate?
Sun Liying will be angry at the child, there will be moments of impatience, will want to escape, will seek help... Judging from the public's expectations for the role of "mother", she is not a "perfect" mother.
The film doesn't say how great she is, and there is no hysterical emotional expression, what we feel is a real mother who is trapped by her son's hearing impairment and all kinds of trivialities of life.
She had difficulty accepting the child's flaws, because to deny the child was to deny her.
She felt guilty because she had brought her child into the world and not given him a healthy body.
She was afraid, she was afraid that no matter how hard she tried, she would not be able to change the fact that her child was hearing impaired.
Is maternal love innate? The afternoon I became a mom, I realized that I had an instinct to protect my child, but love, not the water in the tap, doesn't flow out the moment you see your child.
For new moms, love is a burden, even if it's sweet, a sweet burden. When you wake up in the middle of the night to feed, when you are helpless to cry to your child, when you want to rest and relax but can't get out... Moms can't help but wonder why they're always impatient enough. Why can't I enjoy the joy of being a mother all the time?
And Sun Liying is even more so. Other mothers have passed the novice stage, love is no longer a burden, but a surprise, a gift, is timeless, and what maternal love brings to Sun Liying is a tie, a restriction, and a heavier burden.
In the practice of pronunciation, in the choice of the future again and again, in the painful growth, she and the child gradually established an indestructible deep feeling, and her love for the child was accumulated day by day.
Maternal love is pieced together by small things after a woman becomes a mother. The greatness of mothers is not that they can save the world, but that even if they are at a loss, they still hold up a piece of the sky for their children.
"Pretty Mother" won Gong Li 3 awards for best actress, and it also won the "Best Feature Film Award" at the Hundred Flowers Awards, many people say that the film celebrates how selfless and great maternal love is, but in my opinion, the film is not to depict a perfect mother.
Mom, just an ordinary person. She will cry, she will hurt, she will be anxious, she will want to escape, she will crave support. But more often than not, their voices are not heard, and their feelings are not understood.
Others only see the greatness of maternal love, but this greatness is really not innate. It is not the mother who is born great, but the little bits of ordinariness that make the mother, who uses their delicate but tough arms to carry off the pressures that life gives them.
From then on, when I saw my mother, I saw the power of "her".