Author: The Lady of the Tree
Hemingway said: "If you are fortunate enough to live in Paris when you are young, then she will be with you wherever you go for the rest of your life, because Paris is a feast of flow." ”
What is Paris like in cinema, and is it as dreamy as a literary classic? In "Delicious Relationship", Julie, a celebrity chef played by Meryl Streep, turned the taste of Paris and happiness into 524 dishes, written in "Mastering the Art of French Cooking", and cured julia, a girl from the next generation. In "Dream of Paris", Paris once became a youthful highland for young people angry and wandering. In "Revolutionary Road", the middle-class couple living in the United States regard "the whole family moving to Paris" as the last straw to save the marriage, but they unexpectedly slide into a deeper abyss.
Paris has always been symbolically "elsewhere".
Under The Lens of Hou Mai, Paris presents another side that has never been seen in the history of cinema, paris in the eyes of Parisians. The flipping of light and shadow is like the light waves of life, flowing through every ordinary corner of Paris, every street, every café, reflected on the elegant wallpaper, frescoes and vases in the room. During this period, men and women experienced the taste of love, and in the endless conversation, they produced a silent beauty and power. Hou Mai's works make Paris tend to be pyrotechnic and real.
"Winter Story" begins in the summer, the girl Felicia meets charles at the seaside and falls in love, the world of you and me, as if time has stopped and the world has entered a dream. When they were separated, the girl wrote her address and instructed Charles to write a letter, not knowing that she had made a mistake and was saying the wrong street. Five years later, Felicia has a beautiful and lovely daughter and two boyfriends with very different careers and personalities. Everyone said that Charles could never come back, and only Felicia was convinced that it was better for man to live hopefully than without hope.
Her mother advised her not to break up with the nerdy Lovac, and it was difficult to find a man who loved her so gently and so much. Felicia said she didn't like mental control, but she liked physically, and That Luwak was too gentle, like a brother. She sometimes said she liked nerdy Luwak a little more, sometimes she liked the salon owner Marsanx a little more, and in any case, the love for them was not enough for her to live with them.
In order not to continue to wait in Paris, she took her daughter to Nevers to live with Massan. It turns out that whether you can live with a person and live together is known. Although Nevers is a beautiful city, with dreamy and quiet old streets and museums, and beautiful scenery of the Loire River, Marsanques is not Charles after all, and the melon that retreats to the second place is not so sweet. Heeding the call of her inner instincts, she left Massan and returned to Paris, where she continued to be friends with Luvac. Together, they watched a play by Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale, in which the statue of the queen was resurrected because of the faith of love, and Felicia burst into tears. Drama is her voice, and it is another metaphor for the plot, she and Charles do not necessarily have to reunite, but she believes in love itself, love will guide, love has exclusive uniqueness.
In the winter, Paris is dark and wet and cold, but the relationship between people is full of kindness, and the heroine wears a scarf and wears a thick cotton coat into the crowd, takes the subway or bus, rubs her hands into the barbershop where she works, and feels the upcoming Christmas and New Year atmosphere. In such a story, the next moment around the corner, maybe there will be a miracle.
When Felicia and Charles are really reunited on the bus at the end of the film, you look at me, I look at you, and the angel-looking girl Élise laughs and says it's "PaPa", it makes people want to believe again: the miracle of love will eventually happen, and there will be an echo.
In my limited personal movie records, none of the love films that have touched me very much are happy ending, and Hou Mai's other films are no exception, just like a major law of love between ancient and modern, ancient and modern Chinese and foreign love, love is easy to die, life is easy to grow old. Whether you believe in love or not, the prefix adjective for love is always – fickle.
"The Story of Winter" breaks this law, allowing the heroine to experience romantic encounters, misunderstandings and losses, single baby raising, polyamorous love, after five years, and finally wait for the original true destiny. When I watched "Winter" for the first time, I could not understand Hou Mai's arrangement, and when I watched it the second time, I understood that it was necessary to arrange it in this way, whether it was a story or fate, there needed to be an accident of inevitability.
Hou Mai gave the most beautiful ending to "The Story of Winter". In the Four Seasons series, the plot and seasons are meticulous, and every time you watch one, you feel like you have walked through a season of life, a vibrant spring, a romantic and amorous summer, a lonely and quiet autumn, and a winter day of waiting. The long winter is over, and another cycle of four seasons begins.
Compared with Hou Mai's other works, "The Story of Winter" especially makes people feel the relaxation and elasticity of a French love, and is somewhat similar to "Love at Sunset and Dusk", where people are always talking intensively like whispers. Mother and daughter, sister and sister, heroine and boyfriend spare tire No. 1, heroine and boyfriend spare tire No. 2... As an Oriental, I was amazed, talking about men, talking about sex, talking about soul and reincarnation, why can I always be so soft and natural.
Although Wittgenstein said that the limits of language are the limits of my world, man must remain silent about what man cannot say. However, in the flow of life, language is precisely the most important way to express the expression between people, and language makes the relationship clearer and more complex. The use of large lines in Hou Mai's films is the most natural product of the contradiction between the character's heart and behavior. Only by understanding this can we have more dialogue with Hou Mai.
I also like the urbanity and modernity of Hou Mai's films, just mentioned Paris, Hou Mai's film chooses most of the background is Paris, in the famous big city, materiality, human nature, and even history and artistry, there will be a more complex friction intersection, which can give the film fun and imagination space, so that people living in the city have a more delicate sense of substitution.
The contrast between a person who lives like a hermit in the city, but in the film is keen on the most realistic figurative expression of the streets and alleys, is an outlet for Hou Mai's thinking.
His editor Mary Stephen once said, "Houmai is a secret person, but in reality he is a very simple person, and even everything about him is very simple." His life is very simple, he does not buy expensive things, nor does he wear expensive clothes. Hou Mairen is very kind, and being his student is to start learning by getting used to drinking tea with him every day. When he was in his 70s, he still took the bus to the office day after day, he didn't give interviews, he didn't like people to take pictures of him, and privately he always explained: 'I still have to take the bus.' He didn't want people to know who he was, and even mobilized us to take the bus to work and school, telling us that the meaning of the bus is not only fast and economic, the key is to see people and listen to people's conversations." ”
Imagine what an interesting old French man it is.
When it comes to watching movies, I'm always not good at summarizing, but obsessed with looking and feeling. Hou Mai's works, "A Night in the Mude Family", "Double Sisters", "Afternoon Love", "Green Light", Daode Series, Four Seasons Series, etc., are still only a small part of the works, so it is impossible to summarize the full essence of "Hou Mai Style", and can only say that although the styles are very similar, they will never feel repetitive.
Love is inexhaustible, because it is the eternal yearning in people's hearts. The city of Paris also seems to be able to encounter a love adventure with every step.
Some time ago, a student came to our unit for an internship, learning French, and the name was as poetic and beautiful as the movie. Asked about his future plans, he said that he wanted to study in France to study graduate school. I don't know if she will go to Paris, walk on the banks of the Seine, and meet a dreamlike relationship. But you must also know that there are also eternal ambiguities, suspicions, and uneasiness in love, all of which are commonplace.
(Image from the Internet, copyright belongs to the original author)