Passports, cars, maps, memorial lights, Buenos Aires, in the heat, they embarked on a road trip. This journey is the separation of lovers, the escape, the self-exile, and it is "starting from scratch". Through the movement and wandering of space, they reconstruct their "home" in a foreign land and rebuild their identity.
Run away, set off, get lost
When the film began filming, we saw the passports of Lai Yiu-fai and He Baorong under the montage screen, quickly stamped at the customs office, and in just a few seconds of the picture, we understood that they were all strangers on the journey. Passport symbolizes identity and home, this opening shot is close to the picture, and the close-up shots of the two people's passports, the photo on the top is blurred and shaken, a moment of trance, it is impossible to distinguish who is who, and can not see the name of the two people, nationality ... and other identity information - at the beginning of the journey, they are already confused people, are wandering strangers.
Then the black-and-white picture is staggered, and Lai Yaohui's voiceover opens their story:
Ho Po Wing always said, 'Why don't we start all over again?"'
Starting from the beginning, starting over, reconstructing, rebuilding, reorganizing, is a footnote to their relationship, so leaving becomes a journey, leaving becomes another beginning. They love from Hong Kong to Argentina, they are divided and united, it is difficult to give up, so they turn the years into a pool of spring light, like sunshine, there is night, and they will always wait for the dawn, the road is long, they can continue to start from the beginning. On the open road, the two men pushed the anchored car, looked at the map that they didn't understand, and looked for a seemingly innocent destination—they were lost.
When I first arrived in Argentina, I didn't know the place. One day He Baorong bought a lamp. I think it's so pretty. The two of them wanted to look for the waterfall on the lamp, and it was very difficult to find the name of the place. Thinking that after going to the waterfall, I would return to Hong Kong, but I got lost.
He Baorong's "it's better for us to start from scratch" is no longer just a "new start" in the relationship between lovers, but also a re-departure in the spatial sense, a search and vision for the unknown. As Hong Kongers at the end of the twentieth century, Lai Yiu-fai and Ho Po Wing are almost all lost and strangers in the vast world, and the path they take is not only the dispersion of the officialdom, but also the journey of non-mainstream people to find a place to live. Geographically and psychologically, they were "banished" and displaced.
As Wong Kar-wai said, about this 1997 movie, about his own 97 years, he also wanted to escape, because he didn't know what the next step would be, he didn't know what Would happen in Hong Kong after July 1st, so it was better to leave Hong Kong and escape from reality. Buenos Aires, the opposite point of Hong Kong, the unknown other side of the world, he photographs the couple running away, wandering in a foreign country, they rebuild their relationships, reconstruct their identities, and rebuild their spatial "home" during the journey, they try to "start from the beginning" with themselves and life.
Wandering like water: Iguazu Falls
Different from the general "escape", Ho Po Wing and Lai Yiu Fai's departure from Hong Kong is not like the outlaw Mandarin duck, there is no exact "fleeing object" to avoid, there is no clear direction and destination, they are like flowing water, wandering freely, just to find a way out that can rush.
The imagery of water is an important symbol in Spring Break, and appears shortly after the beginning of the film.
In the vague chaos, in the ambiguous melody of waltz-like briskness but quiet wandering, the water splashes everywhere, the yellow dust rises, and the blue-green mixed with the brown Iguazu waterfall pours and rushes, just like the surging desire of He Baorong and Li Yaohui, it is a kind of repressed pouring, and finally comes to a field without taboos, and can blend freely, such as the natural discharge and gushing vitality of the waterfall in the primitive jungle, perhaps that is the real "purpose" of their wandering.
Waterfalls are both a discrete purpose and their "unfinished" dream. It is passionate and majestic, but it is extremely steep, weightless and endless, it is a desperate and desperate love to fly, and finally it makes people lose their feet and fall and lose their roots. Water is the discrete form of Li Yaohui and He Baorong, running in the vast city, and there is no shape.
The two are like the water of a waterfall, rushing towards each other, but also full of struggle and danger, pulling and colliding. Water is gentle and never He Baorong's Li Yaohui, but also the crazy, indulgent and amorphous and "watery Yanghua" He Baorong, water is a necessity for the survival of people in the dry desert, it is impossible to quit the dependence, nourish life, and the waterfall that flows down is the warmest shape of the flowing water, they are the most vigorous and intense love in each other's lives, and the water flows more often.
They are all water, no place to live, no constant state, no specific "spatiality", no peaceful "home", lingering in a foreign world, in the turquoise fog, unable to touch the edge of the search, noisy water flow, faint murmur -
"I feel so sad, I always think it should be two people standing here."
Deconstructing "Family" and Rebuilding "Home": Lai Yiu-fai's apartment
Lai Yaohui rented an apartment, He Baorong moved in when he was injured, And Lai Yaohui seemed to have become a traditional wife and mother, taking care of the child-like He Baorong, and they finally had a "home". Lai Yiu-fai said that when Ho Po Wing was injured, he was the happiest time, they spent trivial days and lives together, which is the most important and classic space in the movie, and it is also the home that the two rebuilt in a different place, there is no marriage relationship, there is no male and female love, at that time, how can it be called a "family"?
Interpret the meaning of home in "Spring Breaks" and find their home from the perspective of the two protagonists.
In "Spring Breaks", Lai Yaohui and Ho Po Wing spent the most "normal", "general" and "unspecific" life in the apartment, which is almost the necessary years in every love, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, in this reconstructed "home" space, it is eliminated, Wong Kar-wai's lens of Lai Yiu-fai and Ho Po Wing, in this small apartment in Buenos Aires,"from scratch", also let the lovers "start from scratch", reconstructing their normal "home" space.
Even though "Spring Breaks" is regarded as a classic of the movie, it is not intended to present "love", and Wong Kar-wai is only "love". He took away many of the social factors, family opposition, unacceptable discrimination, and other conflict and deformed portrayals in many films, and directly appealed to love itself. Not talking about the outside, not talking about special issues, but just the universal joy and sorrow of love and relationships, I think this is the reason for his incomparable success. The story of Ho Po Wing and Lai Yiu Fai allows us to see the love story of two people, disputes are divided like lovers in each relationship, gender is not the focus.
Leung Chao-wai once mentioned that in that tango in the kitchen or in the whole movie, who leads, who follows, who makes the other person become what kind of "man", these questions may never have an answer, and Wong Kar-wai is deeply fascinated by this. Therefore, it is better to say that "Spring Breaks" explores the master-slave, leadership and follow-up of love, the delicate relationship between dominance and obedience, freedom and restriction, letting go and bondage, and it is a sore in the heart of no one, regardless of men and women. And such a tango dance music is dancing in Li Yaohui's apartment.
The only special thing is that they practice in the private room again and again, and the last time, they dance in the kitchen of the public space, the picture and lighting configuration of that scene are like the stage sprinkled by the spotlight, they enjoy dancing in the music, they don't care about the external environment, the lovers don't have to cover up, they don't have to care about the outside world, so they dance love into the public domain freely and openly, which is a kind of introverted but warm declaration, declaring that at this moment we love each other, in the space with the texture of the life of chai rice oil salt sauce vinegar tea, we dance , we love each other.
Buenos Aires, In Li Yaohui's small apartment, the injured He Baorong lay on the bed, he coddled Li Yaohui, Li Yaohui was also willing to bathe, buy cigarettes, cook for him, they lived an ordinary life. They deconstruct the concept of the traditional "family" in their hometown, and reconstruct love with the space of "home" in a different place at this moment, and construct a love that is not said but actually exists.
Homecoming: The Lost Home
Li Yaohui confiscated He Baorong's passport, and the title of identity and hometown was brought out again, and their self-separation and exile came to the end. After breaking up with Ho Po Wing, the "home" of the apartment is no longer home, and Lai Yiu-fai remembers his real hometown - Hong Kong.
The upside-down Hong Kong is particularly charming under the montage, and people can't help but turn their heads, just to see the familiar Chinese characters on the road signs on the screen, but at this moment, Lai Yaohui can't tilt his head to see the face of his hometown, he lives in the upside-down place of his home, the opposite point on the earth, at this time "Hong Kong" is a strange term. Ho Po Wing, who lost his passport, rented Lai YaoHui's apartment, he wanted to "recreate" their home, he re-lit the waterfall lamp, made the mattress, bought a cigarette, and laid it out neatly, but the space was still there, but the affection was gone.
It turns out that when you are lonely, all people are the same.
Here we see that the previously rebuilt "home" is destroyed again, and under Wong Kar-wai's narrative, the "home" in the geographical and spatial sense is denied. At night, the streets of Taipei are bustling with traffic, Li Yaohui wears headphones against the window, smiling shallowly, but his eyes are full of sadness, the spring sun is gone, they can no longer start over, his eyes whispered Chen Junzhi's words - "You and I are already homeless people."
Conclusion: After separation, identities are exchanged
It is mentioned in "July and Ansheng" that the person who stepped on the shadow and the body of the shadow exchanged their lives, and Ansheng produced a stable July, and July became a wandering Ansheng. Li Yaohui left He Baorong to see the waterfall, to the Ningxia Night Market, to see Xiao Zhang's family... He had no roots, so he became a fluttering He Baorong; He Baorong rented Li Yaohui's residence, arranged it into a family, the cigarette boxes were neatly listed, and he became Li Yaohui of Anfen, waiting for his lover to return. However, their stories are destined to be displaced, Li Yaohui is alone in front of the Iguazu Falls, smiling and hurting, while He Baorong is in the apartment, holding a pillow and crying bitterly, and the spring light is destined to be locked in Argentina, with no ending.
In "The Distance of 0.01 Centimeters", we see He Baorong and Lai Yaohui calling each other by each other's names, and see He Baorong playfully imitating his lover Li Yaohui in front of the tavern, just like the scene of the fast customs hand-to-hand passport at the beginning of "Spring Breaks", in a trance, their identities are blurred, who is He Baorong? Who is Lai Yiu-fai?
He deliberately teased and imitated his lover as if they were living in his own body; they deliberately exchanged names, because in the separation, the "home" they really lived in was not a foreign apartment in the real spatial sense, but in each other's bodies. They dwell in each other's bodies, in their identities, in their names, so in "Spring Breaks", the names of the two are constantly evoked, that is their peace of mind, and they are called to be hometowns.