The Promise of Childhood is a French film directed by Eric Babil, based on The Autobiographical novel of the same name by Roman Gary, depicting the most emotional memories between Roman Gary and his mother.
Somehow, every time I watch this movie, the first thing I think of in my mind is a small story about Jay Chou, Jay Chou once revealed when he was a guest in Tse Ting Feng's food show "Feng Wei": he began to learn the piano from the age of 4, and was also required to practice for 2 hours a day, when he was a child, he was very active, he couldn't sit still, and his mother Ye Huimei would take a rattan and sit silently on the side to supervise. Every time I hear other children outside the window playing and having fun, I will inevitably feel sad in my heart: "Why are others playing, and I want to learn piano?" But under the majesty of his mother, Jay Chou could only continue to practice.
The protagonist of the film, Roman Gary, also faces a similar encounter, and has been given great expectations by his mother since he was a child, hoping that he can become a great writer in the future, for which his training has almost reached a harsh point, however, Roman Gary is different from Jay Chou: Jay Chou is more fortunate than the protagonist in the movie, when he becomes a star in the spotlight, his mother is still alive and can still hear his grateful voice, and Roman Gary is more fortunate than the protagonist in the movie: When he becomes a star in the spotlight, his mother is still alive and can still hear his grateful voice. When Gary finally became the writer and ace pilot his mother expected to be, her mother had passed away and would never be seen again.
There is nothing more regrettable in the world than this: I have fulfilled all your expectations, and you are no longer there.
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There is a Chinese idiom called: Jackie Chan. Although parents have different ways of educating their children today, almost all parents have one thing in common, with great expectations for their children, some hope that their children will become scientists in the future, and some hope that their children will become big stars... I hope that they will play the social role that their parents once wanted to be in the future, according to their own expectations.
In order to make their children the kind of role they want, parents will leave what they think is the best for their children and "feed" them. Lu Xiaohua, the mother of Ivan played by Xu Zheng in "囧Mom" released during the Spring Festival last year, is such an example, in order to make her son eat healthy food, she grinds grain drinks for her son and feeds tomatoes to her son... Even if the son has reached adulthood, such "feeding" is still continuing, and he does not care at all whether the son likes it or not, whether he can accept it, and behind this series of actions, it is driven by the name of "love".
In the movie "Childhood Promises", Roman Gary's mother is even more extreme, in order to let his son fulfill his strong expectations, he forces his son to write, deprives his son of his hobby of drawing, and even restricts his son from playing with the girls he likes.
Of course, there is a poignant reason behind all this: Roman Gary's mother had a special experience, she pulled her child up alone after her divorce, took the child from Poland to France, tasted the cold and warm of the world, and suffered the ridicule of her neighbors. Therefore, he will be so harsh on his son and hope that his son can have a tough life.
At the family's most embarrassing time, ignoring the ridicule of her Polish neighbors, she shouted downstairs:
"My son will become an ambassador of France, a writer, a knight of the Legion of Honor, and even a general, and he will find the best tailor in London to customize the suit for him!!!"
The frenzied laughter of the neighbors made 10-year-old Roman Gary feel a deep sense of humiliation, and his life's mission was suddenly plunged into getting rid of this humiliation while pandering to his mother's strong expectations.
He began to learn to write in strict accordance with his mother's plan, followed the rules in the elite education curriculum formulated by his mother, and joined the army in the eyes of his mother's expectations, completing his mother's wishes step by step. However, he did not feel happy. Like Ivan in "囧Mom", he has tried to resist and quarreled fiercely with his mother, but in the end, he still ended in compromise. He is attached to his strong mother, perceives the difficulty of her mother's life, and has sacrificed too much for her son, including her own love. With this complicated feeling of powerlessness, he could not find any other strength to live than his mother's expectations.
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Psychology believes that when the baby is born, the relationship between the baby and the mother is symbiotic. The baby is in the stage of psychological integration with the mother. The mother takes care of the child's diet and living, and the child also expresses needs through the mother.
This symbiotic relationship, as the child grows, will be constantly broken, so that the child will slowly move towards independence, and try to explore the world alone, to find their own magical "power".
The breakup of this symbiotic relationship depends on the strength of the child and the parent, and finally at the expense of the parents' "compromise", let go of the child's "control", so as to complete the awakening of self-awareness.
Psychology divides the types of parents into two main types: controlling parents and caring parents. Caring parents will continue to reduce the control of their children, and instead encourage their children to complete their independent growth, focusing on the life of caring for their children in life, and guiding the formation of an independent personality as a supplement. Controlling parents, on the other hand, are constantly forcing their children to suppress themselves and remain obedient because they are too strong.
The difference between care and control is whether you can understand your own needs and be able to better respond to and take care of your own needs.
When a child feels guilty, it is his inner parents who criticize him. At this time, they need to awaken the self-care part and make themselves softer and warmer.
However, in the protagonist of the film, there is no such condition to enable him to complete the formation of an independent personality.
In the film, Roman Gary's mother is a typical controlling parent. Due to the over-strength of the mother, coupled with the living environment of the growth of the single-parent family, Roman Gary, who was originally inferior, had to rely on his mother, and lived according to his mother's wishes, and completed his mother's "ideal" according to his mother's plan. It can be said that his mother made Roman Gary's life and ruined his life.
Throughout his life, Roman Gary has sought a way to reconcile with his mother, on the one hand, out of traditional filial piety and compassion for his mother, he has to compromise with his mother, give up the friendship of childhood, and even the love of adulthood, and strive to be closer to his mother's expectations under a strong sense of self-esteem, on the other hand, he has to suppress his instinctive desires under the strength of his mother, and painfully adapt to her mother's requirements.
In "囧Mom", Ivan and his mother complete the reconciliation through a series of dramatic conflicts, so that Ivan understands the difficulty of the mother's life, but also let the mother gradually understand the son, treat the child as an adult, so as to focus on their own life and unfinished ideals. But in The Promise of Childhood, Roman Gary wasn't so lucky.
After experiencing the war, enriching his life experience, and writing a literary masterpiece that attracted worldwide attention, he returned to his hometown and learned that his mother had died three years ago.
Singer Mao Buyi once wrote a song called "If One Day I Become Rich" when he participated in the singing competition, which wrote: "If one day I become rich, I will try everything to turn back the clock, not to contribute to human ideals, but to say to her, I am sorry." ”
Anyone who is familiar with Mao's difficult experience knows that that person is her mother. In the variety show "Strange Life", Mao Buyi once mentioned: "In the process of internship, I have seen hundreds of patients who died in front of me, but the first one to die in front of me was my own biological mother. The saddest thing is that until her death, my mother felt that her son was an unsuccessful person. ”
Later, Mao was not easy to become popular in the singing competition, and the songs he filled in and composed were sung by countless fans, but for him, his achievements today could not be seen by his mother, which is still the biggest regret in life. For the protagonist of the film, or the author of the original novel, Romain Gary, this is not the case: years later, he became the only writer to win two French Goncourt Literary Prizes, a national ace pilot, and an ambassador to the United States. He fulfilled all his mother's expectations of himself, but the mother could not see all this when the son wanted to raise and did not wait.
Fortunately, through this tortuous life, he finally came out of his mother's desire for control and completed his individual independence.
Resources:
1, "The Bondage of Maternal Love - How to Get Rid of the Mother's Control"
2, "The most regrettable thing in life is that the son wants to raise and does not wait"
3, Baidu Encyclopedia