This is how the story of cotton that I saw began. The cotton field, which could not be seen at a glance, was cut in half, and on the middle road, the woman who walked by was pulling her luggage, carrying the child, and a dog following faster or slower. Most people interpret this picture as: Cotton finally has a child, no longer relies on men, returns to his hometown, finds a sense of belonging, and the story ends completely. But cotton can find a sense of belonging when it returns to its hometown? Will it relieve the dilemma of fate?
In my opinion, the beautiful ending of this style of painting in the film is only the beginning of the story of cotton. The baby on her back had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy by the doctors as early as in her belly, and it was in opposition to Mr. Sheng's Alzheimer's disease, which she had taken care of in the city, the stray dog that followed her, and the one who was lost in Mr. Sheng's family, as for the man, it was a vain existence for her, just like the air that filled the cotton floor, she seemed to be inseparable from it, and she couldn't grasp it, sucked it in, and had to spit it out.
The cotton that sent away Mr. Sheng is actually business as usual, and even faces various unknowns about having children outside of marriage. The difference is that after experiencing the city's little bits and pieces, Cotton has become strong, at least she has the courage to face the rest of her life raising a cerebral palsy. And Mr. Sheng is like a prelude to her life, a rehearsal, the key that opens the door of her heart.
The story begins with lust, with performers and voyeurs (both inside and outside the screen). The texture of life is at the bottom, dilapidated, dim, and mixed with chaos, but at least there is something to be satisfied. Yet contentment was for greater emptiness, and the man's wife returned, and it was time for cotton to leave.
Some say it's a story about the issue of old age, and I can say with certainty and with great certainty that it's clearly not. If this is just a movie with a pension problem, then the main perspective should be Mr. Sheng's family, of course, you can also borrow the perspective of nanny cotton. Zhu Yuancheng, on the other hand, tells the story of cotton, and Mr. Sheng is the male protagonist who is about to leave. Just like the title of the film "Mr. Sheng's Flowers", the partial correct phrase, the core is "Flowers".
Mr. Sheng has two flowers, one is Miao Hua and the other is cotton, the former is the lover he promised to marry in the past, and the latter is just a little nanny. The only sober thing Mr. Sheng, who is already senile and demented, is to think of Miao Hua, and he also treats cotton as Miao Hua and drills the quilt of cotton.
Despite cotton's perspective, the director does not make cotton's story strong, but pursues a certain equilibrium that wants to talk and stop, so that cotton, Mr. Sheng and Mr. Sheng's daughter stand on three legs, and load the story with a triangular relationship mold. Busy Sheng Qin invited a nanny cotton to take care of Mr. Sheng, Mr. Sheng mistakenly regarded cotton as a lover Miao Hua, who could not trust the employer to suddenly become pregnant, the misunderstanding was like the Yellow River breaking the embankment, and the cotton had to leave to fight.
The director tells the story of the three people by pulling the drawer. He first opened the half-cut drawer of cotton, revealing the lust and extramarital affair inside. Then he opened Mr. Sheng's half-cut drawer, which hid his promise to a certain woman. Then she opened the cotton drawer again, revealing her abandonment because she could not have children and her desire for children. Mr. Sheng's daughter's drawer was messy at first, but it soon became clear that this was not only a busy and aggressive woman, but also a mother who was snubbed by her husband and alienated by her son. The three drawers opened one and closed the other two, and then pulled open one with another, and then pulled this open, and what popped out was the contents of the other drawer.
The film is indeed about the elderly, such as Mr. Sheng's last time, such as the cotton and recycling station compatriots saw the old woman who has children and daughters but still lives on scavenging, but the film pursues and shows obviously more, such as the drifting of the young and middle-aged cotton city, and the emotional helplessness, such as Mr. Sheng's daughter's busy life, and her crying, such as Mr. Sheng's failure to Miao Hua, and the root cause of Sheng Qin's grievances. At best, the film borrows a shell of old age and depicts the emotions of contemporary people in white. In other words, if these problems at the level of our lives are not unblocked, the result is like a parable of having cerebral palsy to raise children and prevent old age.
Zhu Yuancheng as a new director, his problems are too much, sometimes a little unclear; the terrible thing is that on the one hand, he can fully dispatch the potential of the actors for my use, on the other hand, he does not ask questions, does not analyze the problems, does not solve the problems, but pushes all the problems carefully and vividly to your eyes, and he is immersed in it, cold-eyed and seems to be in tears. The film is like crouching in the corner of the wall to draw a circle, and finally whether you are a man or a woman, whether you are old or young, whether you are a low-level person or a middle-class person, whether you are an intellectual or a rural north drifter, you can project your own reflection on a large number of characters, and even see your past, present and future in Cotton, Sheng Qin and Mr. Sheng, and have become the objects of the curse in the corner circle.
The final picture of the film is very beautiful, cotton and children laugh more beautifully, but it is a son who is hungry and carries cerebral palsy, and cotton is walking towards a more dazed and endless life, there is no other way but to smile.