The day I met Henri-Pierre Roché's Summer Love was also a rainy season. I wandered the streets of the city, not knowing why I was standing between the mist and rain and the geothermal smoke.
The slippery slippery slopes on Monday were empty, and I thought that on this very ordinary afternoon I probably didn't see any miracles, so I walked into the library that emitted a warm yellow light and saw this book.
I read Summer Love in a semi-outdoor porch or something like that, and the raindrops sometimes slid in, and when the rain stopped, the lingering moisture made me realize the softness of the pages. I read the preface written by Chu Fu, at that time I had not seen Chu Fu's remake of the film version of "Summer Love", so it can be said that it is a fluke, I can appreciate the amazement of his encounter with this novel in the second-hand book stall, and the playful pleasure and elation felt by the first reading.
The title of this preface is: "A Poet's Telegraph Romance Novel", which I think is extremely accurate, and "Summer Love" is a kind of reduction, breakage, and rapid exchange of brushwork, depicting the friendship between Jule, Jun, and Kaitz that spans decades.
As the carrier form of the "telegraph" suggests, Hou Xie's choice of narrative technique omits the psychological analysis of characters and plot twists and turns used in a large number of literary novels, and lists only the simplest key moments: action, intuition, path—and willingly "stays on the surface".
Miraculously, the abrupt contractions of this statement and the tempo of the tempo of the altitude drop lead to a flirtatious and improvisational tone that approximates poetic tone, as well as a distinct sense of contrast; coupled with the characters' sinister view of love, many sentences are like cherries in the snow, fragments of Azulejo tiles, or silver buttons on an accordion.
When Chu Fu was young or even not yet a director, he met this work written by a seventy-year-old writer who recalled his youthful love song, which inspired his enthusiasm for creating art and also formed a precious and beautiful friendship - the two corresponded for many years, Hou Xie originally planned to be the script coordinator of "Summer Love", but he was too old to die before the film was put into preparation.
This is not a pity for Chu Fu and for future generations of film fans. Fortunately, we will always keep these exquisite and exciting works of art, and we can let Chu Fu and Hou Xie, let Ju Le, Jun and Kaitz walk into our lives, and become friends who laugh and break hearts together.
Chu Fu later remade Hou Xie's second novel, "Two English Girls and Continental", as a memorial service, and once again commemorated the fate between the two. Regarding this movie, Chu Fu wrote down some words that touched me very much. When he was taken to the hospital for treatment because of his depression, he only carried the book with him, read a few pages and took some notes between awakenings, and gradually came up with the idea of adapting the script, and this idea also took him away from this painful situation.
When Two English Girls and Continental was publicly screened in France, the audience reacted coldly, but over the years, I believe the film has accumulated some prestige. In any case, I feel that the director has grown a lot during the filming, whether it is the understanding of the film, or the understanding of life, the understanding of love, and the violence of feelings, the harm and cruelty that innocently brings to each other when people fall in love.
Chu Fu made "Summer Love" a classic for young people, but he knew that this was a twilight review of the elderly: to summarize those understandings of life and love.
Life always surprises you when you're unaware, and movies do the same.
After two years, I braved the rain again to go to the library to borrow the out-of-print "Summer Love". This day, very similar to the day when I was alone in Beitou, not because of the rain, but because Jule and Jun were still smoking their cigarettes, And Kates was still dancing on the tracks where the train was about to enter, and maintaining a balance between turning the tide and striving for destruction.
I often feel that this is the meaning of the existence of movies and novels: the impermanence of the writing is the impermanence of man, and the fictional realm can be left untouched. The title of the Chinese translation of the book "Summer Love" gives people a short sense of passion, but the story actually flies through a long period of time, crossing borders and wars, marriage and family, the protagonists' respective sexual encounters and defections, and many fleeting intimate encounters in many lives.
Still, the style of the book is indeed quite "summer love", meaning brilliant, sparkling, fainting, sweet, afternoon thunderstorm heartbeat, and the lingering after all this is over.
Is summer coming to an end? After the bloom, we will usher in another harvest season. At least I'm sure my long vacation is coming to an end. Living at home, summer always seems to me to have no end, but this year is different, a heavy rain carries a cold feeling, and the premonition that the holiday is about to end is so strong - this autumn is the right time.
A book leads to the emergence of cinema, and the phrase that cinema comes from life is not at all true, and perhaps because of this, although the response to "Two British Girls and Continental" is average, for us, it is not a kind of spiritual washing, and there will be an echo in the mind.
After returning home from the movie theater that day, I felt a kind of loose loneliness, so I copied the clear sentences of "Summer Love", and after a while, I felt much better. Such a good, as if I have not lost any time, and the days can be incomparably small and delicate like a leaf.
Thank you for watching, paying attention to me, and learning more about it.