Middle-aged female teacher Lin Shuling is a good woman.
However, sometimes good people don't necessarily have good rewards!
Unable to have children, she was ruthlessly snubbed and cheated on by her husband.
Ah Ling and the students unconsciously staged a "non-lun" love...
The "Tropical Rain" that Madame wants to talk about today, the director boldly pulled away the hidden pain that the middle-aged woman could not say.
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At the 2013 Golden Horse Awards, Chen Zheyi, a 29-year-old Singaporean Chinese, made the most of the limelight.
This year, his feature film debut "Mom and Dad Are Not Home" won a total of 4 awards, including the Best Picture Award.
The senior directors who competed on the same stage included Wong Kar-wai ("A Generation of Grandmasters"),Jia Zhangke ("Destined for Heaven"), etc., and the results were indeed gratifying.
After 6 years, his second film "Tropical Rain" won 3 awards at the Pingyao Film Festival.
This time, Director Chen once again gathered women's themes.
The script alone was written for 3 years, and the two leading actors, Yang Yanyan and Xu Jiale, changed from mother and son to teachers and students.
The story still takes place in Singapore, and the heroine is Lin Shuling, a female secondary school teacher.
Ah Ling is a Malaysian Chinese, she and her husband have been married for 8 years but have not had children.
This gradually cracked the feelings between husband and wife, and it became more and more intense.
In the East Asian cultural circle, people's basic demand for marriage is to pass on the generations.
Childbearing seems to be an unspoken "task," at least as most people perceive it.
At first, she and her husband, with hope, went to the hospital regularly for check-ups and tried artificial conception surgery.
Ah Ling also often injected herself, eager to become a mother as soon as possible.
Her husband also tried his best to cooperate and accompany her, but years and years of hard work made him despair.
Slowly, I stopped caring about having children and became more and more late.
This deliberate avoidance naturally alienated his wife, who seems to have forgotten his responsibilities to the family.
Although Ah Ling felt helpless, she still worked hard and never gave up.
In addition to the unspeakable pain of not being able to give birth, she also shouldered the heavy responsibility of taking care of her father-in-law.
The father-in-law, who suffered from a stroke and was paralyzed, was either lying in bed or in a wheelchair.
Difficulty speaking can hardly speak, and life cannot take care of itself.
Whenever there is a day after school and rest, Ah Ling always has to help her father-in-law take a bath, cook food and do housework.
The existence of Grandpa seems to be the only emotional bond between her and this family.
Although Ah Ling is hard, she also feels a touch of family warmth.
It's just that no matter how tolerant and considerate Grandpa is, he can't solve the pain in her heart.
Under the system of patriarchal culture, even though Ah Ling did nothing wrong, she could not give birth to her husband' love.
Such disapproval was like a cold sharp knife piercing into her heart.
Without the protection of her family, Ah Ling's situation at school is equally embarrassing.
Singapore's entire cultural and educational system Chinese marginalized.
The school does not attach importance to students and does not love to learn, but Ah Ling never perfunctory.
Instead, she volunteered to make up classes for free for students with poor grades, but unfortunately no one appreciated it.
Ah Ling, who is middle-aged, is like an isolated island, helpless and helpless.
Unsatisfactory marriages and careers destroyed her spirit and will little by little.
She is extremely stoic and resolute, stubbornly resisting the torrent of life with her own strength.
Sadly, her husband, who was supposed to be in the same boat as her, was absent.
Not only was he absent, he also sought his own harbor outside the family.
And where should Ah Ling go?
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Confined to the two points and one line of home and school, Ah Ling's social circle is almost zero.
Her husband was absent, her father-in-law was speechless, and when she returned home, she often had mixed feelings.
In school, you can still breathe a little bit of youthful and fresh air.
Although the students in the class generally do not like to learn Chinese, Guo Weilun is an exception.
This student whose parents have been doing business outside for many years and live independently on his own, likes to secretly photograph teachers the most.
The other children escaped in the middle of the make-up class, leaving him sitting quietly in the classroom waiting for her to return.
Wei Lun's argument is that if he does not learn well Chinese, he will not be able to go to China to do business in the future.
In fact, he wanted to get close to the teacher he had a crush on for a long time.
At the beginning, the simple and kind Ah Ling paid more attention to him because of his studiousness and lack of parental company.
The first time the two had contact alone was when they ate durian in the classroom during make-up classes.
The action of sucking fingers when sipping durian is full of ambiguous metaphors.
Ah Ling not only helped make up lessons, but also often drove him home.
Their teacher-student boundaries gradually blurred.
Once, Ah Ling brought Wei Lun, who had not yet finished his homework, to his home.
The arrival of Wei Lun has brought vitality to this long-suppressed and silent home.
The scene of three people eating dinner at the same table is warm and warm, like a family.
Ah Ling also approached Wei Lun unconsciously, and she didn't even know their feelings for each other.
When in a daze, the nib of the pen stayed on Wei Lun's workbook for a long time, and the pattern of the red ink blend was incomparably bright.
Between classes, I couldn't help but watch Wei Lun practice martial arts, attracted by his healthy and smooth movements.
The warmest scene in the film is when Ah Ling pushes a wheelchair and watches Wei Lun participate in a martial arts competition with her father-in-law.
When she returned to the car, she found her father-in-law and Wei Lun sleeping soundly, and the family's sense of déjà vu made her smile.
Wei Lun seems to have replaced her husband, her father-in-law is like a child, and Ah Ling has a complete home at this moment.
The climactic scene of the film is when Ah Ling sends him home one time, and Wei Lun has a nosebleed.
When he arrived at his house, the young and impulsive Wei Lun came to his face, and Before Ah Ling could return to God, he lit the fire of lust in the middle of half pushing and half pushing.
The precocious but also naïve Wei Lun, thinking that he has seized love, pursues it relentlessly.
She met Ah Ling on the bus, insisted on holding hands, and did not care about other people's eyes at school.
But Ah Ling was very sober, she knew that the two were not playing, but the sparks of two souls in loneliness, both brilliant and short-lived.
Her father-in-law died, and she lost her last relationship with the already stormy family, and Ah Ling agreed to divorce.
Because of the incident with Wei Lun, the principal persuaded her to resign for the success of the election, and her life fell apart in an instant.
Like the tropical rain in Singapore, it is unexpected.
Ah Ling plans to return to Malaysia, at which point she discovers that she is pregnant.
All she hears is her crying and laughing from the bathroom.
Those faint grievances crawled out of her heart like insects.
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The end of the film is no longer depressing.
Back in Malaysia, the tropical rain finally disappeared, and the golden sun shone on Ah Ling's face and sprinkled into her heart.
Silent but permeated with a gentle and powerful force, this is the most beautiful moment of the heroine in the whole movie.
In the face of the sadness and desolation of life, only by having the courage to face the unsatisfactory reality and learning to let go and know how to turn around can we embrace the sun of tomorrow!
Through "Tropical Rain", the director explores the plight and self-identity of middle-aged women.
"Tropical rain" is the most important metaphor in the whole film, it is like an indissoluble fog, always drifting from time to time.
This symbolizes the various problems encountered unexpectedly in the heroine's life, which makes people tired of coping.
There is no doubt that Ah Ling is a contemporary woman with extremely traditional values.
She is always stoic, passive, tenacious, and silently pays for her family and career.
But this good woman is faced with a triple dilemma from marriage, career and self.
First of all, after 8 years of marriage and failure to have children, her husband snubbed and alienated her, until she cheated on her and divorced.
Ah Ling has always actively fought for it, insisting on oxytocin injections, regular examinations, and attempting artificial conception surgery.
The husband went from escort to absence, so much so that he turned a blind eye to his wife's efforts.
Obviously, it is a problem that needs to be faced by two people together, and it has become a one-act drama of Ah Ling's wishful thinking.
Men's habit of escaping in the face of setbacks is fully revealed.
Compared with the two, Ah Ling's bravery is tenacious and tenacious, which is really touching.
Second, in Singapore's education system and cultural context, Chinese not valued.
In a country where English is widely spoken, Chinese are in a rather awkward position.
Even in Chinese families, they basically communicate in English.
Therefore, As a Chinese teacher, Ah Ling was not recognized in school.
Out of her duty as a teacher, Ah Ling still scrupulously teaches and educates people.
The low value of the work adds to her inner loss and helplessness.
In the end, Ah Ling unconsciously fell into the quagmire of teacher-student love because of loneliness.
Unable to find spiritual and emotional comfort, she discovered and released herself in contact with the student Wei Lun.
It's just that this "unrequited" love is not the salvation of the soul.
The sudden love affair was like a blow to the head, making her alert to the loss of herself.
Fortunately, the ending was sad and joyful, warm and bright, and the sunshine bloomed with smiles.
Yang Yanyan, who plays the heroine, said:
We cross many of life's trials, not for the expectations of others, but to find ourselves.
Abandoned mercilessly by widowed marriages, the "unsurpassed" love affair with students is unsustainable.
Fortunately, after experiencing a series of twists and turns, she finally completed her self-identity and embarked on a new journey in life.
Some people say that what women do seems to be wrong, but it is not.
As long as you don't get lost, you can hope at any time.
As the title of Zhang Menglu's book says:
If you know where you're going, the whole world will make way for you!