Previously, Uncle Fish took stock of the top ten movies in 2021 for everyone.
Unfortunately, one was missing.
This one, Uncle Fish waited impatiently for almost a year, and only recently saw the film.
Although it is up to 3 hours, it does not feel lengthy after reading it, and it is still unfinished.
After reading it, countless netizens also rated it as their "Top Ten of the Year".
Without further ado, Uncle Fish will talk about it today—
Fabian
Fabian
The film was shortlisted for the berlinale's main competition last year.
Recently, it just came out of Blu-ray HD, and immediately appeared on the Douban "One Week Word-of-Mouth Movie List" NO.1, and dominated the list for two consecutive weeks.
Douban score 8.4.
The title of the film is "Fabian", which is the name of the male protagonist of the movie.
Played by Germany's high-profile young actor, Tom Schhilling.
He is also the male number one of the 2018 high-scoring film "Masterless Works".
When he was young, he starred in "Hitler's Boy", and with a pair of melancholy blue eyes, he fascinated thousands of young girls.
At the beginning of the film, it is a crazy "one-night stand".
Fabian met a middle-aged woman at an underground club.
Without a few words, the woman couldn't wait to lead her home.
However, at the crucial moment, an old man suddenly appeared:
"I don't mean to disturb you, but can you come to my office and talk?"
Fabian asked, and this man turned out to be the woman's husband.
It turned out that he could not satisfy his wife's enthusiasm for sex, so the husband and wife reached a consensus.
The wife can take another man home, but the person must first sign a contract.
He also receives a fixed salary if needed.
This opening undoubtedly shows Berlin in 1931 .
An era of indulgence in the freedom of sexual freedom.
However, Fabian refused the woman's husband's invitation and fled home.
He was not a prodigal.
In fact, he graduated with a Doctor of Serious Literature.
During the day, he writes advertisements at a cigarette company to make a living.
At night, wander around smoky brothels and nightclubs, coldly observing fanatical and indulgent people.
This night, it was a wild song and dance nightclub again.
Fabian met a girl who sold alcohol backstage.
She was well educated, well versed in international film law and dreamed of becoming an actress.
The more the two talked, the more speculative they became, and Fabian offered to send the girl home.
They wandered the alleys of Berlin in the moonlight, their shadows dragging long.
When the house arrived, Fabian was surprised to find that they were tenants of the same house.
It's wonderful.
They fell madly in love with each other and began an idyllic romantic life.
During the day, they catch fish and frolic in the lake on the outskirts.
At night, they hugged each other tightly on the small bed, as if they wanted to embed each other in their own bodies.
Fabian regained a sense of purpose, as if everything had meaning again.
Not long after, one day, the boss called Fabian to the office.
He was fired.
Fabian is not surprised that in this era of high unemployment, it is quite normal to be fired.
However, the crash has only just begun.
Fabian stumbled upon the fact that he wanted to be the actor's girlfriend seemed to have an ambiguous relationship with a famous producer.
The girlfriend loves him, but apparently, this love is far less than her ambitions for a career.
Immediately after, his only friend suddenly shot himself at home.
Unemployed, lost love, lost friends.
In just a few weeks, Fabian's life was turned upside down, and he fell into a deep despair and confusion.
Penniless, he had to return to his hometown in the countryside.
With his mother's encouragement, he decided to contact his girlfriend again.
Because he knows that they have a strong love for each other.
After a long wait, the phone was finally answered.
He rushed to Berlin as agreed.
Unexpectedly, an unexpected thing happened on the road.
As for what is the matter, Uncle Yu first pressed the table.
First, let's talk about the characteristics of this film.
The most famous thing about this film is not the story, but its audiovisual language.
Although the whole film is 3 hours long, it does not feel long.
Because both its photographic style and narrative technique are very free and open.
This gives the originally dark and decadent story the vitality to do whatever it wants.
The first half of the film can be described as avant-garde.
The fast montage, a large mix of split-screen, fast-forward, black-and-white archival footage, and scattered low-resolution rough shots create a postmodernist atmosphere.
Visual bombardment, coupled with crazy and indulgent song and dance performances.
The purpose is actually to let the audience experience an overloaded hedonistic atmosphere.
Because this is Berlin in 1931, the era of the Weimar Republic.
The golden twenties have passed, and there are still 2 years before Hitler came to power.
"Swastikas" are all over the walls.
Men in brown shirts with Prussian hazelnut heads began to loom in the streets.
Meanwhile, the Great Depression that began in 1929 reached its peak and unemployment surged.
Fabian and his girlfriend, obviously well educated, but one is unemployed, one can only sell alcohol in nightclubs, and eating is a problem.
All in all, it's a crumbling, extremely turbulent world.
People are either about to starve to death or get lost in drug, alcohol, and sex parties, engaging in their final indulgence.
The second half of the film returns to the traditional narrative.
In terms of set and photography, whether it is the gorgeous modern villa of a friend's home or the simple university staircase in Berlin, it is more textured.
Throughout the text, there are also various memory fragments.
Fabian often recalls a veteran with facial deformities who told him about the trauma of the war on the side of the street.
In fact, Fabian is also a veteran, who once participated in World War I and suffered from mental torture.
In addition, when Fabian and his girlfriend fell in love at first sight, they also quickly flashed some fragments of the picture.
That's his consciousness: the first time he meets you, he's already living his life with you in his mind.
This fills the film with a very modern sensibility.
However, as the line in the film says:
"The stupidity of the vanguard is that it must be the vanguard."
All means of expression serve its ultimate theme— toward destruction.
The film is called Fabian, but in fact, it is about the destruction of three people.
The first, Fabian's best friend, the destruction of an idealist.
Although he was the son of a wealthy lawyer, he was compassionate and a firm believer in left-wing political change.
So he tried to make political statements to change this degenerate society, but was repeatedly frustrated.
His fiancée cheated, and even though he struggled to make up for it, he ended up in a complete soup.
In addition, like Fabian, he is a Doctor of Literature student.
But he aspired to pursue a career in literature and stayed in the university to teach.
The only chance is to complete your literary essay.
He studied this tirelessly for 5 years, but in the end, he was rewarded with a ruthless rejection letter.
Under the blow of the triple failure of ideals, love, and career, he shot himself at home and ended his life.
Later, Fabian found that his friend's thesis was actually very good, and the rejection letter was just a prank by his classmates.
However, idealism as fragile as tissue paper, crushed by the rise of the Nazis, is sooner or later.
The second, Fabian's girlfriend, is the destruction of a realist.
The girlfriend has a childlike innocent vitality that fascinates every man.
She is also very realistic and alert.
After fabian and she both lost their jobs, she decided to become completely attached to the famous filmmaker.
Because in her opinion:
"You can only get rid of the sludge if you dirty yourself."
That's how she rebelled against the world — to be a part of it.
It was also the way she thought, loving Fabian.
"I left you to be with you."
So even as a mistress, she still longed for Fabian's love.
But under the circumstances, she could only become the "very good but unhappy woman" that Fabian called her.
The last one, Fabian, is the destruction of a moralist.
Fabian lingers in Berlin's nightlife not really to be interesting, but driven by curiosity.
So he always maintained a sense of alienation, mocking the fanaticism of the crowd.
To be precise, he is an observer, watching the moral degeneration of society.
Through observation, he believes that this society is terminally ill and does not have the soil to display his talents.
Take politics, for example.
Friends want to get involved in politics to change society, but Fabian thinks it's in vain.
"Reason and power cannot exist at the same time"
For example, careers.
He had no career ambitions.
After graduating with a Doctor of Arts degree, he chose to become an advertiser, trying to have a stable job, and could not accept this compromise.
After losing his job, Fabian went to a job agency.
It was full of young people like him, well-educated, but hadn't found a job in a long time.
So he turned to love as the embodiment of his ideals.
Unfortunately, in the end it was only in vain.
After his friend committed suicide, Fabian was completely confused.
Because the road to ideals, career, and love has been blocked, he has no way back.
"Is the decent, humane and normal person he craves really worth yearning for?"
Three young people, in a city in the midst of an orderly collapse.
They tried to succeed here, but they were under all kinds of pressure.
One pressure is the rise of extremism.
The classmate who sent a rejection letter to a friend was a Nazi.
When Fabian learned the truth, he angrily demanded that the professor severely punish the man, but the professor had no choice.
Extremism has infiltrated the university system, and justice is long gone.
One kind of pressure is the conflict between them and the moral villain.
The middle-aged woman who started, after being abandoned by her husband, opened a male brothel.
She pimped rich women and made a lot of money every day.
Even the police officers were recruited by her to pay double wages.
She even repeatedly seduced Fabian to work for her.
"Those who should not die are dead, but those who should not be alive are alive"
Despite this, Fabian has always been clean and helpful.
He comforted unemployed homeless people and helped harsh waitresses.
At the end of the film, Fabian encounters a boy on the road who falls into the water, and he jumps into the river desperately to save him.
As a result, the falling boy struggled to swim ashore, but Fabian never came up again.
This is undoubtedly a metaphor.
His "personal morality" is doomed to be unable to fight against the "immorality" of the times and is destined to be drowned in the long river of history.
The film also has another subtitle – "The Anachronistic Man".
This implies that Fabian could have been anyone of that era.
In a crude world, it is impossible to allow a sane, compassionate soul to exist.
This seemingly accidental ending is actually an inevitability.
Back to the beginning of the film again, a clever tracking shot.
In the Berlin subway station, people in Polo shirts and jeans are either lazily looking at their phones or hurrying to work.
The camera acts like a ghost through the platform and up the stairs.
Time suddenly traveled from 2021 back to 1931.
The subway walls are plastered with Nazi propaganda posters.
Reality and history intersect at this time.
Hugo wrote in the famous novel The Man with the Smiley Face:
"What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past."
The director's move is obviously in the hope that the audience can compare reality and history.
Although the end of the story is a tragedy, the film is still full of hope.
As with the suicide note left by a friend to Fabian:
"Please live a better life than I am."
Please continue writing.
Write about what the past is, and what the past should have been."
That's what the director wants to tell us.
We cannot choose the times and circumstances in which we live.
But you can choose how to face it.
Whether to stick to your heart or go with the flow.
I believe that after watching the film, you will definitely have your own answer.