Lucien tried to show his fists and feet but kept making mistakes until his life was a failure, and he looked back on the first half of his life but had difficulty figuring out which link had gone wrong — and that was what made his viewers feel pity.
On the other hand, the film also looks at reality. The story of the small town Wenqing who broke into the city with a passion for blood but ran into a wall one after another is repeated in every era and every country.
This article was first published in the 24th floor theater
Wen | landlord
"Provinces are provinces, Paris is Paris."
Balzac writes in his novel Disillusionment.
This is both a geographical division and a psychological division. Everywhere outside the greater Parisian circle is called a province by the Parisians, who precisely distinguish between themselves and the other, establishing a subtle arrogance.
As a political and cultural center, Paris attracts groups of young people from other provinces. They are usually somewhat talented, overly self-conscious, intolerant of "country" life, and think that Paris is the place to realize their dreams.
Lucien, the young poet in Disillusionment, is also a part of this. He loved literature and had a talent for writing, and went from the provinces to Paris, hoping to show his talents, but he was hammered by the world and had no choice but to go to another path.
(1966 miniseries version of Disillusionment)
Compared with "The Tall Old Man" and "Eugenie Grande", "Disillusionment" is a work that is not too well-known in "Human Comedy". But it also punctured the canopy of secular life in France with the tip of its pen, holding up the bloody story of human nature in red stripes.
The French film "Disillusionment" captured the main content of the novel and brought the provincial youth ups and downs to the screen. In the visual reproduction, "life must be full of joy" and "scrubbing the new stopped glass" become more intuitive.
Director Xavier Gianoli's masterpiece is the biographical feature film Margaret, which specializes in character building and retro restoration.
The star-studded cast of "Disillusionment" is played by Benjamin Wazan, a recently popular young student, who has previously performed well in Ou Rong's "Midsummer of '85".
Lucien's master, friend, and enemy is played by the literary film darling Vincent Laxter (Jackie of the Daughterland, "Like, Kiss, Run"), and the young and famous genius director Xavier Dolan ("I Killed My Mother", "Double-Faced Lawrence") plays a young man in the aristocratic camp in the film, and his relationship with Lucien is also friend and foe.
At the beginning of the film, Lucien still lives in a small town, dependent on the support of her sister-in-law. Because of his outstanding appearance and love of literature, he was favored by the local noble ladies. With the veil of literature and art, the intercourse between the two has a little more color of sympathy. Soon, the relationship was broken by the noblewoman's husband, and they decided to elope together to Paris to join the noblewoman's relatives.
In the original text, Balzac accurately describes Lucien's mental activity. "Paris, the bustling Paris, imagined by all the provincials to be an ideal el dorado, is now dressed in a golden robe, full of pearls, and opens its arms to the talented."
And the more realistic lobbying of the noble lady was in the arms of Lucien. "How much advantage can young talents take advantage of being promoted by high society... A beautiful and young genius... They will support you. When your status is high, your work is worth ten times as much. The most important problem for artists to solve is to attract attention. ”
The film weakens the lovers' shrewd calculations and treats their elopement more romantically. But after coming to Paris, Lucien did not look for new writing materials, but plunged into the banquet of the nobility. It can be seen that although Lucien had literary dreams, he often gave way to his infinitely inflated vanity.
Lucien, who had never seen the world, soon had a mess in social situations, although it was a small matter, but it was enough for the nobles to kick him out of the social circle. The noblewoman also abandoned him and entrusted him with a sum of money to return to his hometown.
Can you see the paper drunk gold fans, how can you return to the coarse tea and light rice? Lucien did not leave Paris, there is still hope to stay here, and to return to his hometown is really lower than the dust.
At the tavern where he works, he meets the second nobleman of his life, the tabloid chief writer Rusto. Rusto and Lucien had similar experiences, both were literary and artistic youths from small towns. Two years ago, he came to Paris to pursue his literary dreams and found that it was more difficult for an unknown poet to publish a book than to ascend to the heavens. The well-written Rusto soon found a way to make a fortune: fabricating news, writing positive reviews for new plays, changing pen names and writing bad reviews.
Rusto taught Lucien the rules of survival and soon trained him to become a gold medalist for newspapers. At the same time, the tabloid became more commercial under Rusto's control, and the writers made a lot of money.
The film exposes the inside story of the industry and satirizes it bitterly. The novels involved in tabloids are steeped in a carnival atmosphere: writers decide on topics while laughing and playing, typing at high speed in front of a safe full of money. In the midst of laughter, they use harsh and harsh words to sway public opinion.
Tabloids waved the flag for the liberals, and the aristocracy was a conservative royalist, and the two sides fought continuously. But Lucien was a man who was caught between them, who accumulated wealth through newspapers, but always wanted to gain the approval of the nobility to shame him.
Perhaps to publish a collection of poems, or perhaps to gain the title of nobility, he betrayed the tabloid league and went to the aristocratic side represented by his old lover. His fame grew, and this time he finally gained the favor of the nobility, and he began to live a life of unsatisfactory and superficial scenery. Privately, for money, he made deals with tabloids and anonymously wrote articles shelling the royalists.
Lucien fell into the double trap of Both Rusto and the Royalist at the same time, and he lost everything. But Rusto is also a loser. The real winners were the nobles, who shut down Rustow's newspaper, sent the writers to prison, and turned the newspaper into a tool of the royal family.
Whose disillusionment is Disillusionment?
Balzac's novel refers to the disillusionment of two aspiring youths: the poet Lucien and the inventor Sechar.
They are certainly at fault, the former is vain, the latter is naïve. But Balzac attributed the tragedy of fate to 19th-century French society. Paris devoured the dreams of provincial youth to feed the City of Desire. A few people are mixed with ingenuity and luck, and many more die of unpaid ambition.
The movie "Disillusionment" slashed the line of Sexia in a big way, leaving only Lucien's story. He's been trying to get upstream, and he's been sinking.
Stuck in the length of the film and limited to the expressiveness of the actors, "Disillusionment" is not a very successful work. It restores the content of the novel at a glance, quoting Balzac several times, with sincerity but no spirituality. It can be said that most of the advantages of the film come from the original work.
The watchability of the film mainly comes from the complexity of lucien's role, who has always been fighting left and right for the first half of his life.
He was ambitious and intimidated. After coming to Paris, he thought about ascending to the top with his looks and talent, but he lacked the ability to act. In other words, he is not as ruthless as Du Luohua in "Pretty Friend", nor is he as good at planning as Jullien in "The Red and the Black". Lucien just lived chaotically, allowing the lady to reach out and push it away.
("Pretty Friend" and "The Red and the Black")
He is not good at playing with feelings but is deeply involved in emotional games. Whether it is for the lady or for the actress, he has paid a certain amount of true affection, which makes it difficult for him to withdraw in time. Lucien always has a bit of childish innocence in dealing with feelings, swinging in the true and false intentions.
He could neither pursue pure literary dreams nor become a "businessman" completely. The former is a small group of "poor and proud young writers" created by Balzac in the book, and the latter is an early believer like Rusto who recognized reality. Thus, in both groups, Lucien has difficulty finding a sense of belonging.
He could not see through the old aristocracy, nor did he recognize the fresh bourgeoisie. When Rusto threw an olive branch at him, he should let go of his aristocratic dreams and create a new upstart life. But after having his wealth, Lucien turned around and returned to the nobility, wanting to ask for a noble title, which made him pinched the weak underbelly.
From this point of view, Both Dulois and Jullien were more alert than Lucien, and they realized the hypocrisy of the nobility long before they decided to climb.
Lucien tried to show his fists and feet but kept making mistakes until his life was a failure, and he looked back on the first half of his life but had difficulty figuring out which link had gone wrong — and that was what made his viewers feel pity.
On the other hand, the film also looks at reality. The story of the small town Wenqing who broke into the city with a passion for blood but ran into a wall one after another is repeated in every era and every country.
If you want to point out where the film beats the original, then I think it is the director's open treatment of the ending. He told Lucien to leave Paris in a daze and walk decently toward the middle of the lake.
Balzac is a little more ruthless than the director. In the original, Lucien attempts suicide and is saved by a strange Spanish missionary. But Lucien didn't have a new life, because the preacher was a disguised Voltaire (a fugitive from "The Tall Old Man").
The mephistopheles sent Lucien back to Vanity Fair in Paris for his part, and the rest of Lucien's life is the story of another novel, "The Rise and Fall of Social Flowers".
This is the final outcome that Balzac gave to Lucien: disillusionment is followed by no new life, but disillusionment again. From the moment the bow is drawn, there will never be an arrow in life.