The future exists like a "fan". Is it full of anticipation, or is it uneasy? No matter what emotions people have about it, how well they prepare for it, it is there, and it exists like a mystery. Is it possible to regain the heart of a child, shake off the haze in the heart, and look forward to the future like a child?
The film "Future Things", starring the famous French actor Yu Pell, won the Silver Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Why do you like this show? First of all, I like the interpretation of the heroine Yu Pelle. She can always express the unique personality of women vividly. In this play, the image of the intellectual woman in Paris is also uniquely charming.
Natalie, played by Huppel, is a philosophy teacher at a high school in Paris. Although she is middle-aged, Natalie is still light, energetic and intellectually elegant in her fifties. Confident and full of charm.
She is always full of books, and her home is surrounded by books, whether it is the living room, the dining room, or the holiday cottage by the sea. As a philosophy teacher, she can integrate the views of philosophers and herself in the classroom, and pass them on to students fluently and abundantly, prompting them to think and establish their own independent thinking ability.
In the figure of her walking through life, on the subway, on the bus, on the way to a different place, no matter how sad, happy, or sad, she always holds the book and reads, accompanied by the fragrance of books. She also wrote books herself, edited philosophical books, and published works from time to time. This Parisian intellectual woman has devoted a lot of energy to her work, and philosophy has probably long since penetrated not only her work, but also all aspects of life. Her proud protégé, who has graduated for many years, often returns to school to visit her teachers, have coffee together, and discuss her recent life and philosophical reflections.
Movie "Things to Come"
When people reach middle age, Natalie is also filled with various social and life roles, and runs full and busy all day. She is a daughter, a wife, a mother, a teacher. The filled life is like a skillfully functioning organism, wrapped in a state of echoing and blending inside and outside, and perfectly reaching a certain balance. It seems that this technologically mature "machine" will continue to operate in an ideal state, but some torn crevices are quietly generated in the hidden corners of life.
As a daughter, she must face a solitary, somewhat melancholy, elderly mother, an unstable state of constant need. She had also wondered if she could take her mother to live with her for the sake of convenience. But was decisively rejected by her husband. Later, her mother's condition deteriorated, and she had no choice but to decide to send her to a nursing home. She and her children regularly visit the elderly.
As a wife, the husband who has lived together for more than twenty years is a teacher at the same school. The years she has walked together and the time she spent together makes her feel plain and peaceful, and the familiar other half seems to have grown into a part of herself, and will also walk together to the years to come. No doubt.
As a mother, a pair of children have grown up. The daughter is married, has her own small family, is pregnant with a small baby, and is about to become a mother. The son will also leave the house to begin a new stage of study.
As an excellent philosophy teacher and a writer with some insight in her professional field, her academic work is about to be republished, and the publisher invited her to discuss the new edition. She went with great enthusiasm, but did not want the editors to propose that in order to adapt to the new market demand, she hoped that she could adjust the design and content of the work accordingly. She said that as a scholar, she did not want kitsch and decisively refused the editorial department's request for revision.
Everything was running within the value system with which she was familiar, and she was walking in inertia, unaware of what she was about to face.
Until the daughter shows off with her father, she has discovered the fact that she betrayed her mother, and advises him to let her mother know and make a choice as soon as possible. But I don't want men to end up choosing to leave the family and go in a different direction.
It was as if in an instant, everything that was solid was overturned. Natalie lost her other half, who had lived together for half her life. It turns out that a husband who was once considered to have become a part of himself will no longer belong to him at any time. Turn around and become strangers.
Later, the elderly mother died in a nursing home. In the process of her husband moving out, the publisher also informed her that due to market demand, she decided to cancel the new cooperation plan. The children are also busy with their own lives and cannot see each other often. Her world seemed to be emptied at once. What came upon them was unprecedented freedom, and a great sense of loneliness.
Natalie's loneliness must have been something we all encounter in real life. People yearn for freedom, for a life that is stuffed and sometimes suffocating; yet freedom is also a double-edged sword that can help us escape the stuffed banality of life and push us into the empty wilderness with little echo.
Although, when Natalie talked to her proud protégé about the changes in marriage and life, she could still calmly say in an excellent scholarly posture, "I have nothing to complain about, at least my spiritual world is very full." ”
Although, when he found out that her husband had taken half of the books on the shelves in the house when he moved away, he could spontaneously shout, "He actually left Levinas, Buber and Schopenhauer!" ”
Although, at the ceremony of sending off her mother, she can use a sober philosophical perspective to say the aphorism of insight into life; on the way back, when she happens to see her ex-husband embracing her new life, she can still smile sarcastically and echo in her heart the words of Pascal (the French philosopher) in the "Book of Thoughts" over and over again: "I look everywhere, but I am uneasy, everything is dark." However, the tears finally burst out, and they could no longer be suppressed, releasing a tidal wave of sadness.
yes. No amount of profound learning can solve all the sorrows and joys of mankind. There is no wisdom that can rise above all else. Philosophers can also be weak and need to cry. Being able to face up to one's own weakness and deficiency, being able to face the sorrows and cruelties of life, being able to accept the brevity of spring in a garden full of spring colors, and looking at the vibrant heavens and earth in the empty wilderness may be the wisdom born in deep learning.
So, Natalie was eventually reborn. Is this true? She lived up to her proud knowledge. After experiencing the ups and downs of life and the challenges of her career, she tore herself apart little by little, reflected on herself, overcame difficulties, adjusted her state, and worked hard to establish a new order and find the balance of life again. Is this true? Maybe. However, the narrative in the film does not give an answer, nor can it give an answer. For life never pursues standard answers that are unique. It will only run forward without stopping, flowing to the future like a "fan".
Natalie sent away the cat left by her mother. Finally helped it find a suitable new home. The daughter welcomed her little baby on New Year's Eve, and the family returned to peace and laughter. Everything is being updated. She also seems to have adjusted her status, accepting the reality that she must step out of her comfort zone, meet the challenge, and start a new journey. Although there are still tears when sad, and when lonely, they must bear silently, but such a soul can also proudly say that I am not lonely and will never be destroyed.