The drama to be recommended today is a very low-key British drama, and the number of Douban scores is only more than 300 people, and the increase is extremely slow.
Probably, even if I push this play, not too many people may actually want to watch this play.
Because, it is so real, so real that people are a little suffocated and desperate.
And this kind of calmness and incompleteness is the greater charm of British drama.
Yes, today I want to recommend to you a British drama with some special feminist themes: "I am..."
Only more than 300 people in Douban have marked it, but they scored a high score of 8.4 points.
Words such as "numbness in the eyes" and "suffocation" frequently appear in the comments.
This British drama with only three short episodes, what exactly is it about?
Strictly speaking, it says nothing. It just very faithfully and sincerely took us to "see" the daily life of the three women.
This is also why many viewers came in with curiosity and scrutiny, but ended the viewing with inexplicable heaviness. It is precisely because of its irrefutable reality, and the situation of déjà vu.
"I Am..." in a 50-minute episode, almost all of it uses a slightly shaky close-up, so that the story is suspended in a state of fragmentation.
In the perspective of coercive limitations, we enter the slice of their lives and experience the prison feeling that they are in the public space, but they run into walls everywhere.
This is the life of three women everywhere on the planet, and the series chooses the three most common states in women's lives: intimacy, being a mother, and finding a partner.
The first woman was Nicole.
Nicole and her boyfriend have been together for a long time, but lately she often spends her time alone and suddenly starts to empty.
She would suddenly get stuck while chatting with customers, and when colleagues talked about the latest situation, she found herself speechless.
"Cook, clean, go to IKEA on the weekend."
Nicole confides in her boyfriend that she hopes the two will also take a long trip to improve their lives that have entered a stalemate.
Such a confession is defined as "complaining" in the boyfriend's comment that he is "too stupid".
"Complaining" does not make a splash, and the problem is often in the complaining people.
"I didn't know our life was so depressing for you, you can't let someone tell you what's wrong with your life."
The boyfriend's simple words will be four or two pounds.
Life is right, it is you who is wrong, others are not wrong, and what is wrong is you who is easy to shake.
Nicole once again ended her long-simmering confession in "self-examination", as if something was wrong, but she had no trace, and could only show a pair of doubtful eyes in her boyfriend's arms.
From this disagreement, we gradually found that such a solution to avoid the heavy is the norm for Nicole and her boyfriend.
In order to save Nicole, who has the idea of breaking up, the boyfriend uses a bouquet of flowers and promises a trip to London to stabilize Nicole's emotions.
But these instrumental promises will be forsaken by him when the crisis is lifted.
Nicole's expectations for this relationship have been disappointed again and again. After confrontation and pouring out again and again, he was shocked into a mess by his boyfriend's "victim talk".
Their relationship is already on thin ice.
The boyfriend who perceives this becomes more and more irritable and irritable.
When the two were invited to a friend's warm house party, the man politely said, "You are beautiful." ”
Immediately detonated the boyfriend's nerves, he used flirtatious language and slightly aggressive gestures to declare his "sovereignty" over Nicole in front of everyone.
These details, the atmosphere circulating between the two, even strangers feel: "You don't love her." ”
This is Nicole's intimacy, there are no so-called big events, only endless conversations and temptations. All the details of life can be the last straw that crushes Nicole.
The second woman was Christine.
She was the mother of two girls.
As usual, he greeted his two daughters from school with a smile on their faces.
But in fact, she had just experienced the abandonment of her boyfriend. All her savings were taken to gamble, and her boyfriend lost two furniture sofas and televisions that were slightly more expensive in the house.
But Christine could reveal nothing, and at most, when laughing with her daughter, she took the opportunity to look down and cover the corners of her eyes and mouth, which immediately collapsed.
When the family could not open the pot, a kindergarten parent who frequently showed affection to her became Christine's only hope, and she had to borrow money from this stranger.
He was a little suspicious, but Kristen couldn't take care of that much.
But sure enough, the man who borrowed the money took a 180-degree change in attitude, and he broke into Christine's house and asked her to pay 1,000 pounds of principal plus interest in a week.
There are only two ways to afford it: provide sexual services anytime, anywhere, or you will burn your two children.
This is a threat, a simple and crude threat that cannot be done.
What about Christine's choice? She would rather be a sex worker than let her children be in the shadows.
Because she knows in her heart that the lower limits and desires of human scum are never-ending.
Within a week, Christine had raised enough money through sex work, and she dumped the money in the man's face in the afternoon of picking up her children from school, in the presence of a strange parent.
This time she was relieved and ushered in a brief relaxation.
So what about next time? She had been scaled all over her body and had become a bird of fright.
The third woman was Hannah.
She is 35 years old this year, and her friends are married and have children, as if enjoying a new stage of life.
Only her life stagnated, examining her own life as if it were full of holes in her mother's almost persecuted gaze.
Then he cried for no reason and came to the conclusion of "unhappiness".
Hannah tossed through the speed dating offline dating, listening to statements and feedback from various men.
But she often wandered around in conversation, and she felt misplaced, cramped, and uncomfortable.
Everything was forcing her to pursue something she didn't want and didn't need.
At the end of the story, Hannah chooses to freeze her eggs under unsolvable pressure, but due to her body and age, Hannah is told that her egg survival rate is very low, which means that she is most likely infertile.
Such a trial made Hannah have a vague feeling of unloading the burden.
With a sense of fatalistic despair, she had a perfect date with her former gun buddy.
After sex, Hannah was out of her mind again.
She knew she was going to be forced to solve a never-ending new round of problems that seemed to be her protagonist and had nothing to do with her.
In the short three episodes, three small stories are selected, and in the 50-minute length, the almost extravagant gaze of the three women's trance moments, those aimless thoughts are infinitely extended, and the plot points that can be narrated are greatly compressed.
When we go back to the title, back to the question that flashes up in the episode from time to time: Am I?
Who am I?
This philosophical question is eternal.
After reading it, we will find that when a woman tries to answer this question, the situation is much more complicated.
It can be simple: Nicole's daily routine is to fulfill the responsibilities of a man's wife, Christine is a mother of two children, and Hannah is the executor of the mother's wish to hold her grandson. They are wives, mothers, daughters.
It can also be difficult, stripped of these identities, who are they?
We all know that a person with subjectivity can answer the question of who I am.
But the fact that "I Am..." constructs from the everyday is that everything in life seems to be devouring the possibility of women's search for subjectivity.
Shantel Ackerman said: "Washing things is no different from the intensity of murder in the movie.
Jeanne Dillmann (1975)
Indeed, these so-called women's exclusive daily routines are constantly consuming their lives.
In the first episode, Nicole struggles between work and housework, and her boyfriend promises a dinner to show her loyalty.
But Nicole has already made an appointment with her colleagues for a birthday party. The boyfriend immediately said: "We are a rare two-person world, you are too tired and need to relax."
Nicole immediately took the initiative to push off the date, she could not have not known that this was a kind of boyfriend's statement, but she chose to be willing, chose to give another chance.
When it was time for dinner, the boyfriend made a mess of the kitchen and said, "You're doing better." "I kicked the ball back and just sat and waited for dinner."
And Nicole showed a hint of unhappiness, and in the boyfriend "considerate": "are you OK? ", it becomes an unreasonable teasing that can only be held back.
Just like the discussion about "whether to be a housewife" that was popular on the Internet some time ago. The so-called "housewives" here are just a handful of rich wives who sit back and have a backer. True housewives, on the other hand, tend to be high-risk, worthless, and dependent on volunteer labor.
The most common fact in our lives is that women juggle the duties of "working women" and "housewives".
Just like these three women, they are constantly being asked on both sides of life: "Are you happy?" ”
But the answer has already been given by society before the mouth is opened.
A woman's happiness is defined as between the family, the partner and the kitchen, so that the woman is happy, this is the happiness that belongs to the woman.
In the third episode, the camera spends a long time watching Hannah dance solo in a deserted room, and she finally laughs.
But this indulgence exudes a hint of bitterness.
Hannah can only comfort herself in the cracks, because there is no stage for women to truly show the joy of life.
Christine has to learn to take care of her daughter independently and no longer trust anyone under the blow of reality. Hannah, who became a good independent woman as her mother taught her, was told that you were crippled because you didn't have a family.
Every woman becomes a contradictory individual, and as Hannah confides at the end of the film, it seems that most Asian girls face this kind of life dislocation to a greater or lesser extent.
For the first 20 years, they were disciplined into a perfectly well-behaved woman, who was far removed from all indulgence and love.
But in his early 20s, he was suddenly pushed out, instilling a sense of anxiety and panic about the passage of the flesh.
Girls' youth is about to end, and between the ages of 25 and 30, they must immediately find a "perfect husband", start a family, get married and have children.
This abrupt turn inhibits and urges growth, making the practice of adult life strange and purposeful.
This is also the strength of this drama, it seems to set up some of the situation of women who are slightly extreme, but it focuses on the daily routine.
We will find that these three women will always coincide in many tiny places.
The most obvious is a sense of uneasiness that runs through it.
In the movie "All the Time", the middle-class housewife played by Julian Moore takes the macaron-colored family picture into a sense of panic.
All the Time (2002)
They seem to have nothing to do, but they are always anxious, crying, and sighing for no reason.
Is they "too sensitive", or as Lin Yihan said: "You are too rough." ”
When Nicole went to the gym, her boyfriend accused her of being trying to seduce others.
In the end, Nicole had no choice but to go to the gym to quell this dangerous anger.
But this hot-tempered man will cry, kneel, threaten suicide when breaking up, and do whatever it takes.
This derogatory desire for control, a momentary attitude of honey and poison, and a wagging tail after loss made Nicole almost dizzy.
In the third episode, Hannah is confronted with different blind dates, always listening to them talk about their sexual fetishes from their web production work.
But no one asked her what she thought, some just "Sorry, I may be talking more straight..." After that, they commented on it and talked about it.
These love mistakes, self-made clever honesty, self-righteous thoughtfulness, and high-minded guidance will make female audiences feel incomparably familiar, and they all appear in the world of women of all ages in different ways.
When we look closely at the daily life of an adult man, we will find that he has "thrived" in the "will" of countless women.
The consciousness of a woman as the protagonist is obviously constantly being suppressed.
So, what kind of feedback does a woman get when she finally starts pouring out?
In the third episode, Hannah listened to the open self-exposure of the man on the other side, and under the urging of the other party and the action of alcohol, she also confessed her heart.
She said she "wanted to be free and wanted to be herself." ”
At this time, the eyes of the man on the other side began to become scrutinizing and hesitant, and he obviously began to take himself as a starting point to judge and evaluate in his mind.
As a result of Hannah's pouring out, the man said in the dark corridor, "You don't want to be free." One side forcefully ripped off Hannah's clothes.
Her quest for freedom is misinterpreted as manipulative sex.
Over time, then, women's outpouring and self-exposure become bitches, a source of guilt.
And similar misreadings are everywhere.
Many people may say that these situations are somewhat special. But the question is, should we ignore these everyday pitfalls. How terrible is the price of a woman falling in love wrong, and who should bear the costs?
Of course, the purpose of "I Am..." is not to point the core of the contradiction directly to the patriarchal society, nor to see the dichotomy as a solution to the problem.
The scariest part of it is its commonality, and what it means when the seemingly personal everyday becomes the situation for women all over the world.
Like one review put it: the show may not be too "good-looking" because it's so real.
But we still recommend interested friends to go and see.
Try to think about what "extras" as a woman really have to face in her daily life, and how can these things be eliminated? Instead of letting the problem hang on forever because it doesn't feel empathy.