Although Juppé Tornatore is more familiar with the "Hometown Trilogy", and the remake of De Niro and Zhang Guoguo is more familiar with "Journey to Heaven", the 90-year version is actually the most classic. It seems to be an absurd comedy, but the story is tortuous, the emotion is delicate, the audio-visual is excellent, the intention is profound, and the evocative is endless.
The old man, who has never left Sicily, embarked on a journey alone to visit his five children who had not returned home for a long time, holding on to good hopes, but repeatedly encountering embarrassment and cold eyes. The story witnesses the hardships of life and the helplessness of reality, and outlines the local sentient beings through the subtle restoration of various middle and low levels in Italy.
Marcelo Mastruani plays the loving father, wearing a top hat, a trench coat, a suitcase, glasses with lenses thicker than stones, and a fear and wandering of the unknown between his eyebrows, going to various cities to visit his five children who have not returned home for a long time, vividly interpreting the loneliness and sadness of an old man.
From the beginning of the train, accompanied by the brisk music of Master Morricone, the camera remains on the platform, gradually moving higher, over the top of the platform, fixed on a high hanging wire with a pair of tattered leather shoes hanging from it. The railroad tracks continue to move forward, the plains on both sides magically sail out of sight, and the lens language and audio-visual are exquisite.
Just arrived in Naples, prostitutes on the street raised their thighs to seduce the old man. He actually rested his legs on the suitcase, lifted his pants legs in response, and laughed at each other. He went to the hotel room when he was on his honeymoon more than forty years ago, and he didn't expect inflation, which used to be three hundred lira for three nights, and now it costs hundreds of thousands, which is really indignant!
Looking at the stone statue of the hero of that year was torn away, the white hair and wrinkles corresponding to the sideburns of the lonely old father seemed to belong to this era. Father's back and footsteps have a soul, he is upright, humorous, loving, once robbed by a knife robber, broke the camera, he angrily slapped the other side of a few big mouths, scared the other person away.
Then, each child's life is not satisfactory, and the old man is constantly suffering from wandering and loss. When the model daughter is not doing well, shuttling through the costume show and the swimsuit show, a person with the child, even if there is no time to change clothes, have to feed the naked upper body. This film has a female dew point shot, compared to the later version, the scale is the largest!
Another child is separated, the grandson has enlarged the girl's belly, but the family has to pretend that the family is very happy; the son is not a good conductor, he is just a drummer in the symphony orchestra; and a child is caught selling drugs... Everyone was reporting good news and not good news, and deceiving his father with white lies, which hurt him very much.
Every child is forced to smile in front of the father, everyone has their own misfortune and confusion, the old man heard the news of his son's death at the dinner table party, fell directly on the hospital bed, in the face of many relatives and friends who came to "reunite", he suggested that the grandson let his girlfriend give birth to the child, and do not educate him to be a big man, let him think of how to do.
This film has some surreal stream-of-consciousness shots, the old man's nightmare recalls the children's childhood vacation scenes on the beach: I did not expect that the black net like flying sand, the vertical line like seaweed, took the children away one by one, flew away from the beach of the vacation, plus there was a white horse in the distance, which made people look at the imagination and have the meaning of the shadow of life.
The old man has a family portrait photo of theatrical costume, and has fallen to the ground several times to be damaged and repaired, and he is telling his children to the drivers, old women, and girls who hitchhike on the highway, but after visiting relatives, someone said that this photo is like "acting", a pun sketched life like a drama, all acting in their own!
On the old man's return train, the camera once again appears on the shoes on the wires, indicating that he is riding back to Sicily, the symphony is playing again, and the journey is over! The old man said in his wife's tomb that Italy is not as beautiful as we think, and its beauty is more beautiful because we are in it, and those who see things from a distance are more beautiful.
He kissed his wife's head on the tombstone and whispered, "All is well." "Aerial footage, finally away from the hustle and bustle of Sicily. At the end, there is a fable-like scene of cutting a child's nails: "When you cut your child's nails for the first time, let him hold the money in his hand, so that he will have good luck in the future", bringing bright hope.
Tornadore is a master of Italian cinema, and his masterpieces have a unique perspective on human nature, always with a romantic sadness. The expectations and worries of "Journey to Heaven" for children, as well as the last white space lie, outline the confusion and embarrassment in the lives of modern urban people, but the touching details are touching in the depths of love.