When Ang Lee was eighteen years old, he saw Ingmar Bergman's film "Virgin Spring" in Taiwan, and was so amazed that he regarded the old Swedish man as a spiritual leader, and when he finally met Bergman in 2006, he was so excited that he cried like a child.
Bergman has made numerous names on the film and drama stages throughout his life, often exploring grand propositions such as religion and personal survival through daily themes such as family, love, and marriage, and is full of delicate and profound rational thinking. The 1953 romance film "Bad Girl Monica" may not rank in the top five of Bergman's masterpieces, in this film, you can see the shadow of Bergman's early romantic style "Summer Interlude", you can also glimpse the attitude of scrutiny that runs through the later "Married Life", and its classic treatment of the scene is quite inspiring for later generations.
Bergman has been called the director who likes metaphors and captures expressions the most. In "Monica", Monica appears in the mirror at the beginning, and at the end, Harry holds her daughter and looks in the mirror, comparing back and forth, which is a reincarnation.
In the film, there is a scene of breaking the "fourth wall", and the bored Monica turns to hook up with other men in the hotel, she lights a cigarette, looks directly into the camera, a nearly defiant look, as if to say to the audience, you are not qualified to judge me. This approach later became one of the hallmarks of French New Wave cinema.
In 2002, after Zhou Xun was also confessed in the movie "When the Flowers Bloomed", he turned to the camera and contributed an aura gaze, which was evaluated by director Gao Xiaosong as being able to penetrate the air and play that side.
"Bad Girl Monica" is a classic three-stage structure, restoring the process of men and women from acquaintance, love to marriage. The girl Monica met the boy Harry at the hotel, and at the beginning of the meeting, Monica said: Spring is coming, have you noticed? Harry: Absolutely. Monica: This kind of weather really shouldn't be used for work. Harry: Yeah.
So they stole Harry's father's boat, came on a walk-and-go trip, went to an undisturbed island to live an Eden-style life, the sea breeze, the sun, the young flesh, as if the air was full of the sweet smell of love; gradually, they sat and ate the mountain, hungry and irritating, Harry repeatedly said that she wanted to go home, Monica insisted on not returning, she went to the village to steal food, almost caught, worse, she was pregnant.
They had to return to the city, after the birth of their daughter, Harry worked hard to earn money, but Monica only cared for fun, after the adultery was discovered, Harry cried and complained, Monica left her daughter and husband, and left without looking back.
The film portrays a vivid female figure of Monica, or through Monica, tells the truth from love to marriage, how the beauty of life is eroded by reality, how a person is destroyed by a repressed and empty spiritual life, and the ritual role of marriage and the reasons for its failure. People like Monica are sure to be scolded in real life, she is lazy and vain, does not want to work, does not want to make money, has too many fantasies about life; she is selfish and arrogant, and when difficulties are approaching, she vigorously accuses Harry; she is shallow and ignorant, has no sense of responsibility, and only wants to live a free and free life.
Meanwhile, Bergman allows viewers to see another side of Monica's rough form. She is naïve and optimistic, while shedding tears for the love in the movie, she does not care about the real world, one second is disappointed, the next second is full of hope; she is passionate, occasionally sad, full of vitality in her bones, and released a touching happiness factor around her; she asks when she is desperate: Why do some people always have such good luck? The tone is so frank and sincere that people want to laugh. She complained that Harry had no money, that she didn't have new clothes, and that her tone was very aggrieved. In short, Monica is like a bomb, igniting a small flame in the audience's heart from time to time, looking in the mirror and finding empathy. Because it is direct, it is full of power.
Monica is poor, lazy, debauched and loves freedom, that is, as the saying goes, "the heart is higher than the sky, the life is thinner than paper", often you can see the condemnation and irony of such people in film and television dramas, such as Wang Manyin in "Ordinary World", Wang Cailing in "Lichun", the creators have a special psychological analysis of them, after classicization, they almost become a kind of "ugly" prototype. But if it becomes easy to judge right from wrong, its richness is diminished.
"Monica" does not presuppose the perspective of God, does not have the ambition to write a biography, it shows a life in a concise and real lens language, a soul chasing freedom, the cleverness of the film is that it does not try to summarize, Monica closes the door like Nala, and the ending is uncertain.
This reminds me of Xiao Hong, and her story, Xiao Hong's life can be connected by "The Legend of Hulan River", "Shangshi Street" and some memoirs, the transparency is quite high, but she looks so different in film and television dramas. The reason may be that the creators have already preset it before they conceive it: a miserable woman.