Text total: 2843 words 9 figures
Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Mention the "New Wave" master François Truffaut, you will think of the teenager Antoine who escaped from the school and ran all the way to the sea; you will think of Catherine, Zu and Zhan who ran freely on the bridge; you will think of Adele Hugo, who only met his lover in thousands of mountains, and the characters in Truffaut's films, as well as their yearning for passion and freedom, have profoundly influenced generations of fans.
Today, I would like to recommend Truffaut's work "Two British Girls and Europe" released in 1971, which can be regarded as a companion piece to "Zu and Zhan", which is still about the inseparable emotional entanglement of three people.
The Young French Claude broke his leg due to an accident, and during his recovery, he met the Visiting English woman Anna Blanc. Anna slowly lifted the veil, and the pure and moving gesture immediately attracted Claude, and he felt for the first time the sensitive rationality of an English lady. After a period of time together, the two feel very close to each other, they often exchange books, discuss ideas, and Anna sometimes talks about the sculptures she loves.
By chance, Anna showed Claude a picture of her sister's ten-year-old. The little girl in the photo has a round face, a small mouth of cherry, and a shy and untamed cuteness in her expression, that is, ten-year-old Mériel. Anna invites Claude to visit her hometown in England, and their mothers are childhood friends, so Claude embarks on a journey to Wales to visit the Blanc family.
On the night of arrival, without seeing Méliès dine with them, Anna explained that her sister, who often stayed up late to help the professor write books, suffered from an eye disease and had to recuperate. Claude kept looking at the empty chair in a daze, and there were no words between the meals.
Before seeing Merriet for the first time, Anna told Claude not to always look into her eyes. At this time, a woman with a bandage tightly blindfolded eyes entered Claude's field of vision, and thus occupied Claude's life, she is Méliès. At dinner, Mériès occasionally lifted the tip of the bandage with her soft, boneless hand, looked at the food on the plate, and spoke briefly to Claude in her low hoarse voice.
At night, Claude accompanies Anna on a walk by the sea, and she talks about Méliès, saying that her sister actually yearns for the life of an adventurer, with a little willfulness and uninhibited in her bones, which always makes her mother feel a headache. Listening to her soft words, Claude suddenly felt as if her voice was coming from far away, from the other side of the sea, calling, "Kiss me." But Claude quickly shrugged off this frivolous idea. Anna suddenly stopped and asked Claude, "Do you like my sister Merrie?" ”
Claude didn't know how to respond.
During the time spent in Blanc's house, Claude often played with Anna and Méliès, the three of them rode through the river, they regarded Anna as a rolling water, Claude was like a whirlpool in the water, and Méliès was just like a calm pool, a game-like metaphor, but revealed the ultimate fate of the three.
It rains, and the three of them hide in a cave and play "squeeze lemon" for warmth, and Claude finds himself a hostage in a strange game, squeezed by girls.
As the days went on, Claude found that the spark between himself and the stubborn and independent Mériès was getting stronger and stronger, and Anna began to try to match the two, but the mothers of both sides did not approve of the transnational marriage, believing that the two young people had never thought about how to build a future life.
After the consultation, they agreed that Claude and Mériès must be separated for a year, not to meet, not to communicate, and if after a year the two can overcome difficulties and still miss each other, the parents of both sides will no longer stop them.
About this relationship, Méliès's attitude at first was to deny it, and finally gradually accepted, boldly confessed her love for Claude, was willing to wait for the return of her lover, and dedicated everything to Claude, but did not expect that in just six months, the relationship was broken, Méliès received a parting letter from Claude, and at that moment, she fainted on the grass.
In the letter, he called Merrie "sister", saying that he could live without his sister, but this would not make the "sister" replace his position in his heart, and said that he now had many "female friends" and hoped that the relationship would end.
Since then, Mérières has been plunged into an endless vortex of infatuation.
After a long time, Claude and his mother met Anna on the streets of Paris. Claude asked about anna's situation in her hometown in England, especially Méliès's mental state, and Anna only replied lightly, there are two words in our family that are not allowed to be mentioned again, one is "Claude" and the other is "Paris".
Anna had a studio of her own in Paris, and Claude often visited her, and he felt the warmth and heat of the past, and began a new relationship with Anna. The two spent a perfect week in a cottage on the shore of a Swiss lake, and the two went from shyness at first to honesty and each other.
But Anna doesn't seem to see Claude as "the only" as Mérieux does, and she maintains a lover relationship with Claude and Diorca, who pursues her, and expresses that she does not care that Claude goes to other women. It was as if he had accomplished some kind of mission with Claude, and could go to a more open realm.
At this time, Méliès had slowly recovered from her injuries, and she began to write letters to Claude, and sent a part of the diary, confiding in Claude the words of her heart.
Méliès came to Paris, France, from her home in England, and she looked forward to seeing the man who had made her love and hurt again.
They finally met under Anna's arrangement, and the two embraced each other in the dark studio, and he kissed her on the lips, and then, as if realizing something, hurriedly left her away.
Anna confessed to Mérieux that she had been in love with many men since she came to Paris, one of whom was Claude. Merry cried bitterly and fainted in Anna's arms.
I don't know how long later, Anna fell seriously ill, died in her hometown in England, and reached a reconciliation with her sister and the past at the end of her life.
After dealing with Anna's funeral, Méliès and Claude meet again, and after a night of warmth, he persuades her to stay and start over together, but she thinks that all her love has ended on this evening, he is no longer the person he loved before, the two can not go to a new life, this night is just to say goodbye to their past selves, the two still have to go on different tracks.
Fifteen years later, Méliès has become a wife and a mother, and Claude has always lived alone, and when he happens to see frolicking girls on the street, he will think, is there a daughter of Méliès among these children?
At the end, Claude looks out the window and asks his reflection, "What the hell am I doing?" How old I look! ”
The focus of this film is not actually on love, but on how people can reconcile with themselves, with the complex past, with their future lives.
The so-called love for the three protagonists, are the product of selfishness and self, each person is moving in their own direction, but throwing the other person into a lonely situation. There has never been a mutual affection, and some are just the self-absorption of the lonely. They are lifted up through so-called love, and when those purest emotions can no longer be found, they feel incomparably empty and lost. Lonely people are destined to be lonely forever because the love they pursue is too crowded to have enough space for two people.
This is the story of three people, but the most stable triangle is gradually twisted and deformed due to their respective perceptions and attitudes, and the fate of the three people eventually goes to dust, to the inevitable aging, leaving only memories, in the world that once belonged to them, wu dried up and withered.
Although "Two British Girls and Europe" is not as well-known as "Four Hundred Blows" and "Zu and Zhan", it is still a masterpiece of ingenuity, truffaut tells a story that looks so abusive at first glance, and truly shows the attitude and choices of young men and women in the face of love and life. It is worth mentioning that the male protagonist of this film is still Truffaut's royal actor Jean-Pierre Lyod, as we know "Antoine", and his accurate portrayal of the role of Claude in the film can be described as a highlight. This issue of recommendations ends here, and I also hope that the classic work "Two British Girls and Continental" can be loved and appreciated by more people.
Classic movie book recommendations
The Closest Filmmaker to God: The Last 30 Years of Stanley Kubrick's Life
From the perspective of Kubrick's personal assistant Emilio D'Easyro, this book reveals the details and trivia of Kubrick's life and work in the last 30 years of his life, as well as many secret anecdotes during the filming process.