Mattie leaned back in her chair and looked at him with her hands on her knees, and in the light of the garden, in the sweet atmosphere, Marty looked at him... She looked at him... she... Looking at him...
What kind of story is this film by French director Jean-Pierre Genet and adapted from Sebastian Zaprezzo's novel of the same name, The Long Marriage?
Today, Xiaobian will start from the heroes and heroines in the movie to tell you such a story of romance and hope in a cruel era.
Mathil (heroine) is a girl whose parents died and was brought up by her uncle and aunt in the countryside. She has a fiancé Manicha (the male protagonist). She had suffered from polio as a child and left her legs disabled, but her fiancé never abandoned her. Their childhood and youth were so sweet and beautiful.
But good times were always short-lived, and the First World War began, and Mathil's fiancé went to war. Hopefully, Mathille gets the shocking news that her fiancé is killed (the plot tells that Manic was exiled to the center of a fierce position for self-harm to escape the war and went to court-martial). The kind-hearted Mathill was convinced that her Manic was not dead because Manic had given her a promise, and she was convinced that manic could feel it if he died.
With this conviction, Matil embarked on a bumpy road to the pursuit of truth. After countless setbacks and blows, and of course with the help of many kind people (including Manic's comrades-in-arms and his comrades-in-arms, Manic's superiors, etc.), she finally met Mannice in the garden of a quiet farm, who was devastated and amnesiac.
It was the best happy ending for Mathil. In front of her, Manic was not a veteran who had experienced vicissitudes and exhausted, but like the memory in Mathil's heart, Manic was still a simple, sunny country boy.
Maybe the title of the movie should be Mathil's War. Because for Mathil, the First World War was far away from her, all she cared about was Manic, the truth about Manic's life and death. This is the cruelest thing for a woman. This cruelty does not only come from the truth, but also from her own heart. She needed to convince herself over and over again, to give herself hope, to tell herself that Manic was alive. At the same time, the good memories also tormented her over and over again.
You can see a lot of these clips in the film. Mathil always hinted when faced with a thwarted choice, betting on himself. For example, when Manic left her in a car, she said to herself that if I ran across the trail and could reach the corner before Manic's car, Then Manic would come back alive.
This may be naïve in everyone's mind. But for Mathil it was the best hope. Maybe we will hint at ourselves like this over and over again in desperate situations, giving ourselves hope over and over again. It is with this little bit of hope that Mathille has regained her confidence again and again.
Maniche (male protagonist), a simple, kind, innocent big boy from the countryside. Have an unparalleled innocent look. Manic grew up with Mathil, and because Mathil grew up with a disability, he was the only one friend of Manic. They loved each other but were separated by war and sent to the battlefield of the Dusk Bingo, which translates as the forsaken place of God. Naïve Manic heard in the army that someone had come home with self-harm. He thought he would be able to meet Mathil, whom he had been missing. He lit a cigarette at night and was deliberately hit with the hand he had often placed on Mathil's heart, sticking out of the trench with the cigarette.
Every time his hand began to hurt he felt Mathil's heart jumping in his hand.
But harsh reality awaited him, and he was sent to court-martial. The war drove everyone crazy. He was sent to his death along with several others who escaped the war in the same way. They were sent to the three-way zone between the fronts to fend for themselves.
The young, innocent Manic was always smiling silly. Although the film does not recall from his point of view, I think he has always longed to return to the person who has haunted him. But the harsh reality didn't allow him to do so. He was still thrown into the death zone. I don't know when he started to lose his mind, and only her Mathil had in mind. In the death zone he stood in front of a lonely dead tree on a barren land, carving MMM into the tree with his injured hand. It's like he carved an MMM on the clock of the bell tower with Mathil on his back. (MMM stands for Mathil and Manic.)
It is rare to have such an innocent person in the harsh reality. Of course, Heaven also took care of him. Although he was seriously injured, he was rescued by his comrades-in-arms. Due to the reasons for escaping the war and the loss of memory, they have been anonymous and want to live an ordinary life.
It's like at the end of the movie. Like I said before, it was probably the best for him. Forget all the pain and be able to start over.
Xiaobian here is just starting from the two protagonists to tell this story. But the film is so much more exciting than that. In Mathil's search for the truth, the story is portrayed from the perspective of many characters. Although it is only a fragment of memory, it is finally pieced together through Mathil's combing. Among them, the wife of Manich's comrade-in-arms, who was treated equally, expressed her love from the other extreme. Although she was a prostitute, she sought the truth in her own way. She slashed the men who killed her husband one by one.
The French have always been so romantic, always taking their romanticism to the extreme when describing brutal wars. When two extremes meet, what kind of sparks will collide? Here Xiaobian will leave it to the viewers to answer.
There are no miracles in this world, just people who hold on to their beliefs!