"Only the Sea Knows"
"Only the Sea Knows", a 2018 Taiwanese film directed by Choi Yong-hui and starring almost all vegetarian actors, tells a story about left-behind children, in which the young actor Zhong Jiajun (the protagonist of the film, Manawei), won the best new actor in the 55th Golden Horse for his outstanding performance.
Honestly, I have been really eager for this movie for a long time, but I have been suffering from not having the resources to watch, so I can't "taste" it, and today, two years later, I finally have the opportunity to watch it, I am really happy, and the surprise is no less than when I first watched the domestic "Taste of Rice Blossoms", but the ending of the two is slightly different.
In "The Taste of Rice Blossoms", the little girl broke the long-standing barrier with her mother due to the death of her friend, and finally voluntarily reconciled with her mother, and the two danced a very beautiful peacock dance in the stalactite cave together, and the soundtrack of Keiichi Suzuki has been echoing in my mind, which is really beautiful. That scene is simply a "stroke of God", the meaning of "The Taste of Rice Blossoms" suddenly becomes deeper and longer, and the "grade" of the whole movie is also several blocks higher in an instant, which has to be liked.
The ending of "Only the Sea Knows" is about the same as no "ending", because "there are many roads in Kaohsiung, and there is only one in Lanyu", and in the pursuit of the indispensable money in material life, Manawei's father lost his way. He chose to escape from his hometown and everything related to his hometown, from this "backward civilization" that seemed to him like a bondage, even though Manabeg shouted to him, "Shoes I can not, Dad, I can not have shoes..." He still drove away, leaving Manabes lost in the big city.
Compared with the setting of the mother driving home to see her child at the beginning of "Rice Blossom", The "love" that Manawei gets is destined to be much less than that of the little girl in "Rice Blossom". The degree of adults' attention to love is not the same, and the "degree" of adults' material pursuits is different, which will also lead to a very different degree of care.
Make boats together
The same closed environment, the same out to earn money, some people come back, will accept the reality, will have awe and reverence for their traditional culture, will miss the good of home and the importance of their families; some people, just want to go farther and farther, no matter whether they make money or not, whether they can make money, reality is not realistic, the only purpose is to make money first, and then say, family or whatever, you can put aside first.
So Manave's father can hurt Manave's heart again and again, miss his performance again and again, miss the opportunity to care for him, miss, and even not care about Manave's safety. Even if Manawei finds him alone in Kaohsiung, where he is not familiar with his life, in the big city of Kaohsiung, he can still ignore him and "go away from the dust", not afraid of whether his children will have an accident, whether they will get lost or abducted in Kaohsiung.
He could lie to his child about how beautiful "Love River" was, or he could pretend how "Love River" was suited to swimming, giving Manawei an illusion of beautiful Kaohsiung. It's just that he doesn't know that Manaev will really go to the "Love River" to swim and leave his tears in the "Love River". Manawei jumped and sank into the "river of love", but all he got was endless darkness and emptiness. In the fantasy, I am in Lanyu, in the fantasy, the bottom of the "Love River" is as colorful as Lanyu, and his father also "dances" with himself, feeling the beautiful underwater world at the same time, feeling the most sincere "love". Helplessly, everything is illusory.
Manawei
At the beginning and end of the movie, there are scenes of Manawei and Grandma picking dragon's eye together, all of which are Manawei and Grandma, no father, although there is no lack of warmth and fun, but also vaguely revealed a lot of disappointment and sustenance, for example, Grandma has been chanting, Dad can eat Longan when he comes back, but Dad rarely comes back, and he does not eat Longan.
Regarding the shoes that Manawei craves, the director also gives a lot of "descriptions", such as close-ups of Manawei's rotten shoes, such as Manawei's glue on shoes, such as Manaev's shoes cracked again on the way out of school, he complained softly. For example, Manawei's envy when he sees his classmate's mother helping to buy new shoes, such as his father's good friend Uncle picking up old shoes discarded by others and sending them to him.
Of course, in this issue, there is also his disgust at the fact that he was misunderstood by the teacher when he did not get new shoes, and after being physically punished, he was only a pair of flip-flops for himself. Throw away his shoes and throw them out of school, as if this would solve the humiliation of his childish heart, as if he could stay away from the campus, away from discrimination and misunderstanding.
At first, I didn't understand why Manawei wanted to paint his own feet, why the director deliberately went to shoot Manawei's feet, and thought that Manawei, like me when I was a child, liked all kinds of scribbles and pictures. I have done this kind of thing, purely for fun, but I didn't expect that here in Manabe, it is a kind of message transmission, a crucial "mother" of the film.
Only after realizing that he needed his father's help to buy shoes. And his thoughts of his father, but also to a large extent are pinned in this shoe, only when the shoes are needed, the father can bring new shoes to him, only when the new shoes are needed, can look forward to the father to come home, come to see him and see the grandmother, give him a short period of "emotional sustenance".
Pick longan with grandma
Sadly, Dad did not take Manawei's "emotional sustenance" seriously from beginning to end, and the shoes sent by Dad as promised were first because Dad took the wrong drawings sent by Manaeux and bought small-sized shoes that did not fit; the second time was that Manaev and his friends were preparing to officially perform Aboriginal dances, expecting Dad to be like his friend Mom, taking time out of his busy schedule to watch his performance, but Dad just handed over the shoes and left. I don't think about my son's honor at all, and I don't feel moved by my son's pride.
He was reluctant to participate in his son's development.
He didn't know how many "tribulations" Manawei had gone through and how many bumpy experiences he had had when he gave him this pair of shoes. He also didn't know how painful Manawei's heart was, how much he wanted a father who could accompany him growing up, even if it was for a little while, even if it was occasional, he was satisfied, after all, he participated in this aboriginal dance performance, so that he could come to Kaohsiung to see and meet his father.
Lonely Manavier
Kaohsiung is very big, Kaohsiung is also very beautiful, but this kind of beauty and this big, only suitable for people with "ambition" to "spread their wings and fly high", not suitable for Manawei, who has freedom and ease in his bones, and is needless to "swim" with innocent people, Manawei needs the ocean, not the river, and what Manawei needs is love, not indifference, sincerity, not deception.
British writer Janet Winterson wrote in "I want to be happy, I don't have to be normal": "It's never too late to learn love. But it's scary." Perhaps, Manavie's father, in Janet's eyes, is one of the people who has grown old before he grows up, has not yet learned to love, and has already aged, so he does not know how to express love, and he does not know how to love Manaveon is the real love for him. After all, love. It's a tough word.
"Love." The lack of love. The possibility of love." The love that Manaevé had been looking forward to, only the sea knew. Only the sea knows, it's blue. Like the tears of the sea, like the map of sailing. Like a wave choking on the reef rocks. Waiting for the salty sea breeze to blow away the long night of fog.
爸爸，Long Time No Sea(See)。
Only the sea knows