Midnight in Barcelona is one of Woody Allen's European trilogies, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in France on May 17, 2008, and has been loved by countless fans and literary youths for many years since. Woody. Allen described the film as his "love letter to Barcelona". ”
The film tells the story of the American girls Vicki and Christina, who have a wonderful experience in Barcelona, Spain. Vicki and Christina are good girlfriends, and their concepts and tastes are extremely similar in many aspects, but they are very different in their attitudes towards love. Vicki is rational and realistic, Christina is emotional and unrestrained. In an exhibition, the two meet a very charismatic artist with a bad reputation, and then meet his ex-wife Elena, and from then on, they are involved in a complicated and confused love relationship.
In the film, Woody Allen chose orange as the keynote, making the whole film full of romantic and charming European colors. The story that takes place between several of the main characters in the film has both conventional love entanglements and unusual love patterns, with woody Allen's usual deconstruction of life, satirical humor and wisdom.
The three female vicky, Christina and Elena in the film have completely different attitudes in the face of love, reflecting the representative women's growth confusion and determining the direction of their respective lives. Today, I would like to use a little different pen and ink mainly from these three beautiful women to try to analyze the hidden female growth line and the thinking and enlightenment brought to us.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >, "Good Girl" Vicky: The constant oscillation between rational judgment and inner desire makes the seemingly controllable life begin to appear chaotic. Where does she go from here? </h1>
At the beginning of the film, Woody Allen describes Vicki's personality traits with narration:
"She's very practical and doesn't want to endure pain or fight for anything. The man she wants must be emotionally stable, and she is engaged to Doug because he is upright, accomplished and values commitment as much as she does. ”
When Faced with choices in life, Vicky's usual practice is to analyze each behavior and thought and see if it is worth it. Compared to the blind impulses of her friend Christina, Vicky seems to be a woman who will never make mistakes and can always grasp the direction of life. However, is this really the case?
(1) Is the life design of the "good girl" from the heart or from the world's definition of success?
Seeing Vicki, about many girls will have a strong sense of substitution. Being asked by her parents and the environment to be a "good girl" from an early age, arranging her life step by step, and becoming a "good woman" in line with the expectations of others when she grows up is a growth experience that many women have had. Where is the "I" in the process? What does "I" want? It didn't seem important, or even obscured.
In the film, when the husband of Vicki's friend Judy asks her what she will do after graduation, she shrugs her shoulders and says, "I don't know, maybe it's teaching or going to the library." Judy interrupted her and said, "Anyway, I'm going to get married in the fall, and I'll have children soon, so I don't have to bother." For Vicki, getting a good degree, marrying a good husband, being a good wife, and defining life according to conventional success is as accurate and perfect as a textbook.
Vicki's arrangement of life seems to be a choice after weighing herself, but it is not. Compared to Christina's not knowing what she wanted, Vicki didn't even know what she didn't want. She is accustomed to measuring her choices by other people's and worldly judgments, because only then is it safe and acceptable. Therefore, in the film, Vicki once said blankly:
"People always think I know what I want... But I don't know what I'm expecting? ”
Vicky seems to be living in a custom-made condom with the words "Good Girl" printed on it. Jane Lee once said that after the "good woman" persona collapsed, women became real women. For the truth of life must come from a genuine desire in the heart, not from a procedural setting, but it is often suppressed by fear.
In the Italian novel "Four Stories of Naples", the coming-of-age story of two girls is described. A rebellious and wild, a fearful and forbearing, these two completely different forces actually exist in everyone's heart. In the process of growing up in life, this trades off and goes back and forth.
(2) The one-night passion that plunged Vicki into chaos was only awakening, not awakening
By chance, Vicki and Christina met the painter Antonio. Antonio's blunt and outrageous invitation made Vicki angry. She sternly refused his request to spend the weekend together, but in order to accompany Christina, she had to take a small plane to the small town of Oviedo in the wind and rain of the late night. This storm also became a metaphor for Vicky's next life.
Veget, who has always maintained her rationality, loves Gaudí architecture and Spanish guitars, which are the few sensual elements that she exudes, and exists as embellishments. However, for the first time in her life, she lost control and was ignited by a Spanish guitar.
During her outing with Antonio, Vicki was captivated by his talent and unique insights. While the two were having dinner, Vicky received a call from her fiancé, who showed an undisguised fluster, and when her fiancé said "I love you," she hung up the phone on the pretext that the signal was too poor. This is Vicky's first appearance in the film.
Next, Vicky crossed the thunder pool to the sound of her favorite Spanish guitar, which made her step-by-step life begin to appear unprecedented chaos. There is a detail in the film that is worth noting, the sound of Spanish guitar music appears three times in the film, one of which is when Vicki accompanies her fiancé and his colleagues to a party, and when the three people talk with great interest about the renovation of the house and what brand of TV to buy, accompanied by Vicki's absent-minded loneliness and incompatibility, the charming Spanish guitar music resounds again, subtly showing the misalignment of Vicki's heart and reality.
Vicki's attitude toward love and life began to sway violently. She found that she did not love the "right choice" fiancé so much, and she began to feel confused about the married life she had expected in the past. The appearance of Antonio makes Vicki have to examine her own heart for the first time, issuing a confused torture: "What am I expecting?" ”
Soon, Christina and Antonio fall in love, and Vicki hides her inner loss and marries her fiancé, Doug. But then, when Vicki had another chance to be with Antonio, she was messy again and eventually succumbed to the passion raging inside her, and even had the idea of abandoning her marriage.
The appearance of Antonio's ex-wife, Elena, pulls her back to reality. She finally shouted, "I can't live like this, this is not my life!" This is also the first time that Vicky has heard the true voice of her heart, and finally understood that "I am only a brief infatuation with him." The entanglement with Antonio awakened her habitually repressed heart. But this is only awakening, not awakening.
Vicki ends her relationship with Antonio and embarks on the road home to live the life she once longed for. However, Vicky, who had had this exotic experience, clearly did not have the expectations of the past on her face.
What is love? Sternberg's famous love triangle theory mentions that any love contains three elements: passion, intimacy, and commitment.
In Vicki's choice, neither her fiancé Doug nor Antonio is actually true love. For Vicki, Doug is a safe, fit, and eligible marriage partner; Antonio is a passionate, stimulating, romantic presence. Neither of the two feelings fully contains the three elements of love. The former lacks passion, the latter has no commitment.
This is also the reason why Vicki is still unhappy when she returns to her original track. Awakened rather than awakened, she knows what she doesn't want, but still doesn't know what she wants. Her life will continue to be searched for.
(3) Truly understanding yourself, knowing what your heart wants and bearing the cost of your choices is the sure path
What does Vicki's story teach us? I would like to talk about my own two points of thinking.
★ Explore your own heart and understand what is really needed
Life is full of choices, and we don't always follow our hearts. For example, we may choose a popular professional and stable job because of our parents' wishes; at a certain age, we are forced to choose the object of our hasty marriage; we arrange our lives according to the definition of public opinion and the world, even if these successes do not make you happy...
In this way, it is bound to fall into the confusion faced by Vicki, who neither knows what she wants nor what she does not want. It seems to be step by step, but in fact, it is going with the flow. What Vicki really craves is romantic and stable love, and neither of these men can give her. Therefore, after her return, she will continue to face new confusion in her life.
★ Self-realization requires bravery
Judy cheats and is seen by Vicki, who confesses to Vicki, saying:
My marriage reached a dead end, but I did not dare to solve it with action, and I could only wait for a miracle to appear. I knew that an affair was not a good solution to the problem, but I was too scared, I didn't dare, the time had been missed.
Judy's cowardice makes her afraid to take the initiative to solve the problem, and can only use the extramarital affair to temporarily breathe, but this will inevitably make things worse. Judy drew herself a circle and hid in the circle while suffering. So after she learned about Viggy and Antonio, she tried to match the two. She told Vicki that if you don't be brave once, you will regret it later, and that the future you think is as good as the plan, and the future is what I am now.
Fear is the greatest bondage of freedom; fear is also the greatest bondage of love. In life, how many women are trapped in a bad career or marriage, because they are afraid of change, they dare not stop the loss in time, and they have spent many years and finally the desire to change has disappeared, leaving a long sigh.
Warfurnag said: Courage is the light of a person in adversity.
To live out your true self, you must follow this light and bravely bear the price you have to pay. Only in this way can it become a life with the least regrets and regrets, and it is really possible to realize the self of expectation.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > two, "unruly woman" Christina: Unstable heart and unstoppable footsteps, is it to pursue the self or deliberately pursue different? </h1>
In Vicki's eyes, Christina is "overly romantic and self-destructive, desperate in the face of passion." "She seems to be a girl who has been rushing forward with clarity and arbitrariness, but in my opinion, her brave running posture still implies the meaning of escape."
(1) In Christina's trial and error life, there are hidden risks and costs
Christina's most striking feature is "I don't know what I want, I only know what I don't want", so she treats love and everything else in a trial-and-error manner.
She was bold and curious. Faced with Antonio's explicit invitation, she immediately agreed. Because she felt that the man in front of her was very different, different from the man carved out of the mold. Vicki reminds her of the dangers of doing so, saying, "Go to get to know." "She has been pursuing a different life experience, but she does not understand what she really wants, and she seems to be shuttling through life, looking for it again and again without success."
Brave trial and error is certainly a positive and enterprising attitude towards life, but blind attempts are time-consuming. The choice is infinite and life is limited, the deceased is like Sifu, how many tomorrow? It is too risky and expensive not to first try to figure out what you really want, but to find the right path from trial and error through any serendipitous circumstances you encounter. I think it's also a point to be wary of when more and more voices are coming up encouraging young people to keep trying and making mistakes. Truth and error are often separated by only a thread, and the courage of trial and error is not the same as blind willfulness.
(2) Deliberate non-kitsch is also kitsch
In the film, there is a narration by Christina, she says: I don't know what to want, but I don't want the kind of life that is like my parents. What she has always wanted to avoid is the "unchanging life" that her ancestors have demonstrated to her for generations. And this stable state will definitely come at some point, no matter who you are with, it will definitely appear after a long time together.
When Christina first started with Antonio, she used to be happy and seemed to have found the stable relationship she was looking for. Later, Antonio's ex-wife Elena returns, and the three of them form a shocking relationship. But soon after, Christina felt a kind of stability that made her sit still, so she decided to leave.
For Christina, this kind of stability that she wants to escape from will appear after two people have been together for a long time, and it will also appear after three people have been together for a long time. And once she shows up, she has no other way but to escape. She couldn't settle down because she was always looking for something "different", so Elena yelled at her: "You are just habitual dissatisfaction, you are sick!" ”
In Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Life, the female painter Sabina once said: "Rebelling against kitsch is also another form of kitsch." It is rather a bit of an allusion to the absurdity of Christina's deliberate and deliberate different search for something different.
There is a famous saying in Mencius: Those who have deeds and deeds are not good, they all seek themselves. This is a great way to solve Christina's upbringing confusion. What she really needs is not to blindly seek outward, but to find out why she does not want a stable life, the reason is the rebellion against the life of her father, or the faithful choice of her heart.
<h1 class = pgc-h-arrow-right > three, genius painter Elena: hurting others and hurting oneself is like the water that breaks the can not be controlled, how to place the surging love and desire in the heart? </h1>
Penelope Cruz, known as the "Spanish Tulip", plays Elena in the film, her exotic beauty and powerful explosive power, portraying a fierce, sensitive, love-hate genius painter unforgettable.
In the film, Elena and Antonio are a very strange couple. They are obviously a natural couple, but they can't get along. Antonio said: "Elena is the most important person in my life, but we just can't get along, and I don't know why. Elena said: "Our relationship is perfect, but something is missing." "And in my opinion, it's not something missing between them, it's something more."
(1) Love is a passion and desire that needs to be restrained
In Wang Shuo's "Addiction", the first sentence of the opening chapter is:
"Du Mei is like a weapon, an extremely gorgeous and sharp knife in the hands of Guan Yu, which is an indelible impression she left on me."
Next, Du Mei, who loved the dialect deeply, constantly wielded this big knife, cutting the love between the two to pieces, and both sides were defeated. The same goes for Elena and Antonio.
The profound beauty of love is worth protecting with life, but why does love become a double-edged sword that hurts others and hurts oneself in many cases? I think that love, like hate, as a passion and desire, requires restraint as well.
Freud divided personality into three main parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. Love can also be divided into three levels. Based on the original ego love is the original impulse of the heart, the love of the self is the consideration of reality, the love of the superego is a moral judgment, the altruism of pushing oneself and others. Restraint is to balance one's impulses and desires, like is wanton, love is restraint, restraint is temperance.
(2) The use of Oriental wisdom may be the solution
When Cristina joined antonio and Elena, a strangely ephemeral balance was reached between the three of them. The relationship between Elena and Antonio was no longer tense, and their relationship became quiet and peaceful. Elena said to Christina, "We will always be in love, but not together." Together, we hurt each other and make each other miserable. But you are the conciliator between us. ”
Why did such a peculiar reaction occur? Because of Christina's appearance, it was like water dripping into a thick liquid, and she diluted the indissoluble entanglement, and the liquid began to appear in a clear state.
There is a Chinese proverb: when the water is full, it overflows. Lao Tzu has more clouds: even love will be a big expense. Our eastern wisdom explains the troubles between Elena and Antonio. Their love is so fiery and destructive that it is no wonder that Antonio's father said, "After a thousand years, we humans still have not learned how to love." Learning and restraining love, I think that's one of the lessons the film brings to us.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >4, written at the end</h1>
From "Manhattan" to "Midnight in Barcelona," Woody. Allen has been making films about searching, trying to find the meaning of love and the purpose of life.
As always, he never tells the audience what the answer is. He just shows you the stories that may appear in life, confusing you and seemingly deepening your understanding of life, but when it comes to summarizing, it is often blank. Like life itself, constantly moving forward in confusion, searching in the unknown, there is never a standard answer.
The three women in "Midnight in Barcelona", their choices in the face of love and life confusion, will bring each of us to think differently. How to face the heart, what is the meaning of searching, and how to learn to love, may be one of the meanings and gains that this film can bring us.
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