Father Trapped in Time: The Most Familiar Stranger

Author: Mai Qing

Fathers are the pillars of many families and the idols of many children. If one day we enter the twilight years, will he still be the father we used to know? Can we treat our fathers as warmly as our fathers treated us? The film "Father Trapped in Time", which was released in Chinese mainland a few days ago, is like a mirror, reflecting the distance between reality and ideals, life and dreams.

The picture is a poster of "Father Trapped in Time"

A chaotic world for Alzheimer's patients

Many people find the plot of "Father Trapped in Time" obscure, and most viewers have lost all the bridges and techniques that most viewers are familiar with in popcorn movies. In the narrative maze of time and space confusion, you can't see the tears, you can't find the laughter, and you can't experience the coolness. You may not be able to figure out the ins and outs of the theater the moment you walk out of the theater, and you can't understand what kind of story this is? If you're immersed in this chaotic mood, that's right. Because this film is about the chaotic and restless mental world of an Alzheimer's patient. The world is foreign and full of fear for many viewers. Because whether it is the choreographer of the film or the audience, most of them are in the heroic years. The light and shadow world of many films focuses more on the legend of dreams and passions, and less on the twilight years when passions retreat.

"Father Trapped in Time" focuses on the crowd that is often forgotten by the world of light and shadow - Alzheimer's patients. They are also often in a forgotten and neglected state in real life. The film successfully recreates the real situation and spiritual world of this group, and once again arouses people's attention to this group through the two oscar laurels.

What are real real life and what are the patient's imaginary dreams? For more than ninety minutes of watching the movie, the audience will always be entangled in this. This brain-burning process of contemplation, while transmitting negative emotions such as nervousness, anxiety, and uneasiness, makes you feel uneasy for a moment. For the average moviegoer, this journey of light and shadow is difficult. For an Alzheimer's patient, it is not easy to be in such a chaotic situation for a year, two years or even more than a decade. The film uses art to achieve the effect of resonance of the younger generation of audiences, so as to achieve a perfect interpersonal and intergenerational communication. The film unveils the tip of the iceberg, which projects the future of old age in a way that "crosses the old age", calling on people to care for and understand the elderly.

The loneliness of being trapped in the wilderness of time

The poet Yeats once wrote this verse - "When you are old, your hair is gray, and you are sleepy... How many people love the cheerful hours of your youth, your beauty, your falsehood or sincerity, only one person loves your pilgrim's soul, loves the painful wrinkles on your aging face", poetically depicts the scene of man's twilight years. The fact is that as they age, the elderly will not only experience a decline in physical function, but also face the gradual fading of memory.

The plight of alzheimer's patients is only the first level of storytelling. Telling the sense of loneliness and nothingness of modern people in a high-pressure environment is a deeper meaning of the film.

The father in the story, an Alzheimer's patient in his 80s, suspects that his daughter, who is working hard to take care of him, wants to encroach on his property, misunderstands that the caregivers are greedy thieves, and is even full of doubts and hostility towards anyone around him. What are the roots behind this? No matter how brilliant he once was, when he arrived at the nursing home, he was deeply aware that he had become a useless person. It is this lack of sense of inferiority that causes him to become a paranoid and restless old stubborn who competes with the people around him everywhere.

Behind the old father's stubbornness is the desire for the value of his own existence. At the beginning of the film, when his daughter wants to follow her lover to Paris, he feels that he has become a burden to his daughter and is about to be abandoned to a nursing home to become a superfluous person. This became the fuse for the elderly to worsen their illness. "How long are you going to bother everyone?" ——This is the most exciting line in the film for the old man. It is this lack of presence that makes the old man fall into Zhang Guanli Dai's imagination again and again. He craves respect, loves and warmth. In another extremely paranoid way, he resists the care of those around him, expecting his daughter to change her mind. Therefore, in his imagination, no matter how many drops and difficulties the eldest daughter, she always cares for and compromises with herself, and even quarrels with her lover. The ideal image of the daughter is just the old man's deep call for love and respect. Although this is not the case in real life.

At the end of the story, the old man wakes up in the nursing home, shouting to find his mother, and finally he falls on the shoulder of the nurse like a helpless child. At this time, the nurse is estimated to have become his imaginary mother role. In that instant, his fragility and loneliness were lamented.

The initial paranoia means that the old man himself is negating the identity of the patient. He repeatedly stressed that "I can take care of myself", which means: "I am still a useful person, I am not your burden." At the end, the truth is broken, and the old man realizes that he really has conjectures and self-fiction. That scene declared the old man's struggle to fail. Deep down, he genuinely identified with the lack of his own sense of existence: I was someone who needed to be taken care of.

This shift tells the audience that attention is only the first step, and respect and care are the most important. Everyone has moments of loneliness and vulnerability, now and in the future. As a person, in addition to obtaining satisfaction in the basic material aspects, what is more important is the companionship and recognition of the deep soul.

An art film with light and shadow

"The Father Trapped in Time" is translated in English as "the father", and it premiered in Chinese mainland on the eve of Father's Day this year. The film adopts narrative techniques and styles that are less familiar to many Chinese audiences, focusing on the emotional and spiritual worlds of the characters rather than the drastic external actions and conflicts. It disrupts the time-space narrative that the audience is accustomed to, and the editing and reconstruction without leaving a trace.

This film is adapted from a popular stage play, with many characteristics of stage drama, such as a large number of indoor plays, large stage dialogue. The film not only has dramatic dialogue, but also the use of time and space elements such as light, color, and props. Careful viewers will find that if they only stay in dialogue, the film's story logic is difficult to form a complete narrative chain. However, if you notice the change in the furnishings of the apartment props, the change in the tone of light and shadow, it is much easier to understand the story. Excessive reliance on dialogue to tell stories is a common problem in some film and television dramas. The so-called "story is not enough, the dialogue to make up", is about this kind of drawback. Film and television is a comprehensive art, and in essence, the design of light and shadow scenes is sometimes more important than dialogue. "Father Trapped in Time" cleverly uses the changes in light and shadow and scenes to complete the storytelling, which is its most unique place and unfamiliar to most audiences who are accustomed to seeing commercial blockbusters. But I have to say that this is where the personality of this film lies. (Mai Qing)

Source: Hainan Daily