This is a typical romance film, from which you can see the romantic scenes from dream to the extreme.
But at the same time, it stands on the opposite side of the Hollywood love fairy tale.
To watch this film, you must not only bring your eyes and ears, but also let your brain run at high speed.
Ghost screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has given it a rare intellectual pleasure and philosophical depth, and it can be said that no film of its kind has ever been made so cleverly and profoundly.
It is not difficult to explain why a romantic romance film once ranked 85th on IMDb's TOP250 list and was shortlisted for the Top Ten Movies of the 2010s on Rotten Tomatoes.
Today I will talk about this love movie that I especially like -
"Warmth Contains Light"
One
"Forgetful people are happy because they get rid of the mistakes of the past."
Mary, the physician's assistant, quoted Nietzsche's aphorism as joel sat not far from Joel, whose memory was being erased. Then she began to drop the book bag again, quoting a verse from Alexander Pope:
How blessed the holy nuns were!
Forgetting the world, also being forgotten by the world.
Beautiful hearts shine with eternal sunshine!
Every prayer can be fulfilled, every desire can be let go.
Why are nuns happy? For forgetting freed them from the distractions of their private feelings and devoted their whole love to God.
In this film, the forgotten medium is the "Forgetful Clinic" memory clearance program, which gives the film a sci-fi flavor.
In Mary's view, Joel, who has erased his memories, is also happy, like a baby, pure, free, clean, and like the sun shining on his body.
But soon, an ironic scene appeared.
Mary confessed to her doctor boss, and they involuntarily became intimate.
At this time, the doctor's wife appeared, angrily left, and threw a sentence to Mary before leaving: "You can have him, you once had." ”
Hearing this, Mary was stunned, but she soon learned the truth.
It turned out that she and the doctor who had a husband had fallen in love, and later, embarrassed by love, she erased her memories of the doctor. Is forgetting useful? It's useless, she will still repeat the same mistakes.
Forgetting is also useless for Joel and Clementine as a couple. They forget each other and then meet each other, or they will fall in love with each other. Just like the circular structure of the film, the love affair of the male and female protagonists also draws a circle.
The original script ended like this: The aging Clementine once again asked to erase memories of Joel, and hospital records showed that she had performed the operation many times.
For a romance film, such a ending is too heavy.
So the movie changed to the current ending: Joel and Clementine frolicked on the beach and ran away, repeating it three times in a row, and then the picture faded white, so that it was much more obscure.
But one thing is for sure, forgetting is not the antidote to lost love.
The untainted mind that shines with eternal sunshine is just a good wish.
There is no such thing as immaculate things, but where there is light, there must be shadows.
In the movie, Joel's memories are as colorful as a kaleidoscope, and romantic scenes abound: lying on the ice holding hands and looking up at the stars, sleeping on the blue sea... However, romantic and warm memories are always interspersed with mouths and hearts, like shadows.
If you love, you have to accept the contradiction of love.
So love is like all the contradictory things in the world, such as marriage, entangled in pain and sweetness, moving forward between ideals and reality.
Joel and Clementine accepted the two sides of love, so when Clementine said, "You'll find reasons not to love me, and I'll get tired of the bondage of being with you, because that's how we used to be." Joel replied, "Okay(So what)." ”
Two
Many people love to use one sentence to describe the movie "Warm And Warm With Light", that is, when Wang Xiaobo met Shunji Iwai.
It makes people harvest the joy of thinking, but also like a small freshness, wonderful, healing, romantic. The wonderful look of blending hardness and softness comes from the brain behind the script that has countless sparks splashing, Charlie Kaufman's brain.
Although there are only a few works, no matter which list of the best screenwriters in Hollywood, Charlie Kaufman's name will not be missed.
His plays, always full of surprises and creativity, bring the audience intellectual pleasure.
The subject matter of amnesia is not new, but the ghost Kaufman has the ability to make it fresh.
He grafted memory and love, made a philosophical exploration, thought-provoking, long aftertaste, and brought an Oscar for best original screenplay to the film.
Kaufman said to himself that writing a script was to cut it off from traditional Hollywood.
He disdains to make love fairy tales, what he wants to express is the real emotional relationship between people. He wanted the script to create a sense of identity: "It's about my life, not out of reach." ”
On the set of New York Metaphor (2008), Kaufman was asked, why is your script so fascinating?
He replied, "Because I never look at the third act!" ”
Hollywood-style plays have always followed a three-act format, accounting for the --- crisis --- climax.
Kaufman does not play cards according to common sense, and the third act is not deliberately designed, but lets the characters drive the plot by themselves.
As Du Qifeng said in "Endless": Movies are alive. Sometimes, creators need to let stories grow freely.
The end of "Warm Inner Light" is open-ended, the characters have come to that step, where they will go next, I am afraid that even the screenwriter himself does not know, which is the charm of the movie.
Critics have always said that Charlie Kaufman's films are nothing more than playing with mind games, which he himself does not agree with.
"Warm And Warm With Light" is his counterattack, proving that he not only writes the script with his brain, but also with his heart.
Looking back on this movie, which is full of rich details, you will feel that the screenwriter is a person who understands life, a person with a rich heart and sharp facial features, although he has a geeky face.
Three
Kaufman's films, investment has never been much, "Warm And Warm Contains Light" cost 15 million, not enough to pay Kim Carey alone.
But his films never lack big stars, in addition to the two big-name stars, the British actor Tom Wilkinson plays the doctor, and The three stars of Kirsten Dunst, Ilya Wood and Mark Ruflow play his assistant.
They all played supporting roles in Kaufman's scripts, and Kate Winslet, Nicolas Cage, and Meryl Streep all had similar statements: "The best scripts I've read since I've been in the film are Kaufman's." ”
The character of Joel initially fell in love with Nicholas Cage.
Indeed, intuitively, this introverted, shy, gentle, unconfident and sullen man is indeed a good fit for Cage.
But Kim Carey also fell in love with the role, and finally got his wish: "I can't believe that it's so lucky, even guilty, 'Truman's World', and then this film, are all interesting and imaginative books." 」 ”
Kim Carey's performance in the film, as you can see, is quite good, beyond imagination.
He only shows a rubber face when he opens his eyes, and you will forget that he is acting in comedy, and even feel that he is playing himself. You'll believe the old saying: Oscar owes him a little golden man.
Letting Kate Winslet and Kim Carey play a couple was definitely a bold idea, and Winslet himself was surprised: "I played people like Ophelia ('Hamlet)," and he played "Detective Planehead" or something like that. ”
But at the same time, this combination is also a challenge, and Winslet hopes that the innovative pairing will attract viewers to buy tickets to find out. Kim Carey praised her partner's performance: "She's good at acting and smart. ”
In the film, the pair of Kim Carey and Winslet is sometimes sweet and sometimes flamboyant.
Most importantly, what is essential for romance films is sparked between them – chemistry.