Cinema Paradiso: "Displaced" in Nostalgia and Myth

Author: Gong Jinping, Associate Professor, Art Education Center, Fudan University, Doctor of Literature

The movie "Paradise Cinema" is like a love letter dedicated to "movie", showing the audience the "highlight moment" of "movie" in people's lives in a way that is full of life and not lacking in humor; at the same time, with a feeling of loss, gazing at how "movie" has walked down the "altar" of loneliness and desolation in the change of the times. The film has three plot lines: the status of the "film", the relationship between Toto and Alfredo, and the emotional gathering of Toto and Elena. When the fan feelings, small-town nostalgia, and youth love reflect and intertwine with each other, it effectively broadens the theme expression space of the film, and leads the audience into many deep places of life in a lingering and affectionate aria.

"Film" plays a very important role in the film and becomes an important bridge between people, the real world and dreams. Unfortunately, the film's use of "play within a play" is too extensive and rough, only a rough sense of the times, and there is no more exquisite setting in the theme and genre, so as to have a more implicit dialogue relationship with reality and the mood of the characters. However, "movie" and "cinema" still become an artistic world in the film, where there is beautiful love, happy revenge, happy life, and satisfactory ending. The painful struggle in the real world, as long as it is put on the screen, will also become gentle because of the halo of art, and the audience can gain a sense of insight and superiority from the distance of watching the fire from the other side. Especially in the Paradise Cinema, people have completed social networking, gatherings, forgotten the unsatisfactory reality, can hangover in a warm and noisy atmosphere, and can also read out every line of the character in advance because of their high recognition of the plot.

Of course, when the "movie" soothes people's hearts and relieves pain, it may also have a hallucinogenic anesthetic effect, similar to a safe house, making people linger in it, losing their keen perception of reality and a broad imagination of the future. In the screening room of the town cinema, Toto once thought that he had touched the ceiling of life, was safe in the comfort zone of life, and gladly accepted that this was the whole of life, this was what happiness looked like.

The film sets up a three-fold obstacle on Toto's pursuit of "far away": in childhood, Toto needs to choose between personal interests and life pressures, he can't resist the magic of the movie, can't suppress his inner desire, watches the movie with the money to buy milk, and is beaten by his mother; after Alfredo is injured, Toto becomes a young projectionist, and he once rashly decides to suspend school between a stable career and continuing his studies; Toto meets Elena and faces hesitation between love and broader life prospects.

The film looks like a fairy tale about "movie", but it is actually an allegory about life, a life guide book, telling us how to highlight a detached state of mind and a grand attitude towards life in the embarrassment of reality. In addition, the film also encourages us, in the face of the stability and ease of life, how to break through ourselves and complete the breakthrough to reality; it also warns us that when we are deeply involved in the sweetness and sadness of love, we must not forget that love is not the whole of life, nor is it the highest value and goal of life.

Toto's good fortune was that he had wise men like Alfredo by his side. Alfredo was Toto's spiritual father and his professional guide and life mentor. Alfredo has a calm, open-minded, wise and transparent side, constantly inspiring and encouraging Toto to achieve a better self.

Although Alfredo's image is a bit suspicious, his insight and vision are different from those of the townspeople, but the film also hints that because Alfredo watches movies almost every day, and even watches the same movie repeatedly, his life may be several times thicker than ordinary people. On the screen, Alfredo has witnessed too many emotional sorrows and joys, life ups and downs, and human changes, so he has a sharp insight into Toto's state of mind and situation. Alfredo once told Toto that life is different from movies, and life is much harder than movies. Indeed, movies can create dreams, beautify reality, filter suffering, cover up many cruel and unsatisfactory parts, and even make easy comments on other people's lives from the perspective of outsiders, but life is different, it requires individuals to taste over and over again, step by step, summarize experience from failure after failure, and grow.

When the film affirms that Toto left his hometown to pursue his dreams, he actually reflects on this life choice through his inner desolation. Toto is more than half a hundred years old, although you are a famous film director, but there has been no stable emotional relationship, and even thirty years have not returned to his hometown. Toto may be able to explain this by his constant obsession with Elena, but we can understand that Toto lost the ability to love when he was young because he lost touch with "true love". When Alfredo used the "ideal" to forcibly block the fiery love of the two young people, let Toto have one less opportunity to cultivate love, so that he could not experience the complete process of love, naturally he could not understand the responsibility and reason in love.

Alfredo inspired Toto in his career, but caused great mental trauma to Toto in love and married life. When Toto was alone in the screening room watching the box of film that Alfredo had left him, he burst into tears, and this touch and gratitude was sincere, and it brought Toto back to the innocent years of his life. However, can these good memories redeem Toto's broken and pale emotional life, and can they make up for more regrets in his life?

The film has a characteristic of prose culture, which imprints the bits and pieces of life and the hearts of the people in the town on the film in a vivid way and presents it to the audience. In the film, we see the trauma and destruction of The Second World War on Italy, the estrangement and confusion caused by the political and ideological differences after the "World War II", and the changes in entertainment methods brought about by economic development and technological progress and the impact on people's thinking. Especially when the story on the screen becomes more glamorous and exciting, The Paradise Cinema loses its full atmosphere of the city and the simple clarity of freedom, and is full of vulgar sensory stimulation and physiological impulses. This is the sadness of the movie, but also the sadness of the times.

"Cinema Paradiso" has a nostalgic atmosphere of the years, which not only brings us into the warm time with the movie, but also brings us into many emotions of life. In particular, Toto's happy childhood time, ignorant youth years, and the dazedness of the future aroused many resonances with the audience.

Judging from the trajectory of Toto's life, the film seems to suggest that only by being far away from the bondage of his hometown can he go to the far and high places of the self, which is actually somewhat biased and arbitrary. In particular, Alfredo's understanding of the "ideal" is inevitably too strong and extreme, it seems that only away from the town is life, it seems that only success is to return to the hometown, such an "ideal", do not stop. Moreover, in the second half of the film, the affection, bitterness and chastity between Toto and Elena are constantly rendered, which seems to be touching, but in fact, it reduces the style and ideological connotation of the film, almost making the film a vulgar sensational work. (Gong Jinping)

Source: Guangming Network - Literary And Art Review Channel