Original title: I am an ephemeral with thoughts and habits
The temperament of the nomadic people, grafted on the young woman who was born in Seoul, Smile (Lee Seok), has a strange effect. There is "Miss Dionysus" first, Miss Dionysus, the old prostitute of the ferryman played by Yin Ruzhen, and the smile of the maid hourly worker in "Little Duchess", all belong to the category of the bottom, poor, lonely, and have great kindness to the world, with a free soul. They have another thing in common – oriental gentleness. Even if the female characters in Western films meet the above characteristics, it is almost impossible to be both "gentle". They are more likely to become the way Francis McDormand of "Three Billboards" and "Oliver Kitteridge" are hard, mean, angry, and heal the world in a destructive and self-destructive way.
And oriental women with these seemingly contradictory characteristics naturally exist. They do not directly resist, and "resistance" is not a mark brought from the womb. They just instinctively avoid the harsh rules of modern civilized society, avoid becoming robots on the assembly line, and live in this world with only a very low material desire.
Poster of "The Little Duchess"
Being constantly deprived and not resisting, one is because there is very little need; the second is the simplicity and friendliness of nature, always able to understand the difficulties of others, willing to do their best to give others even a cup of water and salary help; the third is super endurance, endure loneliness or loneliness, poverty is good, in the end, from the beginning did not imagine the world as a treasure trove that can be given and asked, and recognized the essence of their own life as an ephemera very early.
Of course, Miss Dionysus and Smile are not exactly the same. The former is more like the Kannon of the Ferryman, while the latter is a wine and meat monk such as Ji Gong, who has a fetish (ESSE smoke and whiskey that cannot be quit), for which he prefers to live in a fixed place, cut off the medicine and his hair is fading.
A wave is made out of thin air, and the life of the ephemera is disrupted. However, this is a small wave, and the price of ESSE cigarettes that are used to smiling has risen. Unfortunately, the rent has risen again, and the hourly wage of the part-time worker has not moved. Her boyfriend, who can paint, is also poor, and the dormitory in the factory cannot provide her with a roof. After almost no struggle, he smiled and packed a few simple pieces of luggage before deciding to quit the lease.
Her plan was to take turns living with a few friends who had formed bands from her former college days until she had saved enough money to pay for the next rent deposit. Her friends have long since become normal social people, and everyone has a decent roof to cover the roof. If it weren't for the fact that they had followed a smile carrying a box of eggs into their lives, and the most personal part of their lives, home, the audience would not have had the opportunity to discover what kind of life they were living against their nature.
The first, the ladies who squeezed into the big company with all their strength, took drugs during lunch breaks and generally dripped glucose in the lounge, and the brief orgasm of "blood in the whole body can be circulating" was also interrupted by a phone call from the section chief. The second, the cool keyboard player becomes the "big aunt", taking on the family's household chores, and lying side by side with a smile to reminisce about the past, when he is suddenly knocked down by the sleeping devil, and his mouth is too late to close. The third, the drummer who lost his marriage after eight months of marriage, the prisoner of a beautiful apartment who needed to repay the loan for twenty years. The fourth, the neurotic and porcelain-like cold guitarist, trembled in front of her husband and flattered, only caring about keeping everything she had.
Taking and keeping, modern civilization first (and possibly only) teaches people the laws of survival. With the arrival of the smile, two values inevitably collide.
The process of sleeping through the band's old friends also pieces together their youth. When I was young, I loved to play, rehearse, drink, sleep, and have fun today. The film only shows their current situation, and in the past, it was only faintly seen when everyone took old photos. As for how they became what they are today, whether they are like the Japanese youth in college and the graduation of the suit and leather shoes to complete the transition overnight, or after entering the society, they are worn away little by little, forgetting that life is other than taking and preserving, the film is completely blank.
It doesn't need to explain this part clearly, because we as viewers know better than the director.
But for the role of smiling, we have doubts. Through the mouth of a friend, we learned that both of her parents died and she dropped out of college because she could not afford to pay the tuition. Even so, the hourly worker must not be her only way out. A beautiful girl who has formed a band, has a high Chinese, and has passed the college entrance examination, and there are not many roads to choose from. You can be an ordinary clerk, and you may be able to continue to live as a musician.
The best friend of her, Kuo Tai, scolded her as "shameless" before driving her out, and ate and lived at her friend's house, but refused to quit whiskey and cigarettes. She gritted her teeth and said to the smile, "No matter how big the house is, it will be uncomfortable to have outsiders living permanently." Smiling struggled to defend himself: "But my house is small, and it will be very happy to have friends come to spend the night." ”
Friends who once mingled day by day are now as great as those of the nomadic peoples in the heart of Asia and the peoples of East Asia, who are deeply influenced by Confucian culture, and the natives of the American continent and the white peoples who came after them. The former does not value things and embraces the flow of life, while the latter believes in order and materialism, and life must be in its own place.
What's also interesting about the character of Smile is that she doesn't really come from a completely different civilization. She herself is also a complex mixture, with bachelors willing to squeeze in with friends at any time, snails throwing away shells and wandering around, but also taking into account her boyfriend's whispers about her and the male drummer "lonely men and widows in the same room" and moving away overnight.
The film structure of "Little Duchess" is very simple, losing the house with a smile, taking turns with friends, and gradually losing jobs, boyfriends, and money for taking medicine, consuming the friendship of the past as the main line, and finally leaving a silver-haired figure rushing past in front of the camera, and a red tent in the distance.
The simplicity of the structure highlights the rich dimension of the role of the smile. Li Xu was born a good actor, with a face of a combination of Mongolian and Big S. This face has single eyelids, high cheekbones, the corners of the mouth are downward when not smiling, the temperament is introverted, and it is shrouded in a light fog. With a smile, the curvature of the corners of the mouth changed miraculously, and the eyes glowed happily through the mist. This face is seven points chaotic, three points transparent, the blessing of the Mongolian face, it looks neither obedient nor resentful, really like a steppe herder, because it grows up between heaven and earth and is indifferent and tenacious.
Like Miss Dionysus, The Little Duchess is a film with a gentle attitude. She didn't have to be sad about the silver hair and the smile of the tent, she was not a desperate victim, but just "had her own thoughts and habits" and chose a lonely and difficult road that was different from ordinary people. Her friends, though a little selfish and ridiculous, are normal people. When the blacks gathered at the funeral, they looked at each other and slightly said that they had lost touch with the smile. Someone reassured everyone, "Rest assured, she will appear when she is in a better condition." What a familiar excuse, precisely because everyone has said it and is regarded as normal, because of the presence of a smile, its ugly side is so glaring.
This is the original intention of "Little Duchess", let people wake up, see another face of life and another possibility.