"How do you see your life now?"
Everyone has been questioned in this way, and at the same time has thought about it countless times in their own hearts. Most people are not very satisfied with life. Some people are nine to five, but it feels like the future is slim, as if in an unknown labyrinth. Some people have reached the peak, but they have seen their situation passing over time, and they are exhausted in order to retain their glory. Some people want to be stable and happy early, but they are trapped in a cage and cannot be trusted for life.
Some people say, I don't want any of this, I abandon my material desires, as long as I harvest the happiness of the moment. "Money is precious, love is more expensive, if it is for freedom, both can be thrown away."
But is this really good? Why do some people sublimate in freedom and others fall in freedom? The Korean film "Little Duchess" may answer this point.
The plot is not complicated, telling the story of a Korean girl named Smile who cleans the house every day and earns a meager income. Although I don't have enough to eat, I need a cup of high-end whiskey and a high-end cigarette every day. When the prices of tobacco, alcohol, food and rents rose, she decisively chose to give up rent.
On the one hand, it is forced to be helpless, and on the other hand, it is also to reminisce about the past. Smile to visit friends who used to form a band together in college.
The first to visit was the band member Cui Wenying, who worked in a large company, had to work overtime every day, had no time of her own, no love, and many of the "996" employees who had exposed themselves in China before. What is more exaggerated is that she does not have time to eat, and she suffers from low blood sugar from long-term food regularly, and at noon she relies on injecting glucose into the body to provide energy. She couldn't entertain smiles, so after a simple conversation, smiles left.
The second visitor was the keyboardist Jeong Jeong Hyun, who has become a housewife in 5 years. South Korean housewives are basically the lowest-ranking members of the family, so The once rebellious Chung Jung Hyun is now a swearing, nagging, and full of "fireworks." In the night chat with smiling, Zheng Zhenxian, who recalls the past, can't help but cry, but soon calms down, and the family needs her.
The good thing about this movie is that the film does not have too much critical attitude towards people who are trying to live. In the smiling, calm, soft eyes, quietly showing the cruelty and coldness of life.
The third stop on the journey was Han Dayong, who had been a drummer. In order to marry his lover, he bought a high-end apartment and used two-thirds of his salary every month to pay off his loan. As a result, the lover still ran away, silently. Only this empty house that needs to pay off the mortgage for thirty years is left, and Han Dayong, who is broken in heart.
At this moment, home is no longer a fortress for him to shield himself from the wind and rain, but a cage that he cannot escape.
The lead singer Jin Luyi's family warmly welcomed the smile, which made the smile flattered. But in fact, this family is to make smile and become the daughter-in-law of the family. Jin Luyi, who is suffering from a hidden disease, wants to please his parents and also urges him to smile. However, this act of going against the will to smile is a blasphemy against friendship for a smile.
Cui Zhengmei, who has become a rich wife and mixed the best, unexpectedly turned her face after a short smile. Because the smile destroyed her decency as a "high-class person". Although she once asked for help and smiled when she was depressed because of debt, that history was a past she did not want to mention.
Smiling disappointed at friends, facing high house prices, having to live in a tent by the river. She is independent and self-reliant, although poor, but meticulous in her work, she can support herself by doing temporary work alone, never asking for friends, and living for a short time will use her strengths to clean up the house and cook a delicious breakfast for the family. She is empathetic and can give comfort and warmth to Han Dayong at the bottom of the valley and her employer after the fall. At the same time, she has a clear goal, and although her daily accounts are tight, they are well organized.
Such a person is actually a person who can live well by "working hard". Why, she is unwilling to compromise, spending most of her income for a cup of high-end wine and cigarettes every day. Many people feel that this extravagant enjoyment is a vain decency.
In fact, a careful taste, can appreciate that this is the freedom of smiling and insisting, she can not care about the wind and frost and poverty, ignore the cold and warm of human feelings, as long as a glass of wine, a cigarette, her life will not be painful. This is the biggest difference between the band members, the fallen employer, the convenience store clerk, and the bartender, all of whom have seemingly glamorous pursuits that do not belong to them, but these pursuits have become shackles and cages. These smiles are not wanted, and what she insists on is explained by the ending song of the sitcom "I Love My Home", which once spread all over the country, that is, "inner peace is forever".
However, the pursuit of a smile is certainly respectable, but it is short-sighted. Gave up college, gave up music, gave up the house, and later gave up love, for inner peace and temporary ease. This is also the reason why, in the end, her life situation has become more and more difficult with the rise in the price of goods.
I like that there is a line in "Infernal Affairs": "People can't change things, but things tend to change people." "The film doesn't criticize whose lives, including smiling. Life is all choice, it's all imperfection. Choices are often weak and go in the opposite direction. At the same time, life is also fair, and if you choose the price of freedom, you can enjoy the beauty of freedom.
Freedom comes at a price, and that price is inevitably a little too great. But then again, being able to keep it dashing for many years and living without troubles and entanglements is actually a particularly rare realm. Maybe one day, Smile will be able to figure it out on her own and make another choice, maybe she will be better than everyone in the movie.