On November 15, "The Pianist of the Sea", directed by Giuseppe Tornadore, was released in China after 21 years, which caused widespread discussion, but what we want to talk about today is not "The Pianist of the Sea", but the film "Journey to Heaven" directed by Giuseppe Tornadore in 1990.
"Journey to Heaven" mainly tells the story of Sculro, a retired worker in Sicily who has been widowed for many years, and visits him without the knowledge of his four children in order to get together.
In 1990, "Journey to Heaven" was a huge success as soon as it was released, and in 2009, Hollywood in the United States remade the film, and the protagonist changed from painter Sculot to Frank, a worker who wrapped PVC in wires. In 2015, Chinese director Zhang Meng also remade "Journey to Heaven", named "Always Good", in "Always Good", the protagonist changed from a worker to a retired old professor.
Many remakes have been made, which shows the charm of "Journey to Heaven".
It has been 29 years since the first version of "Journey to Heaven" was released, but the storyline has not become obsolete due to the changes of the times, on the contrary, the loneliness of the empty nest elderly and the survival dilemma faced by the younger generation are still universal even in the present.
The so-called parents are the people who are both happy and sad to the back, wanting to recover the hug but dare not speak up. - Long Yingtai
Since his wife's death, Frank has become a lonely old man. He cooks alone, eats alone, mows the lawn alone, even talks to himself, in short, everything he does is a person.
For the lonely Frank, only the time spent with his children on holidays is the happiest.
However, on this weekend that should have been a reunion, several of Frank's children said that they could not come back, and Frank, who was disappointed, decided to visit several children in person despite his physical discomfort.
He wrote a letter to each of his sons and daughters and hurried on his way.
On the road, Frank always talks to people, even if the people around him are impatient, he doesn't shut up, he has been lonely for too long, and he especially wants to chat with people.
Seeing this, I remembered that the famous writer Xue Yifei once wrote a long novel "Empty Nest".
"Empty Nest" tells the story of an old man caused by telecommunications fraud, based on the real experience of Xue Yi's false mother.
I can't figure out how an intellectual can even encounter telecommunications fraud, but after watching the movie, I found that almost all empty nesters will face a problem, that is, loneliness, because the more excellent children are, the more distant they are from their parents, and it becomes more difficult to meet.
Fraudsters are taking advantage of this loophole, they care for these empty nest elderly people, and the old people who feel warm in their hearts naturally let down their vigilance. In fact, not only telecommunications fraud, in the sky-high price of health care product fraud, the elderly are also the hardest hit areas, but also because of loneliness.
There is such a passage in the book that is very emotional:
The 80-year-old mother, who lives alone, makes small talk with the taxi driver. I learned that the driver was originally on the run, and later because the old father had bowel cancer, he decided to go home and drive a taxi to accompany his father. The old mother then lamented: "I know how disappointed my children would be if they hadn't gone to prestigious universities at home and abroad, if they were just an ordinary taxi driver, instead of working in a big company in London and New York." But now, this taxi driver makes me have a deeper disappointment in them. ”
This old mother's idea was not Frank's idea. On the way, Frank always took a picture of his children and told everyone how good they were, not so much from the heart of pride, but rather a deep miss for his children and a desire for the joy of the world.
Are several children making promises to their parents because they don't love their fathers?
Of course not. The main reason for this is that their youngest brother David died of a drug overdose, and several older siblings decided to deal with David first, so they made a concerted appointment with their father.
David was Frank's youngest son, so Frank was particularly fond of David, who loved to draw when he was young, and Frank encouraged David to become a painter when he grew up, and with his father's encouragement, David did become a painter, although his paintings were not easy to sell.
It is said that the artist is lonely, and David is no exception, loneliness makes him addicted to drugs, and finally takes drugs to death, but everything that happens to David as a father Frank is unaware, because David always reports good news and not bad news.
The eldest daughter Amy, who has a successful career, is a strong woman, especially when Frank sees Amy sitting in a beautiful and atmospheric office making decisions, the mood is very proud, but behind the success of the career is the husband's cheating, the son's academic performance declined.
All this makes Amy anxious, but she doesn't want her father Frank to know.
Like Amy, there is frankly and without worry, frank's second son, Robert, who works in the band and is a drummer or a marginal figure who stands at the end and is not even discovered by the conductor for a while.
Robert was not very satisfied with being a drummer, he liked to conduct and make his own music, but in front of people better than him, Robert did not have the opportunity to become a professional conductor, and could only develop into percussion.
Also not telling Frank the truth was his youngest daughter Rose.
Rose liked to dance since she was a child, she told her father that she was a dancer in the Paragon, or lead the dance, in fact, Rose had long stopped dancing, and became a single mother. But in order to create the illusion of her success to her father, Rose rented an expensive car and apartment.
The children's concealment did not escape his father's eyes, and Frank had already seen everything from the clues, but out of love for his children, he did not expose it.
The ideal is very full, the reality is very bone. In today's rapid development of urbanization and industrialization, sometimes behind the seeming scenery there are often many unknown hardships, sometimes it is clear that we have tried our best, but we still can't achieve the desired goals, and life is far more difficult than we think.
Frank finally fell ill, and several of his children were brought together because of his father's illness.
Under Frank's questioning, the children finally tell him the truth about David's death, and the reason why they can't be reunited is actually because they are busy with David's business.
For a father who loves his children so much that he works around the clock, the death method of drug overdose is obviously difficult to accept, but the most touching thing for the audience is that when he learns that the children are not happy, Frank does not complain about why they did not tell him earlier, but reflected on himself, whether it is because he is too strict with the children and does not care enough about their lives, which has caused the children to always report good news and no worries about him.
I once saw a sentence on the Internet to the effect that saying that at the age of 30, I still say everything to my parents, which is a manifestation of immaturity.
The subtext of this sentence is to treat parents, that is, to report good news and not worry.
Yes, parents are old, why bother with us? Wouldn't it be nice to make them carefree, happy, and happy?
But is this really what parents want?
In the Italian version of "Journey to Heaven", there is such a plot: during the journey, Sculot met an old lady, several children for filial piety, jointly paid for her to find a nursing home, the nursing home is in the vineyard, the environment is very good, but the children rarely come to visit, although the old lady is well fed, in fact, the heart is very lonely.
"My children reached an agreement and found me a nursing home, very filial, in the vineyard, but they never came, they called, and Giulio hung up one day without hearing my voice."
This episode is particularly tearful.
Our parents are old, they are not short of money, and they even put out their life savings to subsidize us, hoping to reduce the burden for us. But while our parents care about us in all directions, have we ever thought about what our parents need?
They just want us to come home and talk to us.
At the end of the film, Frank realizes that the problem he has been educating his children is that the happiness and unhappiness of the children are the most important thing compared to whether the children can become proud of themselves; and several children also realize that because of David's death and the sudden illness of their father, they realize that what their father really needs is not those whitewashed lies, but real companionship and care.
On a visiting trip, both father and son achieved spiritual growth.
Attention to social issues, especially aging, is the main reason why Journey to Heaven remains enduring. In the American version of "Journey to Heaven", the director gave us a happy ending to the family reunion, but what we had to think about was what efforts we should make to eliminate the deepening gap between us and our parents in today's increasingly aging and urbanization.