One of the most widely discussed films recently is probably a 4K restored version of "The Pianist at Sea" released in China.
As one of the world-renowned Italian national treasure directors Giuseppe Tornadore's classic "time and space trilogy" ("Cinema Paradiso", "The Pianist of the Sea", "The Beautiful Legend of Sicily"), "The Pianist of the Sea" has been highly praised by the outside world since its release in 1998, and has won 9 awards such as the European Film Award for Best Cinematography, the Italian Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay, and 4 nominations for the 2000 Satellite Award for Best Art Direction.
The film is based on the 1994 theatrical text 1900: Monologue by renowned Italian writer Alexandro Balico, starring Tim Ross, Bill Nunn and Melanie Thierry. 21 years later, this film depicts the life of the pianist who was born in the ship, grew up in the ship, and died in the 1900 plot scheduling of "sea" and "land", and has accumulated a huge number of fan fans with romantic narratives and profound themes, and has truly become a classic that has made the world famous.
Up to now, the film alone has nearly a million people giving a high score of 9.2, and has long been in the top 250 list of Douban movies, currently ranking thirteenth, and is praised as "making the soul deaf and feeding, crying in silence".
There are not many movies released with restored versions, and the well-known Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki's "Totoro" and "Spirited Away" should be a model of "supplementary tickets" by fans. With the boom in ticket replacement brought about by the re-screening of "The Pianist of the Sea", many viewers, including myself, actually have a deeper and even more completely different feeling after watching the movie than when they first watched the movie. Of course, this is related to the current state of mind, but more is from the accumulation of feelings that have been tempered by time.
Watching this literary and artistic film, the audience's reaction will naturally not be as cheerful as other types of blockbusters, but why are the audiences in this batch too silent? This is probably because time and experience have given us more basis for thinking, and we have realized that perhaps the director wants to express an irrefutable fable: we were all lonely and brave in the 1900, but in the end we lived to become Max who did nothing to run for life. The choice between ideal and reality, from the beginning of the reproduction of civilization to the rapid development of the present, has always been an eternal proposition that plagues mankind.
The film begins in an old musical instrument shop. Winter in the city is cold, with fine snowflakes in the air, and the downcast Conn trumpeter Max pushes the door in exchange for some money. After some haggling, Max negotiates the price with the old shopkeeper, and it is at this time that the piano alone in a record makes Max fall into memories of the past.
The story begins on January 1, 1900. On the day the Virginia cruise ship docked, the black shipwright picked up an abandoned baby in the first-class ballroom. The well-meaning black boatman took in the abandoned baby and named him 1900, alluding to the beginning of the twentieth century. In the cabin, with the care of the crew, 1900 spent a carefree few years. He loves to listen to piano music outside the ballroom, and for him as a young man, the beautiful sound is like a natural sound, carrying everything he imagined not to have experienced.
In an accident, the black boatman died unexpectedly, and the captain threatened to send 1900 to the orphanage, and since that day, people have not seen 1900 on the ship. Until time flew by, late one night, there was a beautiful music in the ballroom, and the piano sound was so beautiful that it attracted the guests to get up and follow the music into the dance hall.
Here, they saw a gray-headed boy sitting on a piano stool, his little fingers flipped over, playing one wonderful natural sound after another. The legendary career of 1900 began. Unskilled and gifted, he has an inexhaustible source of inspiration on cruise ships: an old woman who murders her husband, a middle-aged man who indulges in the past, a prostitute who sees through the red dust, a third-class passenger who sneaks into a dress and looks forward to a sexual encounter, a beautiful and pure girl... Life has achieved 1900 wonderful notes at the fingertips, and people have even been proud to hear him play the piano on the ship.
1900, however, was lonely. People admired his music, and he was happy to explore one new melody after another on the 88 keys, but when he watched from the porthole the people outside see the Statue of Liberty from the fog with ecstasy and shouting, he just frowned in confusion and could not understand their fanaticism for land.
For him, the sea is his world, the cabin is his world, and the only thing in his life is the piano. What's on land? Across the sea from the shore, he saw only one tall building after another, orderly and chaotic, vast and cramped, far less orderly than the keys in his hand, far less free than the cabin where he was located.
Max, a trumpeter, boarded a cruise ship from Europe and met 1900, playing piano music freely on a stormy night. A common hobby in music made the two quickly become friends. While the crowd was mesmerized by the music of 1900, Max was always smiling and watching all the enthusiasm and cheers that 1900 was dedicated. Here, Max reads 1900's inner dependence on the sea and the fear of going ashore.
This fear comes from uncontrollable panic and ununderstood loneliness.
A producer came to help 1900 record his own song, and when 1900 first heard the small disc slowly turning and began to make a sound similar to his own music, he was startled at first, and then he was uncontrollably curious. But when he heard that his songs would be spread around the world in this way, he forcefully grabbed the discs and said that he would never let the music leave him.
It was the first time he had refused a tentative invitation to land. When he began to pay attention to and face the land, the land was inviting him with countless opportunities. He also met a lovely and kind girl, she was so cute, bright eyes like a window, let him glimpse all the beauty of this world. The day she disembarked, he plucked up the courage to talk to her and was invited to visit her home. But when he plucked up enough courage to carry the box up the ladder, he stood still.
There is land at his feet, and after a few more steps he will set foot there and follow that wide road all the way forward until... He looked up and saw the distance submerged in layer after layer of cramped and narrow buildings. He stood for a moment, then turned around, slowly and firmly rejecting the world in front of him.
Years later, on the eve of the bombing of the Virginia, 1900 told Max what he had in mind.
"Can you tell me where the end of the city is?" It wasn't what I saw that stopped me, Max, but what I didn't see. All I can't see, the streets crisscrossing the city, there's nothing but the end, there's no end there. What I don't see is my future after I get off the ship, I don't see the end of the world. ...... I was born on this ship, and I have passed by this world. It will accommodate two thousand people at a time, and it will carry the wishes of the people, but there is nothing more suitable for me than between the bow and the stern. ”
The reason for his refusal in 1900 came from the kind of fear he felt when he first came into contact with land. This fear did not come from the endlessness of the land he saw, but from the endless desires of people on land for wealth, fame, material things, etc.
This fear crushed his last remaining hope in the terrestrial world. If one can already foresee that one's future will also be pursued in a crowded city, it is better to completely cut off the idea of stepping on land at the moment of making a choice. 1900 raises his fingers in the abandoned cabin and plays imaginary music in the void; Max falls into poverty and has to step into a musical instrument store to sell his treasured trumpet, and comparing the two, we will find that 1900 is not so much a friend Max met on his journey, but rather than Saying that Max is the "two sides of the same body" in 1900, one chooses to stick to his own world, the other chooses to integrate into this world and be transformed by it.
With a supreme pursuit of absolute ideals and unwilling to be tied up by the world's vision, in 1900 he chose not to set foot on land for the rest of his life; stumbling on the road to chasing ideals, both beautiful and frustrated, Max finally slowly compromised with reality and had to start working hard for his livelihood. Maybe 1900 is just the non-existent self that Max invented in his memories, the genius pianist who once fought against the whole world to insist on being himself, who lived in the boat, grew up in the boat, died in the boat, but who knows. In reality, the way Max is tired of life but does not give up hope, is not the real situation of you and me?
About the ideal, but not only about the ideal, but also about choice, life and more profound philosophical propositions, it has to be said that "The Pianist of the Sea" is a classic fable that has been tirelessly interpreted for two centuries and still moves people. Those who listen have thoughts, those who see have their own feelings, and those inextricable complex moods can only remain in our hearts forever.