Jiang Fangzhou said in "A Year in Tokyo": "It is easy to love imaginary people, but when they come to you, loving them becomes a difficult thing", this imaginary person Jiang Fangzhou refers to his parents.
Writer Jiang Fangzhou grew up living in a well-off family environment, her parents are enlightened, and she is the only pearl in the palm of her hand. In this way, she still feels that it is difficult to get along with her parents face to face, and for those children whose parents are divorced or grew up in single-parent families, the contradiction between parents and children is even more prominent and serious.
The recently released movie "The Taste of Peppercorns" is such a drama film about complex family generational relations, adapted from Zhang Xiaoxian's novel "My Love Is So Spicy". The film is directed and written by Mai Xiyin, starring Zheng Xiuwen and Zhong Zhentao.
Mai Xiyin has won the Academy Award for Best Screenwriter with "Zhiming and Chunjiao", and her self-written and directed films include "Qiandu" and "Happiness Next to Me". She is an emotionally delicate director who is particularly adept at presenting the pyrotechnic atmosphere of life. When the film was not yet released publicly, there was already a large wave of calls for "Zheng Xiuwen to shock the film queen" on the Internet, which was probably the biggest expectation and recognition for the director.
"The Taste of Pepper" tells the story of Rushu (Zheng Xiuwen), a girl who grew up in a single-parent family, after a series of life twists and turns after her father's death, and finally reconciles with her dead father (Zhong Zhentao).
The beginning of the story shows us the deep estrangement between Rushu and her father, she does not know her father's birth year, does not know that her father believes in Buddhism, and does not even realize that she has two half-sisters, and all this eventually becomes a mystery with her father's departure.
Later, the three sisters finally met at their father's funeral, and they soon met because of their blood relationship. Ruki finally slowly understands and understands his father in the process of getting along with his sisters, and forgives him for the harm he has caused to himself.
The story of the three sisters is the main line of the film, and there is another dark line in the movie is the sense of taste - spicy hot pot with peppercorns, which is the livelihood of the father who has taken care of half a lifetime.
The film tells the audience through his father's friend Dr. Cai (Ren Xianqi): spicy, not a sense of taste, it is a burning pain. Hemp can divert this pain and reduce the damage caused by spicy. Spicy addiction is to cover up another kind of pain with one kind of pleasure, and finally enter the throat into a full pleasure. Spicy and spicy, addictive on the one hand, hurtful on the other.
This interpretation of spicy taste seems to reveal a certain truth about original family affection: no matter how your family has hurt you, the bond between people and home can never be broken, and the attachment to it in the heart is always there like "addiction".
The marriage of Ru shu's parents was not harmonious, and when Ru Shu was very young, her father left their mother and daughter and went to Taiwan. Later, Ru Shu's mother fell ill and was dying, and her father returned to Hong Kong from Taiwan. After his mother's death, his father stayed for a long time, and he began to run a hot pot restaurant.
Father was always very busy, and there was no time to accompany Rushu to write his homework, and there was no time to sit down and have a good meal together. The little girl Rushu faces the death of her mother, the absence of her father's company, the loneliness and trepidation in her heart, and the resentment of being abandoned before, the gap between her and her father is getting deeper and deeper.
Growing up, she couldn't wait to escape it all, and she moved to the other side of the sea, separated from her home by a long tunnel.
In the relationship between Rushu and her father, the spark of love she could see was very faint, almost non-existent. Her interpretation of her father's choice to stay was that he was responsible, he was forced, and he was not really willing to stay.
The fundamental reason is that although her father grew up with her, this kind of companionship is of low quality. The father was busy with his livelihood, and there was a lack of communication and intimacy between them. Such companionship is both weak and pale, because time and time again hopes are disappointed, so that Rushu is more and more disappointed in her father.
The famous American psychologist Eriksen believes that the development of people's self-awareness continues throughout their lives, and the process can be divided into multiple stages according to age, and whether they can successfully pass each stage is determined by the surrounding environment. Educational missteps and the absence of caregivers at any age can create obstacles to a person's lifelong development.
In the bad relationship between Rushu and her father, the obstacle comes from the father's early departure and the lack of companionship in the later stage, which brings great harm to the young Rushu, and the injury forms a hard scab, which lies between her and her father, blocking Rushu from finding her father's deeply loving gaze.
Today, low-quality companionship can be found all around us. Parents are often busy looking at mobile phones, but rarely see their children's faces full of expectations; parents are always obsessed with electronic music, but they can't hear the most natural cries of their children; adults never miss every request of the leader, but repeatedly delay meeting their children's small companionship needs.
Wholehearted companionship is an extremely important part of forming a good parent-child relationship. High-quality companionship requires parents to be acutely aware of their children's needs and feelings, and to understand, believe and help their children. In fact, it does not require parents to circle around the child at all times, psychologists believe that it only takes 15 minutes a day, parents are fully engaged in interacting with their children, such companionship can produce good results.
If parents are busy with work and socializing for a long time, often ignoring and ignoring their children, it is not easy to form a safe attachment relationship between children and parents. When such children grow up, they will spontaneously alienate and cold their parents because of the lack of emotional links with their parents.
Like a tree, when she heard the moment her father died, she was stunned, panicked, but not too much grief. To her father, the involvement of blood is more than the entanglement of feelings.
Ru Shu's third sister, named Ruo, lives with her grandmother in Chongqing, who has started a new family in Canada. In that new home, there was no place for if, where she called her mother an aunt. Hong Kong's father, she had met several times, and they ate hot pot together, but it was when the eldest sister Rushu was completely unaware.
If the situation was awkward, the mother gave birth to her and left her again. Her father seemed to admit her, but he did not fulfill his responsibility to raise her, and some of them were only sporadic comforts.
However, when she grew up, she was cheerful, lively and avant-garde. She uses innovative hair ornaments and clothing to express her confrontation with the world, against the gossip of her neighbors, against the blind date arranged for her by her grandmother.
Once, my grandmother slipped from a height while posting a small advertisement for marriage and injured her foot. The injured grandmother borrowed the topic to play, and if it launched more drastic forced marriage measures, but if she did not appreciate it.
The angry grandmother began to accuse her granddaughter, calling her a poor worm without the pain of her parents, revealing that she had to stay, and saying that she was not really willing to accompany her grandmother, and once she had a better place to go, she would leave the house immediately.
Grandma's words were both poignant and sharp, and she poked at certain facts, and she revealed that if the heart had been hidden in her heart for a long time, the wound abandoned by her parents under the cheerful appearance recurred.
American psychologist Viviana Garovri said: "When your foot is stung by a bee, you will feel oops, so painful; your hand is caught in the door, oops, so painful; when we hear ugly words, we will also say in our hearts 'Oops, it hurts'." ”
People often use "knife mouth tofu heart" to describe people with poisonous mouths, which just shows the destructiveness and universality of verbal harm. Because that power is too great, comes too often, gives people too much pain, and has to find a reason to comfort herself: maybe her mouth is too damaged, her heart is still as soft as tofu, she still loves me, right?
Verbal harm is such a sharp knife that makes you doubt family affection and doubt love when it is swung at people.
For children, the words of parents and elders often overwhelm, sad and helpless. However, the power of verbal harm is often underestimated and ignored, and many parents have no taboos in using it, and even treat it as a common meal for writers, which has led to the outbreak of a large number of family conflicts.
Not only are parents using verbal violence against their children, but when we grow up, we often speak harshly to the people closest to us, but we are kind and soft to people who are not so familiar.
Psychology explains this behavior this way: people who are close to us are the safest for us, and the relationship between them is close and stable. Whether we lose our temper with them or snub them, it's hard to shake the foundation of the relationship. For people who are not so close, if our words and attitudes are poor, or even let others feel sluggish, the price to be paid is incalculable.
That is to say, when we vent bad emotions to our loved ones at will, they may be angry, sad, scared, but never leave. Even if you run away occasionally, you will still come back, and your loved ones are like a kite, and the line is dragged in your hand. This is our subconscious perception of our loved ones.
In addition to this recognition, we also feel that our loved ones are weaknesses and armor. While they are shielding us from the wind and rain, we also want to protect them well, afraid that they will be hurt by the outside world. However, the one who is not good at talking, why not stab your own weakness with a sharp blade again and again, making them sad and sad.
Love the people around you well, starting with talking well.
Ru Shu's second sister Ru Zhi grew up in Taiwan, her mother remarried, Ru Zhi rented alone in a place far from home, and her daily job was to play billiards. Her mother often came to take care of her life and gave her meticulous care. But there is always a wall called "understanding" between her and her mother, who does not understand why she rarely returns home, why she is closer to her father in Hong Kong, and why she does not understand her daughter's billiard career.
The mother always complained that her daughter was an adult but could not support herself, and often advised her to find a serious career. Her mother did not understand at all that billiards was a career for Ruzhi, that was her dream.
After losing a competition, her mother once again advised her to admit the reality of losing, and the contradiction between Ruzhi and her mother reached its peak. Extremely frustrated and injured, she ran away from home and came to Hong Kong.
Later, the eldest sister and her mother had a long conversation, and her mother woke up. She began to try to understand her daughter's choices, to try to open her heart. Ruzhi was finally touched by her mother's efforts, and finally understood her mother's deep affection for herself.
The eldest sister Rushu is also in the process of taking over her father's hot pot restaurant and getting along with her two younger sisters, and slowly finds that her father is not as cold as she imagined. He cares about every employee in the store, and he treats every customer well. Even he didn't open a shop to make money, he hired a bunch of marginalized people just because they needed help.
Ruzhi also remembered many warm moments of his father, the flattering look he often showed on his face, and his caution. The father did miss many companions, but he recorded the love into a box of cassettes, and told his daughter in the voice playing on the cassette that her father had always been by her side, and the father was sorry.
Ru Shu understood all the kindness of his father, and finally understood his difficulties. After her father's death, she finally forgave him and saved her heavy self for many years.
Psychologist Wu Zhihong believes that in family relationships, understanding each other and seeing each other's feelings is the most important behavior. Balauer also said that a truth that is not understood becomes a mistake.
Understanding helps us to make big contradictions small and small problems invisible. Understanding is the conveyor belt of love and the basis of family harmony. The unenlightened, the unenlightened thing will only go farther and farther in the opposite direction, and eventually become rigid, just like the past such as the tree and the father. They were always smiling alone and silent; one flattered and the other fled.
However, it is difficult to fully understand between people. We often eagerly judge the affairs of others based on our own little experience and experience, subjectively speculate on people's hearts, and it is difficult for us to empathize with the experiences of others, even our families.
But trying to know more about each other, putting aside personal prejudices, and thinking from the other person's point of view is something that everyone can do well by trying their best. It's only after you've worked hard that you've discovered that the things you've been obsessing about all along may just be because you never really understood.
A good understanding of the family requires us to be able to find the exhaustion of the family after being busy, to feel the kindness and care of the family, to understand the grievances they have endured, to know the inclusive sacrifices they have made, and to see their efforts and sincerity.
The more you know, the more you will understand, and the corresponding calculations, complaints, and hurt will be less. Zhang Xiaoxian said: "When we understand happiness, it is because we know how to cherish." And we are willing to cherish it precisely because we understand the meaning of home and love.
At the end of the film, the three sisters and their families have released their previous suspicions and reached a reconciliation. They have a real spiritual connection with their families, love each other more, and know how to love themselves more. The father who sparked the story will always be remembered, just like the spicy hot pot he ran in his life.
Spicy taste has a strong metaphorical significance in this film, it symbolizes the family affection that is divided but cannot be separated. Its implication is that no matter how independent we are, no matter how far away from home, our involvement with home is always there, it is an indelible blood brand, and it is a spicy family affection that people love and fear.