This is the opening remark of the movie describing a 40-year-old love story.
After watching this film, many people may think that this is a story about how to accompany people with Alzheimer’s through the last journey of life, but it is not the case. This film mainly conveys a loving couple, when facing illness and aging. The story of how to accompany the end of the year.
When the actor John Belle met Iris Murdoch in the play, Iris was already an outstanding scholar, writer, and agile speaker, while Belle was a "bad old English". An excellent lecturer in the English department, he is loyal and honest, but his behavior is a bit clumsy. Therefore, a scene is arranged in the play that constantly appears to express the different personalities of the two people: Iris and Bailey are riding bicycles together, always Ai Reese Fei also rode in front, and Belle followed closely behind. Belle shouted at Iris who was riding in front: "You always refuse to rest!" Iris replied, "I am safe. I can’t tell!” Belle yelled again, “I can’t catch up with you!” Iris replied, “You just have to follow me!”
These two people with different personalities can meet, know each other and know each other. Being in love shows that the "love" between a man and a woman is also a mystery? As Iris was suffering from Alzheimer's disease, when her memory faded bit by bit, the story of the two of them unfolded piece by piece in clever time-space jump shots.
"Love forever" is a process.
The film is based on the book "Elegy for Iris" written by John Bayley (Note 1). It is a true story. Due to the different presentation methods of text and images, through the presentation of film images, we may more easily discover the intricate mentality in people's hearts when facing the changes and impacts of external people and things. The director’s narrative point of view is not just a one-way memoir of the original author. He very cleverly and balanced interactively presents the inner worlds of Bayley and Iris, so that we can see that these two people can live their lives. Loving each other unswervingly and transcending the hardship of disease is actually a "process."
For Iris, what is "love"? When she was young, she liked to seek her own desires and sensory experiences freely and uninhibitedly (in Belle’s review, during their interactions, he inadvertently caught Iris having sex with others), but when she was young, she still used My own reason declares: "Love without complaint or regret is beyond doubt! Emotions cannot be expressed in words. When you want to describe a certain emotion, language has no effect. Language can only create illusions, and even words cannot explain the truth. …", she is good at expressing thoughts in words and language, and she does have insights into "true love." So she was looking for it, until she met Belle, she knew deep down in her heart: Although Belle looks a little funny on the outside, his kindness and honesty are the home of her life.
Regarding Iris’s cognition that “true love cannot be expressed in words”, the director used a very interesting comparison, that is, when Iris could no longer communicate with the outside world with precise words and reason in her later years, Belle and she can still watch TV’s children’s program "Teletubbies" together. The two of them are in the "silence", and the "emotions" rooted in each other's hearts can still transcend the limitations of language, maintain mutual communication, and deeply depend on each other.
When I was young, Belle was deeply fascinated by her youthful vitality and quick thinking. To Belle, she was like a mysterious world and a wonderful book. The old Bailey took the amnesiaous Iris to visit her old friend Jenna. Iris no longer recognizes her friend Jenna’s family. When the camera switched to the same scene when she was young, Iris was writing in the beach house. , I looked up and caught a glimpse of Belle and Jenna talking. They had a very interesting dialogue about Iris. Belle said to Jenna: "She (Iris) has many mysterious worlds in her mind. Only I know her. The mysterious world of..." Jenna interrupted, "Until her other novel comes out?" Bailey did not answer directly, and said: "I seem to be living in a fairy tale world, falling in love with a beautiful princess, she often disappears in In her mysterious world, but she will definitely come back!" The camera switched back to the old scene, and Jenna asked Bayley, "Does she remember everything in the past?" Bayley replied, "She is like a pavilion. Book.” This passage expresses Bailey’s understanding and acceptance of Iris from young to old.
Although Belle fully supports and appreciates Iris along the way of his relationship and marriage life, as well as his persistence in old age, he examines the past and shows his wife’s indiscriminate and arbitrariness before marriage, and even her mystery. There is also resentment in his inner world, showing his inner struggle to maintain this love. Once when he woke up from a midnight dream, he remembered the past (before marriage, Iris should not interfere with her emotional world, she always said: "You just need to follow me!"), facing the bloated and demented Ai who was sleeping beside him. Reese cursed angrily: "Who are you with now? Who are you? I lost you! I can't go on like this! I hate you! You stupid woman! I hate you for every point, every inch! Yours Friends leave you, you only have me! No one else! Except for Alzheimer’s disease, you only have me, I don’t want you anymore! I don’t know anything about you, and now I don’t care anymore!” When the complaint is over , The director subtly shifted the time and space lens again, returning to a conversation that Iris confessed to Belle when I was young, Iris said: "Now I should talk to you about my friend (the person who has sex)!... ", "What about your other friend (homosexual)?" Bayley asked. But Iris calmly and attentively said to Belle: "You are my world."
The doubt and instability of love are in the timely promise, and the boulder in the heart can be put down. This is an important part of married life. Cornerstone is also such an entrustment. When he was old and pale, Bayley paid a heavy price of care for his first decayed Iris and was able to have no regrets and no regrets.
Love and disease, youth and aging
film director with clever camera work practices and expressed illness, love and youthful contrast aging, review and interactive exhibits both past and present deep inner world.
When the story of the two came to an end, the director arranged a very touching plot: Iris’s friend Jenna passed away, and Bayley took the sluggish Iris to Jenna’s funeral. The funeral ended and she watched Jenna. Iris suddenly remembered the name Jenna, and wanted to chase Jenna’s coffin. On the way back in the car, Belle drove the car and couldn’t control the frightened Iris. She fell out of the car, (whether The remaining reason in her heart also felt the threat of death?), fell down the hill, Bailey quickly stopped the car, looking for Iris, accidentally rolled and fell down the hill, two old people with wet bodies stumbled Together, Belle hugged Iris tightly, and Iris suddenly said to Belle, "I love you!" Belle said, "I know!" He went on to say, "I used to be afraid of being alone with you. Together, now I will never leave you, let's go home! Our hearts will get closer and closer." After this last "word" confession between the two, the director turned this deep love into a wedding ring The eternal image of, once again switched time and space to the two of them on the beach when they were young through the ingenious mirror movement. Bailey found that the wedding ring on Iris’s finger was getting old, but Iris replied, “I like worn-out things. , Until it is damaged.” Then the two of them held hands and happily ran to the endless sea, symbolizing that this love can be gone forever.
And when the camera turned back and it was time that Iris had to be sent to the nursing home, the aging Bailey could no longer hold Iris. After that, Iris danced solo in the nursing home, and died peacefully. In the last scene, Belle is packing his wife’s clothes, and a stone falls into the boundless river water, like a musical rest, ending the love between the two of them for a lifetime, and echoing the beginning of the movie, the two are searching for each other in the water. Lens.
Comparing Iris's wisdom and beauty when she was young, with her singing voice like a yellow warbler out of the valley, and the aging, sluggishness and wandering after dementia in old age, we will admire how beautiful youth is and how cruel aging is. Reality! Regarding the comparison between youth and aging, the director’s arrangement is very vivid: I have always had a sense of direction, avant-garde, and self-confidence, and Bailey has been yelling that Iris, who can’t catch up, when her Alzheimer’s condition gradually deteriorates, their position After the exchange, she became a helpless little girl, walking behind Belle like a worm, making Belle unable to bear it; and when the door of the house opened, Iris asked Belle in fear: "I should go. Which side?"
Looking at the whole film, the diseases of aging and degeneration are pushing Iris all the way. When words and time are meaningless to her, only Belle's "love" for her is the only meaning of her existence. For everyone in this world, why is it also true? At Jenna’s funeral, Belle said a very reasonable saying about the relationship between "love and disease": "When love disappears, life will soon pass." Therefore, when the one we love is sick, love And acceptance is the value of their survival. Even when life is fragile, "love" can show its toughness.
My father suffered from severe asthma for about ten years. He spent the years before his death in the hospital ward. I couldn’t bear to see the pain of his phlegm. When his father’s life was dying, I often think that in order to alleviate his pain, why not pick him up early? Later, my understanding was that in the pain of illness, God still kept his life so that he could enjoy the love of his family more. Before my father died, I asked him if he was satisfied with his life, and he nodded in satisfaction.
The film "The Long Road Is Ending" also reveals the meaning of marriage to life. According to the creation of the Bible, God "created" marriage (Genesis 2:24) and bestowed the blessing of marriage to all human beings, whether they are Christians or not. , A good marriage enables the value of human life to be fully established, so every couple has the responsibility to manage their own marriage carefully. Marriage makes two individuals, who were originally independent, unite into one by love of each other in their married life, just as Bailey said when she faced Iris on her deathbed: "It was so peaceful when she left, I I also want to go with her. I want to tell her a joke. It's not funny, but she will definitely laugh." Bailey, who thinks he is clumsy, gains confidence in Iris's affirmation, and Bailey is very confident with Ai. Isn't Reese's acquaintance also the best spiritual pillar for Iris to establish her writing career?
The answer to the mystery of aging
In this movie, one thing is appreciated: ""Aging" is originally a mystery, just as "growth" is a mystery; "Life" itself is a great mystery." In real life, it was once known as " "Golden Mind" Iris has a very rich creative power in her life. Language, writing, and time are very important to a good creator. The irony is that Iris is not suffering from other diseases, but the elderly. Dementia, in the course of the illness, amnesia and aphasia, as well as the disintegration of past and present time, made her feel a chaotic anxiety in her inner world. Where did her past creative power come from? When the doctor of Iris in the film showed Belle a brain scan, Belle asked the doctor doubtfully: "Have all her memories and wonderful life disappeared? But how can she say that? ? it is clear from the words came out to tell me where there is no such possibility she still makes sense to say "the doctor replied that:?!??." I do not know, "
the doctor can not answer even human aging and degradation Mystery. Therefore, it also leads us to think more deeply about the essence of life. When Iris' consciousness still existed, she faced all the beauty in life, and did not think that there was a supreme ruler of life in the universe. After her death, Bayley’s memory brought out a paragraph of her speech to express her Originally a humanist thinker, she said, “We need to believe in sacred things, but not God, but love and kindness.” Although she also quoted Psalm 139, verses 7 to 10, “Where do I go? To avoid your spirit? Where can I escape from your face?..." The "you" in this verse in the movie clearly gives us room for imagination, but Iris definitely does not mean God. As Christians, we know very well that in the Psalm 139 written by King David, the "you" in the verse refers to God. In this Psalm, David faces the smallness and finiteness of mankind. He admired God's omniscience; facing the mystery of human life, he praised the wonder of man's creation; and facing the changeable and difficult life path, he prayed for God's inspection and guidance. In our life, if we cannot realize the existence of an everlasting God who loves us with eternal love, how can we find the true truth from the limited human love in the changing life circumstances? Your self-confidence and the meaning of self-existence?
Belle loved Iris deeply. He ignored the doctor's advice and insisted on taking care of his deteriorating wife. He started a race of time. However, the day when the two of them completely decline will finally come, which Belle cannot control. of. It shows that everyone is unable to measure the length of their lives. Even if we want to "compete" with them, we must finally surrender. The advice given to us by the Old Testament Ecclesiastes is: "You should take advantage of the young and declining days. It’s not yet here, that’s what you said, before "the days when I had no joy", you should remember your Creator,...because the things that people do, even all the hidden things, whether it is good or evil, God must interrogate.” The apostle Paul, a character in the New Testament, has an understanding of facing physical decline, so that he can sing the triumph of life: “So let’s not be discouraged. Although the outer body is destroyed, the heart is renewed day by day. , Our temporary and light suffering will accomplish the extremely heavy and eternal glory for us...".
Entering middle age, the more I can experience the reality of my body's declining body, the more important the meaning of "time" to me. After watching this film, I wrote a sentence for myself: How long is the road in life? How long can human love last? Despite the end of the long road, I know that your (God's) hand is still reaching out to me on the other side, pulling me, so that I can head toward you calmly.
Nowadays, there is faith, hope, and love. The biggest of these three is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)
"Note": "Elegy for Iris" written by John Bayley, the Chinese translation is "Elegy for Iris", published in September 2000 , World Culture Publishing House. In real life, John Bailey is a well-known contemporary British literary critic and a professor of literature at Oxford University; and Iris Murdoch, once known as "the smartest woman in Britain", has written her Twenty-six novels, there are other philosophical works, scripts, and poetry collections. He has won numerous awards throughout his life. He won the British Booker Prize for Literature in 1978 for "The Sea, the Sea", and was awarded the title of Lord Lady
ZT in the same year : http:// www.fhl.net/gb/gp/gp1023804.html (Cheng Yijun)
View more about Iris reviews
