The long-shot dialogue between Binbin and Binbin in this three-person room is probably the best segment in the entire film.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there were many small hotels in counties like Fengjie, and there were triple rooms for passing travelers. They stayed for only one night and hurried away the next day. Or like Qiao and Binbin, talk about important days here before taking a break.
Coincidentally, I arrived at Fengjie by boat from Datong, from the late 1990s to the 20th century, and from Ren Xiaoyao to the Three Gorges Good Man. She chased after Binbin, just wanted to listen to Binbin herself to get rid of her.
At first, I couldn't understand. Coincidentally, a woman who can shoot to protect the boss, a woman who can bear all the guilt, such a courageous and tenacious person, was abandoned, why can't she find a new life decisively?
Substituting into real life, I can suddenly understand that this search is so real. My mother had also searched for my dad in the same way that she had searched for Binbin.
My mother is a woman who is no less than clever. In 2000, my father was laid off as a deputy factory manager and went to work in a coastal city. Since then, there has been less and less news from my family, and my mother has taken me to live alone. On a hot summer vacation, my mother took my 8-year-old me on a long-distance green-skin train to find my father. After a night train ride, we waited for my late dad at the train station in the early morning. At that time, by coincidence, Binbin, who was unwilling to show up, finally arrived at the police station.
Instead of putting our mother and daughter in his rented house, he took us straight to a hotel and opened a triple room. It was exactly the same as the triple room Binbin had set up for Qiao. It was raining outside, and the three beds were silently separating people.
Back then, it was fashionable for young women to dress like this. My mother wore a short-sleeved square-neck shirt and skinny trousers, with a big hair tie pulled up in a ponytail, and she was a little constrained in this unfamiliar city. Like Binbin, my dad is dressed in fashion, wearing an exquisite watch, and making some declarations of turning over. But no matter how high-spirited he was, he couldn't hide his dejected complexion, and the ill-fitting fashionable clothes were especially funny.
My mother is as smart as Qiao. She knows how my father has changed and her current situation. She tried to get my dad to change his mind, but if it doesn't work, we can only live on our own in the future as mother and daughter. Like Qiao, she just wanted to hear what the man said to herself.
He sat on the two beds facing each other, whispering your words to me. My dad kept his head down, smoked a cigarette, and spoke intermittently. My mom would say a few words in a loud voice from time to time, walk away from time to time to calm down and come back. No quarrels, no resentment, no mutual complaints.
——Women come to find men who are unwilling, probably this is the atmosphere. Jia Zhangke understands it very well.
Men must appear to be accomplished, and even if they can't be accomplished, they must be accomplished in front of women. The woman looked for thousands of miles, and the dusty servant looked tired and tough, like a dog's tail grass, simple and scribbled but unable to fall.
Binbin ordered a brazier for Qiao, and it has been twelve years since we met again. My father and my mother meet again every year because of my relationship. It was exactly twelve years later that my father returned to my mother's side again. His body is not paralyzed, but his paralyzed body and mind need the comfort and care of his family.
This generation of Chinese men who run around for a living and work hard all their lives for the sake of face, this generation of Chinese women who can hold up the collapsed world and are as tough as a dog's tail grass. The children of Jianghu, depicted by Jia Zhangke, live beside each of us.
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