Time seems to flow incessantly in the name of stillness.
At the beginning of the film, Dora is an unpleasant woman. She earns a meager income by deceiving the illiterate people at the bottom of the society, which is immoral from the perspective of common values. Her encounter with Joshua was not and could not have been due to the responsibility of maintaining a letter in the first place. She sold him, and then "elopes" with him amid the scolding of friends and the condemnation of her conscience.
I'm a little scared when I see this. The movie has the feeling I like. The lens, color, light and shadow are all beautiful and just right. When the story fits the common values of society, I am afraid that it will fall into the cliché. Like "A Thousand Miles Riding Alone", like "Happy Times", I have to think of the exile and pursuit of human nature that Zhang Yimou is good at. That would betray this warm, slightly damp, and inevitably slightly sharp story.
Such a journey to find a father is slowly unfolding. Unrest, embarrassment, embarrassment, women even steal, drink alcohol, and scolding boys hysterically. Even so, the woman also encountered love. She hides in the dirty bathroom and puts on bright lipstick, thirsty and desperate like she's caught a life-saving straw. And the man had a truck, and he fled quickly. It's a dash of hope, in the bright sunshine of Rio de Janeiro, like soap bubbles, and it's about love. They are called expectations, they are called enthusiasm, they are called visions, and they are quickly disillusioned before they can fly.
What moved me was that the boy said to the old woman, you look good with lipstick. And when they slept together, Joshua said stubbornly and ridiculously, I've slept with a lot of women. The little boy is really cute, although his eyes are cunning and precocious for his age. I remember that my friend told me before I watched this movie that this is a story about an old woman and a little boy. I suddenly remembered "The Beautiful Legend of Sicily", a story of chaos. Sicily is a story about youth, a boy growing up in an absurd love. Such a frail and moving youth has been experienced by everyone, but it was extremely displayed in such a time and place in Sicily. And "Central Station", these two protagonists make it difficult for me to locate them with any kind of relationship. Sometimes I think they are like mother and son, which may be the most compatible understanding, but it is far more than that simple. Dora said they were friends, and I saw the little pride on Joshua's face, the pride of being respected. Perhaps, this is the best annotation.
It's a good movie, known as one of the best movies in the world. I don't want to say that it's about responsibility, it's about human nature, it's about the truth of the world, I just deeply remember that at the end of the film, they were in that small village in Rio de Janeiro, and Dora went back to her old business, writing letters to illiterate people. Those happy people, those pure people, they are grateful for love, they are grateful to God, they are grateful to their parents, even if they are sad and frustrated, they are calm and happy. Blessed are they, they are all redeemed.
I suddenly remembered a Hong Kong movie that I loved to watch when I was fifteen, "Anna Madeleine", a movie about secret love. There is a play-in-play in the movie about a pair of chivalrous heroes. They were controlled by a demon when they first came out of the rivers and lakes, forcing them to find a woman named Mo Miner and say "I love you" to her. They went through untold hardships and finally found this woman, and she had already passed away. And before she died, she only left one sentence, "I already knew it."
- Mo Miner I love you.
- I already knew that.
When these two notes were placed together in the Hong Kong film, I couldn't help crying. Just like Dora in "Central Station" put the two letters together, the scene is surprisingly similar, time seems to have flown, with my nostalgic memory.
Love and hope always go hand in hand. This is a beautiful thing. Just like those warm little things we can't bear to forget. When I think of it, even the small pain that was torn apart at that time made Qingyue smile.
At the end of the film, Dora finishes writing her letter to Joshua crying. She finally gained a thorough understanding of her soul and completed a beautiful self-redemption. Even if the process is not so beautiful and moving, you will definitely remember the most beautiful little things along the way.
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