Are marriage and love the same thing? Is the long 45 years the result of fate or the need for emotional belonging? There may not be an exact answer. The feelings of the couple are like this year, not an exact commemoration, but a must-have journey. The beginning is clueless, everything goes on in an orderly manner, the wife returns from walking the dog, she expresses her envy to the young father, and she discusses the wedding dance with her husband, never knowing how all the actions of this morning will reflect the future.
From the letter in the husband's hand, the invisible gray gradually smeared their lives. You can see the expression of his forbearance, muttering to himself, reading the letter, puzzled and shocked, and slightly trembling white paper. He even unconsciously believed something like his wife, wanting to rummage through the dictionary to learn more about the death of his former lover. At this time, his emotional expression may no longer be a simple individual, but a crisis that has always been lurking in this marriage, a lie that has been concealed and finally revealed - the nostalgia of her husband. He can't forget his past romances.
The previous duet and solo dance maintained the basic form, they faithfully played their respective dance roles, and danced faithfully and orderly dance steps. But at this moment, the husband, he finally got rid of the shackles of the pas de deux, and became more and more obsessed with the emotional analysis of himself, unconstrained to show his original dance like his original dance partner—his true feelings. Director Andrew Haig emphasized his female perspective. When the camera focuses on a husband who is addicted to the unrestrained deceased lover and emotional obsession, the viewer can't see the expression of his wife, but he perceives the ups and downs of his wife at this moment. One or two.
The wife is in a passive position, and she gradually passively begins to face her dance partner for many years. Whether or not she agrees with the dance that has not changed in the past 45 years, whether she is good at it or not is always another. From the beginning, she listened to her husband's resentment and nostalgia, and she also began to doubt marriage and love. As she struggled to maintain the dance—still preparing for the anniversary—she was uncontrollably suspicious, sad, and indifferently accepting the truth. Sex at the age of seventy is like returning to the light, and it is difficult to continue if you are unable to do so. What's interesting is that the wife is looking through the photos that her husband has kept privately. Under the camera, there is the beautiful image of her husband's former lover on one side. The blurred light illuminates the world in the wife's field of vision, and the back is endless darkness, waiting like a huge lie. Devouring everything. She pressed the remote control, and the sound of flipping through the pictures one by one echoed the sound effect when the opening subtitles appeared, and the orderly mechanical sound in the silence was almost the same as this marriage. Without this letter, maybe It will continue to show like this. Of course it didn't. The last photo made the wife finally understand the truth of the so-called failure to get pregnant. The last sound was like a high-heeled shoe that was accidentally dropped.
At the climax of the ending, with all the family and friends in the house, the husband began to interpret the speech that he had prepared for a long time, but it was beyond recognition. The "best decision of this life" in his mouth was a mockery of this marriage, and what he said was "It is normal to have ups and downs. "It's more like questioning the necessity of these 45 years, and the meaning of the pillow. He was touched by his high-sounding self.
The last dance song, the same as it was 45 years ago, is completely different. At the end of the last note, the wife quickly pulled out her hand and quickly left her husband's embrace, already wanting to cry without tears.
In fact, the husband's self-motivation may have really worked. After being away for many days, he picked up bits and pieces again. After he confirmed his unchanging affection for his first love, he found that life also needs to be smooth. The wife is different, she has the fragile nature of all women in love, and her confusion and even despair have been overwhelmed. Under the miserable blue light and the heads of people surging on the dance floor, she could hardly find a way out.
Director Andrew Hagrid talks about his obsession with time and how his concept of time is relentlessly manifested in the elements of the film. Time is affectionate, and the 45-year Spring and Autumn Period seems to need to be commemorated in a special way to prove that it is not in vain; time is ruthless, and the 45th anniversary can be destroyed by any time period and any person at will—and it is not about moral goodness. Evil preaching, purely because of irresistible feelings. This is also the deepest sadness in the movie. For the wife, for the viewer who is looking at the situation, it is a heart-wrenching betrayal, or an indifferent and decisive parting, and for the husband, even for the core of marriage— ——For love, it seems to be a beautiful substance. Contradictions and paradoxes seem so natural.
After the dance music stopped, no matter whether the music played again or not, whether it was still a duo or not, it was no longer complete, and it no longer fit the dance music, not to mention, the former willing solo dancer, her heart was already shattered.
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