I was looking forward to Jarmusch's new work "Patterson", but after reading it, I was a little disappointed. It's not that the filming is bad, but in my opinion, this is not a movie that makes me as high as the previous "Only Love Forever". Maybe my tastes have been cultivated by literary genre films so that "Coffee Commune" can give me more satisfaction than "Patterson", and even "Roadside Picnic" is greater than it. The following are the reasons.
The theme of "Patterson" seems to me to be four words: small poetry beauty. This theme is not new. In modern literature, the expertise of Shen Congwen, Waste Name, Shi Tuo and others is this kind of small poetic beauty. Where does small come from? It is nothing more than a small town, small people, and small joys and sorrows, from which beauty is born. Taking this as the title, Jiamusu's answer sheet is relatively good, simple and easy to understand.
A linear narrative that repeats from Monday to week, waking up every day from the hug with his wife, eating milk and soaking onion rings, carrying a small box to work, fiddling with a couple of poems before the departure, saying morning to the manager Downey, listening to the people in the car I spent the day talking with me, went home at night and listened to my wife’s dreams, wrote a few sentences in the basement, took the dog for a walk, had a drink in the tavern, dreamed of being on that wall of fame, and the day passed, Week by week.
I appreciate that poetic beauty, but that beauty seems surreal. But the director is also implying that things like Downey's complaints, driving to warn Patterson to watch out for someone whose dog has been stolen, disputes in the tavern, none of these things seem to hurt Patterson. His biggest encounter during the week was that his car broke down and he didn't have a mobile phone. Fortunately, the little girl lent him to solve the problem. And his wife is a genius, making a fortune selling cupcakes, and playing a guitar a day after buying it (as long as you try to learn guitar, you will find that a scene in the movie is basically impossible). When Patterson heard the price of the guitar, he was obviously a little uneasy, and it was easy to guess that the family was not rich and might have twins in the future (suggested in the film). This is a kind of unreality inherent in the film itself. This couple does not have the confidence of Adam and Eve in "Only Love Forever". If something happened to them, it would be difficult for me as an audience to bear, even such an imaginary. . I'd rather see the couples in "The Year of Violence" struggling with all kinds of bad outcomes. Perhaps Jarmusch violated a bit of the Law of Probability here, or he insisted on creating this utopia of a small unit for us, which is not impossible.
The small fronts in the film are also much less than "Roadside Picnic", and the visibility is very strong and will not be deceived. The dream and reality of twins, Patterson's celebrity inventory, anarchy discussions on the bus, smartphone discussions, love discussions in taverns, Japanese poet Aha's Zen machine, and blank chess battles, Jarmusch took out A lot of small undertones to us. Bi Gan, on the other hand, concealed the story of "Rejuvenation" in overlapping poems. If you remember the floral shirt and the flashlight in your hand, you can understand what I'm talking about. However, compared to Bi's poems, Jiamusu's poems are a bit worse, I don't know if it's a translation problem (although I just think Chinese poems are obviously better).
At this point, my objective evaluation of this work has been born. The reason that makes me sad can probably be revealed. It is nothing more than the current society and "Patterson". Compared with Shen Congwen's novels, it kills Shimei. Perhaps this is also Jarmusu's implicit criticism. Go out for a walk, where can there be such a beautiful street in that small town? We listened to the music around us, the playful music of those who drove the convertible, no bird chirping, no wind chirping. We steal dogs and even kill dogs, how can there be social credit in the movie about not picking up dogs on the road? Where can we watch a waterfall while having lunch, or a friendly little devil who can meet me and talk about poetry? Where can there be a wonderful cinema to show me old horror movies? I am afraid that the young people around me will not dare to think about such a family life like that.
I'm not saying Jarmusch is unrealistic, maybe he just came up with the image of Patterson, an aesthetic for us idiots in the city, for those of us who sink into the culture industry and fetishism , how to write a simple haiku.
Maybe I'm too pessimistic. You're going to show me "Orchard City" and "Black Wadsworth" now, and I might actually be able to cry. "Patterson" is said to be higher than Woody Allen's literary little emotional tricks. Either I was too cold-hearted and slaughtered the director's Shimei, or the director's enthusiasm had already predicted that the audience was not so shallow, and put us in the position of mortals like Tony and Everks, telling us that there is still hope , After the industrial civilization, there is a utopia constructed by poetry and beauty.
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