Niu Niu photography

From now to eternity-precious spring water

I really want to call it a concept film. Director Aaronov Ski provides an open text for the audience with visual language full of metaphors and symbols and staggered psychedelic montages. The mysterious tone of Mayan mythology, the cosmic thinking similar to "200 1: A Space Odyssey", the love and pain of earthly life, and the philosophical thinking about death, eternity, rebirth, reincarnation, redemption, faith, meaning and many other things make every picture in the film seem to hide some enlightenment and meditation. It seems to be a wonderful Rubik's cube. Although the film itself has only one structure, it allows you to understand the complex hidden information hidden behind the structure in different ways, which is just one of many real or illusory possibilities.

(a) Narrative

Through parallel and intersecting narratives, the film combines three love and death stories of Spanish conqueror, pharmacologist and spacewalker with different time and space and the same theme, forming a sci-fi image style. I don't think that pharmacologist Tommy has experienced an odyssey spanning thousands of years, and Thomas the Conqueror and Tom the Spacewalker are not all fictional characters adapted from the husband in Izz's book. What the film really tells is Tommy's process from pain, fear, ecstasy to final understanding when his wife is about to die. Here, the conqueror is the story described in Izz's book, while the spacewalker symbolizes Tommy's spiritual world.

The true cardinality of the story is 200 1. Tommy, who loves his wife deeply, is afraid of losing Izz, who is in the terminal stage of brain cancer, and leads his research team to carry out drug experiments almost crazily, hoping to miraculously save his wife's life. However, in reality, the ever-changing illness and possible death at any time make Tommy more and more anxious and fearful. He was so absorbed in his own experiment that he neglected his last companion and care for Izz. Of course, all these performances are entirely out of love for his wife and out of a strong feeling of wanting to be together forever. Izz, who also loves her husband deeply, fully understands Tommy's feelings at this moment. She has no heart or strength to stop her husband from pursuing that last hope. But she knew that she would eventually die. In order to help Tommy accept this cruel fact, stand up again and continue his brave life, she adopted a way similar to philosophical enlightenment, that is, to express her expectations or wishes through novels. She prepared a pen and ink for Tommy, hoping that he would help him finish the final ending of the story. When Tommy said, "But I don't know how it ends," she told him, "you do. You will know. " Tommy obviously couldn't understand his wife's intention at first, because he had paranoid thoughts about his fear and escape, but after a difficult journey of spiritual odyssey, he finally understood Izz's pain and the feelings she had been telling him about life and death.

It can be seen that the film's cross-narration of the three stories, seemingly chaotic, is actually logical. After telling Tommy's story for the first time, the narratives about conquerors and spacewalkers are closely related to Tommy's real situation. The transition from the real picture to the Spanish scene is accomplished by reading books. The words that flashed and faded out quickly in the camera show us the story that happened in Spain, which is a set of explanation codes for the philosophical dialogue between Tommy and Izz. Thomas the Conqueror is a symbol of Tommy who is addicted to experiments in reality. Like Tommy, he risked his life to save his lover and stay with his queen forever. Thomas killed his rebellious subordinates in order to fulfill his promise, and the priest who led him to the tree of life died because of rebellion; In reality, Tommy tried a formula from the mysterious tree on macaques regardless of the provisions of the drug agreement. Everyone met all kinds of resistance from around, and at the same time they all ran to their goals in despair. As a de facto helper, macaques also face the same death threat as priests. However, Izz did not build the queen in the Spanish story according to herself. She is the queen in Tommy's mind, beautiful, noble and fragile, and needs someone to save her. In fact, it was an image of Izz in his eyes, because Tommy always thought that once he accepted the ring representing true love, he had the responsibility to protect and defend her. When foreign enemies (viruses) invaded her life, he went to look for the tree that could make people.

Compared with the story in Spain, the story in the depths of the Milky Way is closer to Tommy's mood. Tom is always quietly guarding this tree, feeling her vitality, and constantly telling her "Don't worry, we will be fine" and "I will always be by your side". The director penetrated the scenes of reality and space world many times through symbolic continuous montage. For example, through the swaying change of light and shadow, the stroking trunk in the lens becomes Izz's smooth body; The mush on the trunk turned into fluff on her skin; The golden flowing nebula turns into a circular pattern on the ground of the hospital; Tommy and Tom's similar body movements, such as turning back, looking up and wailing, are often placed side by side in the transition of the camera. At first, the vitality of the tree was "still strong"; When Izz fainted in the museum, the tree's hair began to hang down; Finally, when Izz died because of ineffective rescue, the tree finally shrank and withered. Obviously, the big tree here is a metaphor for Izz's physical condition, and this glass ball-like star is a metaphor for Tommy's mentality and thoughts. Izzie always seems to be around Tom here, but she never really shows up. Tom is afraid to face Izz's illusion, and reminds himself to finish the ending of the novel again and again. What he has been doing is studying nebulae and how to keep trees alive. When the real Izz died, the nebula began to gather, and the illusion around Tom became Queen Isabella. Like Izz, she told Tom, "You can liberate New Spain from slavery. You can do it." This time, Tom listened to Izz's words, "Let's finish." He finally left the sphere that had been waiting for many years and made up the final ending for his wife's novel. Tom disappeared into the universe with the big bang of the nebula.

From this perspective, the film begins with the plot of Spain and space, which is a flashback technique, but not just a narrative way. In fact, the situation of Thomas and Tom described at the beginning of the film is exactly the dilemma that Tommy faces in reality. Although Thomas found the way to the tree of life through hardships, he was stabbed by Mayan soldiers guarding the road, and his life was in danger. This is the last plot in Izz's novel, and it is also a mysterious password she set for her husband. What's the end? Let's stop here, or continue to look for it with pain, or something else. Tommy will do everything. There are several voices in Tom's world. One is from Tom himself. He said to the tree, "you can, I don't want you to die"; The other is the wife I remember. She said, "Come out with me" and "It's snowing for the first time". The third is the illusion of my wife. She said, "Finish it!" These three voices are intertwined, representing Tommy's painful and contradictory feelings. He longed for miracles and an antidote to cancer. However, he knew how hopeless the hope was, and he "didn't know how to accomplish it". He is annoyed because he can't watch the snow with his wife. "Sorry, it's my fault. "He can only express his apologies and guilt more than once. He also wants to help his wife fulfill that last wish. He looked at the tattoo on his finger and said, "Well, I believe you. Take me away and show me. "It's a pity that Izz left without leaving any instructions, and everything still needs to be understood by himself. At the end of the film, Tommy gave up the pursuit of eternity, accepted the inevitable death of mankind, and finally rescued himself from the fear of death.

Liberated.

(2) Theme

So, he drove Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, and installed a rotating cherub and a burning sword to guard the road to the tree of life. This is a quote about Genesis in the Bible quoted at the beginning of the film, which hints at the story and tells us the main content that the film wants to discuss. From the moment Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the "tree of knowledge" (or the tree of good and evil), human beings began to live in a world of binary opposition. What is the meaning of life, that is, survival and death, poverty and wealth, sadness and happiness, goodness and evil? What if they choose not the "tree of knowledge" but the "tree of life"? What separates us from the creator, and what makes us different? Maybe all this is just a process from now to eternity.

At the end of the film, Tommy finally got the ability to conceive the ending of the novel. The guardian of the tree of life saw Adam, the "father of mankind", at the moment when he raised his hand. He put down his sword of fire and was willing to die for his sins. Thomas saw the tree of life as he wished, but he didn't die because of it. When he drank the resin representing infinite vitality, he fell to the ground in pain. Green grass and flowers came out of his body and buried him next to the tree. Tom calmly crossed the nebula and came to the center of Shibalba. With the explosion of the star, he turned into a dust in the universe.

Judging from the story and ending, Xi Chun is mainly about death, which leads to thinking about the meaning of life. Tommy finally broke through the glass ball full of fear and escape and achieved some spiritual detachment. Accompanied by bright and spectacular pictures and fast and melodious drum music, astronaut Tom exploded and died peacefully with the Chaiba nebula. This kind of scene similar to religious nirvana actually shows the spiritual pleasure of getting rid of fear forever. What helps Tommy achieve this liberation is a new understanding of the meaning of love and life. At first, Tommy's heart was fragile and sensitive. He didn't want Izzie to talk to him about anything involving death, but he was actually afraid of losing her. So he declared war on fate to "stop aging and death". He believes that to get rid of pain, you must overcome death. "Death is a disease, and like other diseases, there is a cure." He wants to find it. However, his resistance or contempt is not because of Sisyphus's simple persistence and happiness, but his subconscious helplessness and despair. As the Mayan guardian said, in his place, "death is the road to fear."

Unlike Tommy, Izz, who suffered from illness all the year round, has an aesthetic comment and cognition on death. She told Tommy that the Golden Nebula is actually a gathering of dying stars, and one day they will explode and die, and a new planet will be born. She found her own place, which is called Shibalba, where dead souls can be reborn. She also told him that according to the myth of Maya Genesis, life was created by Adam, the ancestor of human beings. His body extended to the earth, his soul extended to the sky in the form of branches, and Shibalba was created by his children in heaven. Of course, Tommy was preoccupied with treatment and didn't care what his wife said. But Izz has always used his religious fantasy to let Tommy know that there is more than one form of life, and we are all just a tiny part of the universe. After Izz's illness worsened, she told Tommy a story told by a Mayan tour guide, saying that after the tour guide's father died, a seed was buried in his grave and grew into a big tree. The tour guide said that his father became a part of the tree and his soul flew away with the foraging birds. The film doesn't mention the situation of the tour guide or the source of the story, but it is obvious that Izz has been inspiring Tommy with a cosmic thinking beyond the external form, trying to make him understand that death is not an end, but a new beginning.

In fact, Tommy's final understanding and detachment is precisely because he understands this true meaning. He arranged the end of Thomas' death, and Thomas' body became flowers and plants, but in fact he was reborn in another form. And Tom finally came to the center of Hybal, that is, Izz's own position, where nebulae gathered, exploded into another planet mentioned above, and the tree of life came back to life. It can be said that Tommy accepted Izz's outlook on life ideologically, so Tom, who represents trouble and escape, disappeared with the rebirth of Izz's soul. Of course, Tommy's understanding is the result of true love between him and Izz. Before Tom finally decided to rush out of the glass ball, the image of his wife kept appearing, and Queen Isabella, a symbol of Tommy's inner mirror, finally stood with the mirror of Izz. It is her love and trust that Tommy has the courage and strength to "finish it". So, when his wife invited him out for a walk again, he didn't go to the laboratory, but ran to the snow, to his wife and to Shibalba's "heart". There, he found the lost wedding ring, and he put it on his middle finger, covering the tattooed ring carved because of pain and longing for eternity. He no longer needs to swallow the bark of a big tree to overcome his fear, and he no longer needs to carve a ring on his arm to pass through the pain of time, because he knows that Izz has not really left and she will be with him forever.

In the snow-white cemetery, we saw Tommy planting a warm seed, and I believe a lush tree will grow there soon.

"Farewell, Izzie."

"I have finished it for you."

"Are you all right?"

"Yes, everything is fine."

(3) Visual language

The director's fear of Tommy's death is realized through the change of lens color. In movies, we can see that the picture in the lens constantly changes from color to black and white, and from darkness to light. This color change is related to the hero's experience and mood. Among them, the scenes about Tommy, Thomas and Tom were basically shot in the dark, and it was not until the end that bright white broke out. Every time the camera switches from color to black and white, the protagonist is almost in a state of confusion, anxiety or pain, such as when Tommy goes home to look for Izz, when the priest appears to lead Thomas to take risks for the tree of life, when Izz faints and Tommy goes from the hospital to the laboratory, when Tom feels the vitality of the tree is declining, when Tom cries with the withered tree, and so on. On the contrary, scenes about the Queen, Izz and their phantoms are mostly shot in saturated light. Every time the hero and heroine appear on the screen at the same time, the role played by Rachel Vichy always occupies the bright part of the camera, and her face close-ups are always drawn in soft light. This arrangement is obviously not arbitrary, it distinguishes two different States, one is optimistic and calm, the other is sad and contradictory; One side is quiet and serene, and the other side is helpless. Finally, when they show dazzling bright colors together, it actually represents their final transformation from claustrophobia to openness, from gloom to light, from fantasy to reality.

After reading it, I was in tears.