Movie Review SSJ

Although not on what Oscar, but more than religion to comfort us, soothe us, so that we can live in the universe on this planet for a short time and down to earth, I think “Boyhood” has done. Some people say it’s “overrated”, but I think these people didn’t understand the movie, and even those who scored it highly may have only paid attention to the director’s shooting time and so on. I didn’t understand all of what the movie had to say, but with the part I did understand, I thought “Boyhood” was amazing. The director used such an ordinary 12 years to make a movie, but it is surprising that people live a life in the end for what is clear – the meaning of life is not those always reminiscent of the past, nor the future with many expectations, the true meaning of life is “seized by this moment “What does this mean? What does this mean? Thinking back carefully, there are many clips and details in the movie, are repeating this proposition, I just caught myself remembering three large segments. These three clips are the little boy’s real dad, his mom, and himself.

1.Father

I watched this three-hour long movie twice that day because of a temporary party. The node that stopped the movie temporarily, just witnessed the change of the little boy’s father. He changed from a wild and unruly ghostly youth, into a family of another group, with a wife, children and beard, a very ordinary middle-aged man. At this time I was walking alone on the way to my appointment and felt as if I had finished watching a movie. Because my mind kept going back to the plot over and over again: the father sells his racy GTO antique car and scoundrelly lies to his son that he never gave him a promise to give him the antique car on his birthday. How did a nice and interesting young man turn out to be like this?

I reflexively and automatically made up my father’s former dashing, free-spirited self: he took his kids camping and bowling, he demanded highly excited mental interaction with them at all times; he let his son break into people’s houses and remove canvassing signs supporting his opponents in the election because he felt life required some struggle. I was disappointed and wishful thinking: time and life have turned him into a boring man after all, an annoying father in the eyes of his children. That’s what this movie is about. (At this time, the boy is in adolescence, it suddenly occurred to me that most adolescent children inexorably hate their parents, perhaps because most parents will also be in this period of their lives inexorably annoying changes it.

But I still felt something was wrong. Finally, when the party was over and I was on my way home, I figured it out. Why should a single man’s youthful dash of happiness and innocence be compared to a middle-aged man who needs to raise a wife and children? Even if it is the same person, but if time has changed, you still can’t compare at will. Because humans float in the long river of time, every moment is changing its own posture. Perhaps at this time you have really lost the spirit of adventure, no more pure drive, graying the pure heart. But please don’t feel inferior because of these self-loathing. Because time is not just what you think it is, a straight line, a space. It’s not just a straight line, a space. It’s not something you can move forward and backward if you want to. It is really a strange water of an unknown universe, in which you are as deep and uncontrollable as anyone else, and in which you float, no matter what, you cannot get detailed data to compare. Because all the moments that make up your huge life are like shiny fragments of sand in the water, they have no roots, and they will tumble violently and disorderly with the slight shaking of the river. So the “present” cannot be compared with the “past”, the “present” cannot be compared with the “future”, and the “past” cannot be compared with the “future”. “They are not good or bad, and there is no right or wrong. So the meaning of life is this moment, is now. Don’t you understand? What is “now”? –It is the future of the past, the past of the future, and the present of this moment. If you live the present moment well, you have gained the past and the future.

I also suddenly realized that this may be the whole meaning of life.

After thinking about this, I came home and continued to watch the movie, and found that the father had “changed” and that he could still bring happy memories to his children at this stage. In the car, he gave his son a birthday present is a homemade set of Beatles records – the Beatles disbanded, the father like collecting the most shiny life of fine sand, the other members of the excellent single reunited. At this moment, he talks about “balance”. To him, each member of the band was part of the band, they were all part of the greatness of the band, not just the John Lennon that never came back (just like life is made up of every moment of life, good or bad, it’s the whole beautiful real life, not those moments of life that never come back); it’s a real, real Beatles. overall very good Beatles, but also real life, what is missing can go on.

Other than that, I also really liked the song that Dad and Stepmother sang on the night of Mason’s birthday. The meaning of the lyrics was obvious, “Eat too much, you get fat, buy a dog, the cat jumps.” Everything changes and happens in reason, and [departure, in fact, has been and arrival at the same time] (when you head for another goal, never forget that at this moment, you are already standing in the day once expected, has reached a certain end). So yeah, life, it’s just a matter of taking a deep breath, enjoying every moment, and enjoying the journey. A while ago, the film festival, and went to jerk off again “teenage years”, and found a lot of directors in the deliberate elaboration of the “caught by the moment” complex. The first time I saw it, I had to go back to the house to get it. Dad actually do not know much, and even never thought about this issue before, but after thinking seriously, he told Mason a very good answer: I do not know what the meaning of life in the end, no one knows, but these do not matter, the important and good thing is that you start to feel with your heart, and to feel with your heart all the time.

2.Mom

As the boy, Mason, was leaving home for college, Mom suddenly lost her emotions: “I thought there was more to life than this, I thought there could be more to life.” Why did she lose it? Why did she feel like she had spent her life going through the motions and not getting anything out of it? Because she never valued the “now”. Even at this point, the single mother had finally completed her mission as a mother, sold her big house, told her children plainly that she was no longer obligated to provide them with a warm place to live, and thought she was relieved to go find her own life. But it was at this moment that she realized that her life still seemed empty, with nothing to show for it.

Indeed, no one can deny the seemingly positive course of her life: she divorced her first husband, who was unable to take responsibility for the family, and went to college while raising her two children alone. She later married her professor, a man of good means, but late in life was an alcoholic and a domestic violence against her mother and children, but she lasted until she earned her degree and became a college teacher after the divorce. And then she married again to a young prisoner, but again she felt great financial pressure, but she lasted until her children were adults and went to college.

But is it really a positive to live like that?

In fact, on the surface, her constant divorce, all the breaks with the present, the beautiful name of changing the present, but in fact, all in a way to ignore the present, put all hope in a false future. She did not wait for the moment when Mason’s real father matured, she found the professor’s violent tendencies, but did not go to make efforts to change the status quo, only want to finish school with the support of the professor, leave him to live a new life can be; when she was suffering for the family economy, thought to hold on until the children are adults will be relieved, mother is always looking forward to the future, but she forgot that the former future, is the present now. But she could never grasp the present, nor could she grasp the past or the future. The result is that after she has worked hard for most of her life, there is nothing in her heart.

3.Little Boy

Mason is a lucky man because he meets a young girl at the end of the film who is not pretty but knows very well that “now” is the true meaning of life.

She said to him, “You know why everyone says, to seize the moment? I think it should be the other way around. Like, timing catches us. The timing is always there, it’s just …….” I know that there are words that we can all understand at this moment, but for a moment, words don’t make sense. Teenage Mason smiled at the girl beside him as they looked at each other. The time is always there, the time is not a hundred years, the time to pinch us firmly in the hand, but we think we can not see it, but the time is actually a minute to jack from you, but you always do not recognize it, has been missing. But the young Mason, the teenager in the movie really understands all this? He still seems to be a not much sense of life, as if he has not become very special, went to college or a sullen hanging ordinary brat. But the human understanding of the true meaning of life may not be a gradual maturation process. Because some old people who have lived to 80 years old still do not understand the true meaning of life (such as my grandma), but young people like Mason seem to be born to grasp this true meaning. You see, the director laid the groundwork early on. In high school, the director arranged for Mason to like photography, which seems like a very literary arrangement, right? But what does photography mean? It means capturing the moments of life. He is fascinated by the moments of life. The director arranged for Mason to focus on the “now”.

On the way to the university, on his way to another part of his life journey, the director also deliberately arranged for Mason to stop and take pictures. Some beautiful details. So I believe that the Mason in the movie will be a teenager who knows how to be “caught in the moment”. If you think about it, do you also suddenly feel lonely and sad for some reason? The company’s main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers. This kind of feeling may be the panic and entanglement of all human beings about the unknown meaning of life. This is where the overall insecurity of human beings lies. It is because of this confusion and insecurity that there are various religions that explain the coming and going of life, and the meaning of life. Perhaps all this is because we sometimes look back on the past, sometimes worry about the future, but never really know and enjoy the “now”. But humans are such a thing, we have the concept of “infinity” in our minds, and we keep wanting better things, such as longevity, and we don’t accept death more openly because we can live longer. We can’t concentrate on the “now”. Sometimes when I discuss this “focus on the present” with my father, he interprets it as an attitude of living life to the fullest, not knowing how to reflect on the past and not caring about the future. In fact, what I mean is that if you do everything right now and enjoy every moment of your life, then the future will be better, and if you stand in the future and remember the past, even if it’s not as good as you want it to be, it’s a real and beautiful part of your life. In short, I think the director spent 12 years to put together the pieces scattered in the river in a way that we can understand, in order to let human beings take a serious look at ourselves, so that we find the true meaning of life is “this moment”. Perhaps the director didn’t know what the film would be like 12 years later when he started shooting, but the real time and life brought him the ultimate answer.

More than religion, it can comfort us, soothe us, and allow us to live a short but solid life on this planet in the universe, and I think “Boyhood” has done that.