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film blog 1
This is a film with profoundly philosophical meaning. While the film tells the story of the last day of a poet with terminal cancer and a wandering life experience, his consciousness and memories about his wife are intersected in the narrative. As for the man, the blending of past and present, along with the final struggle and nostalgia for life, attracting me to explore the meaning of life and time together with the poet. In particular, I feel the complexity and changefulness of time in the film are not represented as the stagnation and transcendence of time in popular movies. On the contrary, this film leads us to find a dialectical relationship between the present and the past. The past also exists in the present. The director leads us to feel life and time in memory and reality. There are many long shots in the film, as Bordwell (2005, p. 145) describes "long take, long shot aesthetic”. Long shots allow the viewers to feel the changes in the inner world and the environmental atmosphere of the characters through observation as time goes by naturally. In this film, the usage of this technique makes me feel the authenticity of time, lets me pause, feel, listen, and think. I'm going to choose a shot to talk about my understanding of the poetic long shot.
The timing of the shot is from 1:58:39 — 2:07:30. This shot belongs to the end of the movie, in which the poet finally finds his words for the poetry and reunites with his family again in his imagination of the old day. On the last day of his life, he finds his life’s final meaning. Love and the real relationship between people are important in a man’s life. In the previous narrative, the poet is a man who cares about his poem so much rather than his family. However, by spending his last day with the little boy, he realizes and feels the real emotion between people, understanding the secret of life. This shot is set in the old house where his family had lived. People wearing white clothes are dancing on the beach to celebrate his daughter’s birth with the music played on an accordion. The grandmother sits on the yard with her three-quarters of the face towards the camera (Fig. 1). With the camera’s movement, the poet and his wife gradually become the centering of the image, from planimetric imagery (many people stand on the beach in a line) to the image of the poet and his wife solely. Finally, the poet is centered in the image, turning away from the camera. The background sound is her mother’s voice “Alexander, Alexander, Alexander”. Next, I’d like to choose some frames to further describe this shot.
In the first frame, the setting is the same as the setting shows in 21:45 (Fig. 3), outside his house where has a yard near the ocean. The visual composition (Fig. 2) is organized around a horizontal line. People are standing together on the beach in a line. People there are dressed in white. This composition gives viewers a sense of simpleness, orderliness, and seriousness. Besides, by comparing these two frames, clearly shows that the saturation of the color in Fig. 2 is much lower than the saturation in Fig. 3. There is no sun comes out in Fig. 2. Thus, it is much darker than Fig. 3. And the white house in the middle of the road was broken. After experiencing the last day, the poet recreates the day in his mind in the same place where Anna writes in her poem. However, the old day will never come back, like the house has been broken. It all passed. These also indicate the heavy mood when the poet realizes the love of his wife was so deep and sincere. It’s too late for him to compensate his wife. He is full of regretfulness.
In the second frame (Fig. 4), the poet and his wife are shown most of their whole body, looking at each other and dancing together. They belong to the onscreen part. The offscreen part is the other family members who attended the celebration and the poet’s mother who sat on the balcony. With the movement of the camera, the other family member gradually goes out of the screen, leaving space for the man and wife. They enjoy their moment with happiness. At the same time, the background music (Eternity Theme) sounds upset. As Liu (2019, p. 148) demonstrates that accordion music in this film carries a sense of affinity. It’s so suitable to reflect the character’s inner emotion. This sad music contrast with the visual composition that the man and wife are getting together happily. It further enhances the poet’s sorrow. His vagabond personality results in this regret. The sweet moment he spent with Anna can only happen in his imagination.
In the third frame (Fig. 5), a view of the poet’s back is the center of the visual composition, guaranteeing his salience. He didn’t say anything. The background is the wide ocean. The background music is combined both the sound of the ocean and the sound of his mother “Alexander, Alexander, Alexander”. As a viewer, we can’t see the facial expression of this poet. As time goes by, accompanying by the sound of the ocean, it reflects the poet’s unquiet emotion. Furthermore, the sound “Alexander, Alexander, Alexander” helps to develop the character and finish the story. As Sui (2017, p. 57) states that her mother’s voice calls the poet to go back from his loneliness and the poem world to his own heart, rediscovering, identifying himself, and searching for the meaning of his final life.
“What is tomorrow? How long will tomorrow last?”
“Eternity and a day.”
References:
Bordwell, D. (2005). Figures Traced in Light: On Cinematic Staging. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.
Liu, N. (2019). 浅析电影《一日永恒》 中手风琴音乐的悲剧美 [A brief analysis of the tragic beauty of accordion music in the movie eternity and a day]. Modern music, 1, 147-148. Retrieved from https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?dbcode=CJFD&dbname=CJFDLAST2019&filename=DDMU201901060&v=bndKy%25mmd2FwOpDFQfDxjv0iqnNYFU%25mmd2F3f9VESYz9hnsOfOxFed3upksLJPpT4sF1%25mmd2BEw0i
Sui, X. (2019). 《永恒和一日》的诗意化解读 [The poetic interpretation of Eternity and One Day]. Research on transmission competence, 3(20), 55-57. Retrieved from https://kns.cnki.net/kcms/detail/detail.aspx?dbcode=CJFD&dbname=CJFDLAST2019&filename=CBLY201920042&v=xgNPmTUkYcFMgu1yQNQWMrfV2yC7x3g%25mmd2BBcaoneWkHnZ7RIdbgIDrO7zSHudWE7Ix
