The Unbearable Heaviness of Being

************這篇影評可能有雷************

Summary:
This is a movie to be read instead of just being watched, one whose meaning is difficult to grab, but will set you on top of the world with the utmost truth once you make it. It tells about a whole day’s experience of three different women, who encounter love, pain, weakness, anxiety, choice, evasion, and even death. They are on their own way of life, dealing with their existence differently, and present us with a touching symphony of the unbearable heaviness of being.

Key words:
hours life death being evasion suicide streams free suffer isolate responsibility pain love heavy

It is the start of an ordinary day, and the three heroines begin their run. The clock is striking, reminding everybody of the passing of the hours. They have to face it, just as they have to face the natural process of life and death. 維吉尼亞 Wolfe, the writer in the 1920’s in Richmond, is suffering painfully from mental disorder as well as the daily trivialities, and yet she is conceiving her novel Mrs. Dalloway hardly. In 1951 in Los Angeles, a housewife by the name of Laura 布朗, who feels life disinteresting and kind of panic towards it, finds resonance in Mrs. Dalloway and cannot avoid evasion. Claresa, with the same name as Mrs. Dalloway, lives in 紐約 in 2001 as an editor, busy preparing a party for his former lover Richard, a Poetry Award winner, who happens to be Laura’s son and chooses death before the party after many years with AIDS. Claresa is seemingly relieved, while the hours still flow forward like the streams that carry 維吉尼亞 far away.

I didn』t get into the movie until half an hour or so. At first, I thought it was much too abstract. I carried on with patience. With the help of the music, I gradually dissolved myself into the plot. The music is like the flowing of streams, high-sounding at a time and descending at another. Sometimes rapid, and sometimes meek. My feeling followed.

維吉尼亞 hated living, because it was always against her will and even torturing. She couldn』t breathe freely, and the only person she felt responsible for was her husband Leonard. She lived for him. But her heart told herself, this wouldn』t last forever. So she finally broke away from the chains by drowning herself on that gloomy day in 1941. She was freed at last, but she will suffer still.

Although the other two lived in different time and space, their fates were basically the same. They felt restrained with marriage, more or less suffered from an inclination of depression, and acted in a sensitive, self-examined and self-confined way. Laura should have been satisfied with her happy family, but the only outlet she found was staying away from the nasty corner. She firstly intended to commit suicide. The fear of death and the hope for the better pulled her back.

However, the ultimate action she took was no other than escaping. She left her man and kid, sobbing for some reasonable irrational sake. As for Claresa, she merely took Richard as a duty she was for. She lived with her lesbian girlfriend and even had a daughter by medical means. Everything seemed quite okay, and she put herself in the fake image of happiness. But Richard discovered it that they were existent for each other. 「The poet will die, for the other would live better.」 He jumped out of the window. Before he sunk to the ground, he made the last soundless poem in the intoxicating sunshine. Claresa was freed. The damned responsibility had gone to hell.

We say people in the modern world are isolated. They wrap themselves up to taste the agony of being. King Lear had exposed his heart with 「I suffer, I will to suffer, I learn by sufferings; therefore I am.」 That fits all the time. Because we human beings are a special species. We have society, family, and love for each other. We cannot enjoy only benefits, so God set a lot of obstacles in our journey of life. We may meet with them now and then, and we have several methods to choose from: feel frustrated and stop and wind ourselves up; neglect and sidestep it, then move on as usual; kick it away against all odds and retrieve our ego. 維吉尼亞 belongs to the first group, Laura the second and Claresa the third. Laura and Claresa didn』t think of better ways at first, perhaps due to the easiness of suicide. A fragile heart will naturally adopt it initially; that’s what we saw 維吉尼亞 had done. But we actually have better solutions granted by God--that’s endurance and tolerance. Every thing will turn out good if we continue the efforts. To be frank, we live the life of every person in the movie, sometimes Richard’s, sometimes Laura’s, and sometimes Leonard’s. We may apply the same solution to the distinct problems in the way; that doesn』t do. We need a little bit courage to challenge ourselves when in the face of pain and tragedy everyday.

One day, there may come the tsunami, the warfare, the epidemic, or stuff like that. What we can do and shall do is endeavor to breast against them and live on bravely. 維吉尼亞 chose death; we don』t have the right to comment on her choice, but be aware it is not recommended. Laura chose evasion, which lead to the collapse of little Richard’s mind and finally his suicide. That’s not fair to the people we love and by whom we are loved. We should call the aware self to jump out and shoulder the heavy burdens of life. Life is heavy; being is heavy- Milan Kundera only played a joke on this serious matter. So those who stick to life can be called real brave people. Love life like Jack London, treat life like Mark Twain, and enjoy life like Beethoven! In the hours, we perish; tomorrow, we will bloom. Like the steams, and like the music, we flow-

This is just the start of an ordinary day, composed of the hours.


Reference:
1. 《世界電影》（World Cinema）2004年2月刊. P180《時刻》
2. 《上影畫報》2003年三月刊. P19《女人的歸宿: 婚姻還是自由》錢亦蕉
3．DVD不完全手冊：精彩影評庫
http://www.mov8.com/movie/review.asp
《——從一天管窺一生(節選) 》 周黎明
《：歲月傷痛，絕望狂流》 子君
4．《中外文化交流》雜誌
http://www.zwwhjl.com.cn/news/3.asp?articleid=268
女性靈魂的隱秘親緣——解讀《歲月如歌》 張 琦


Giant Woo
2005-6-18