Past, present, future,
Everyone can only walk with you for a while,
Sooner or later, it will be separated.
pass
Special feature of 1905 film network In Fenyang County, Shanxi Province in 1999, Shen Tao, a sunny girl, was sweating heartily in a disco, surrounded by two boys who also liked her: Max Zhang Sheng and Liang Jianjun.
But the identities of two people are very different, one is a miner and the other is a coal mine owner.
This love triangle between a woman and a man turned the two brothers against each other, and Shen Tao was entangled, and the long-term balance would eventually be broken.
In the end, Shen Tao chose Zhang Jinsheng, who was chasing money. When she got married, someone chose a distant place.
The background of two people’s wedding photos has become a prediction of Zhang Jinsheng’s future.
In the past timeline, director Jia Zhangke showed his love view:
at present
In 2014, Zhang Jinsheng, divorced from Shen Tao, was welcomed in Shanghai. He remarried with his son Dollar and started a new life in Shanghai.
Liang Jianjun, who had been working in a coal mine for a long time and was terminally ill, returned to his hometown with his wife and children at the last moment. In desperation, he found Shen Tao to borrow money for treatment.
Middle-aged people are involuntarily standing on the boundary of where will you go. Shen Tao’s father sat quietly at the railway station and went away alone, and he was turned over by all the monks.
Dollar returned to Fenyang to attend the funeral, taking him back to the last place where Grandpa sat and feeling home and affection, life and death.
However, the son of westernization education has changed greatly since childhood, and the mother and son meet and don’t know each other. Shen Tao also knew that he couldn’t stay with him, just gave him the key to the house.
"The big one is the gate, and the small one is the living room. This is your home. You should have a bunch of keys and come back at any time. "
In the current timeline, director Jia Zhangke showed his view of family:
future
In Australia in 2025, Dollar, who can only speak English, has grown up, but he is separated from his father, Max Zhang. He is eager to get out of his father’s control and get "freedom" without even knowing what it means.
At that time, Chinese had become a world language. Dollar came to study in Chinese school and met Mia, a Chinese teacher played by Zhang Aijia.
After the divorce of Mia and her ex-husband, she was also in an unstable state, which happened to connect with Dollar, who entered the rebellious period and wanted to pursue freedom, and they had an unforgettable love.
Dollar, who lacked maternal love since childhood, finally found the essence of love in older Mia.
In the future timeline, director Jia Zhangke showed his world outlook:
From the CD trial in Fenyang, Shanxi Province in 1999, to the iPad that mother and son listened to on the train in 2014, and then to the vinyl record that Mia played for Dollar in 2025, Sally Yeh’s "Treasure" strung together the emotional sustenance and family clues of the characters in the film. In the lyrics, "I can’t bear to lose you, I hope things will always turn around, shake hands and wave goodbye, and I will wait for you all my life in both places." No matter the separation of Shen Tao and his son, or the gathering and parting of roles, it has hit home.
Dollar has been hanging the key given to him by his mother, but he can’t remember his mother’s name, only remembering that her name is Tao, which means wave.
When Dollar gently called out his mother’s name "Tao" in the midsummer on the other side of the ocean, Shen Tao stopped Bao jiaozi’s hand as if telepathically in his hometown of Fenyang, Shanxi.
Old, she slowly walked out of the empty room, and in the snowy winter, she danced "Go West" alone beside Wenfeng Tower, which she danced with Zhang Jinsheng and Liang Jianjun when she was young.
Where will the love between the lost Dollar and Mia go? Will Dollar go home to find his mother who has been waiting for him for the New Year? What will happen to his father-son relationship with Zhang Jinsheng? … …
The director didn’t give an answer, just as Shen Tao asked the question at the beginning of the film:
What is the problem between us?
Algebraic problems?
Or geometry?
From the algebraic problem of time flying, to the geometric problem of spatial distance, people come and go, people go and people return, and everything has no answer.
The mountains and rivers are as old as before, and the river flows east. The mountains and rivers remain the same, so it is difficult for old friends to stay.
As Zhang Yibai said, everyone has their own mountains may depart, and only Jia Zhangke photographed them.
