the decision to leave: before losing the identities of wife and mother
2024-09-20
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what kind of movie would it be if nearly 90% of its audience were women?
lighthouse professional edition
to be fair, this movie is not very well made. the director tells a story almost "straightforwardly", with some exaggeration and adjustments to the details.
even so, the female realism film "determination to run away" (starring yongmei and jiang wu), adapted from a true story, also scored 8.6, becoming the highest-rated new film on douban during the mid-autumn festival, although its box office has just exceeded 50 million yuan.
but it is enough. the life of too many women in this world, just telling it in a straightforward manner, is enough to make people sigh. "jiang wu is not as good as my husband," said an audience member.
one
the film is adapted from su min's story. in 2020, she, who was over 50 years old, became famous for a self-driving tour without looking back.
the film’s heroine is played by yongmei, whose character’s name is even more ordinary: li hong.
li hong was a good student and wanted to go to college. but she had a younger brother, and in a "traditional family" that favored boys over girls, it was natural for an older sister to sacrifice for her younger brother. her father didn't even need to ask for her consent before he processed the procedures for her to drop out of school.
li hong swallowed her tears and started working early. she wanted to leave her original family. in that era, the most convenient and practical way was to jump into another family, a small family after marriage.
however, there are new troubles in the new family. the stingy husband (played by jiang wu) would check the accounts with li hong every day, and would calculate the amount of vegetables and tofu. in front of relatives and friends from his hometown, he would yell at her to cook a few more dishes, and when he had earned enough face and the guests left, he would turn around and complain about li hong's "waste".
she endured it and did almost all the housework, plus she could find some odd jobs. in the movie, li hong even accepted to get up in the middle of the night to sweep the streets, just to earn some money of her own, even though some of this money would be taken away by her husband - whether it was the prototype character or the protagonist of the movie, "her" spouse insisted on the aa system for daily expenses.
finally, my daughter xiaoxue grew up, got a job, and got married. her son-in-law is much better than her husband and can basically respect his wife's feelings. but when she wanted to go to chengdu to attend a class reunion, she had to put it off because she had to take care of her daughter who was about to give birth. this society has long believed that taking care of children is a natural thing for women, no matter whether they are young or old.
li hong continues to wait, waiting for her two little grandchildren to go to kindergarten. then, she can get some time back for herself.
during this period, she learned about self-driving tours and felt "instantly struck" and made up her mind to take the driver's license test. the daughter supported her mother's decision, but she also had to take leave frequently to take care of the children while her mother was learning to drive - the children's father had to go to work, and the children's grandfather had to go fishing and play table tennis. not long after, xiaoxue was "eliminated from the bottom" by the company.
although xiaoxue worked hard to find a new job, in order to gain a firm foothold, she had to devote herself to work. for this, she had to continue to hope that her mother would not leave and help her for another two years.
li hong's wait seems endless. she is such a "useful" worker, who would be willing to let her "lay off"? in the family, women's contributions are endless.
like in many movies, the protagonist could never wait for the best time to realize his wish, and finally chose the "worst" time: on a cold winter night, during the epidemic when many roads were closed, li hong threw her luggage into the trunk and drove away.
perhaps there is never a best time. as long as she sets out, that moment is the best time.
two
compared with li hong, sun dayong, played by jiang wu, has always had a life "of his own", and he never neglects any hobbies. while waiting for the meal to be served, he can even spare some time to blame li hong, who is busy from morning till night: "you are just lazy!"
yes, an old man who does nothing criticizes his wife who is too tired to straighten her back for being lazy, and shouts loudly, "i know more than you!"
this accusation is jaw-dropping, like seeing someone say to a white dove: why are you blacker than a crow?
even more suffocating than this accusation is the sentence that almost choked the audience to death, "you know what you want."
yes, if we were to choose the most infuriating scene in "determination to run away", it would have to be the scene where sun dayong commented on li hong's motives for helping her daughter take care of the child in a sarcastic tone: "you know what you are after."
at that moment, i'm afraid all the audience in front of the screen wanted to know: what is she trying to do?
li hong also screamed and repeatedly asked: what do you think i want? ! but the answer she got was always like a boomerang, hitting her in the face every time she asked - don't you know it yourself?
in short, it is impossible to tell you because the answer does not exist at all.
but repeatedly throwing the boomerang of "you figure it out yourself" like this is really a vicious and harmful move. it drives the extremely aggrieved woman crazy in grief and anger, and she wants to reach into the heart of the scoundrel opposite her, pull out his so-called excuses, and unfold them bit by bit.
but in the movie, li hong raised the knife madly and ended up stabbing herself in the chest.
of course, there are also tear-jerking moments, moments full of hope, between the mother and daughter in the film. xiaoxue, who indirectly lost her job because of supporting her mother's driving lessons, hid in the bathroom in tears. li hong followed silently in.
xiaoxue stopped sobbing, raised her face from the sink, and asked her mother softly: can you show me your driver's license?
li hong showed it to her daughter with pride but a little uneasiness, and then said to xiaoxue: "one day, mom will take you around the world."
at that moment, the small, dark bathroom seemed to become brighter. at that moment, they were no longer mother and daughter, but two women who owned the entire universe even if they were trapped in a nutshell.
good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere. many road movies are fascinating because the future that was originally extended in imagination has a physical form: a road that can be walked forever.
keep going and don't look back.
iii
"determination to run away" is not a road movie. when li hong starts driving on the road, the film is approaching its end. most of the narrative in the film can be regarded as "foreshadowing", which is completely necessary.
through the detailed description of li hong's first half of her life, we are able to understand her determination to leave.
this determination is not deliberate, but involuntary. only those who have experienced deep pain and despair, but still have the courage to get rid of the darkness, can touch the root of this motivation with their hearts.
the prototype of the heroine, su min, once said in her autobiography: "i have decided in my heart that i must leave this time... i can't live like this anymore."
on april 4, 2020, 99-year-old rao pingru passed away in shanghai. at the age of 87, he missed his late wife mao meitang so much that he painted their love story one by one and added text to express his sorrow.
these affectionate memories with pictures and texts were named "china's most beautiful book" in 2013 after publication, and rao pingru himself appeared on cctv many times because of that "fairy love". by the time of his death, the book had sold more than 200,000 copies and had been translated into english, spanish, french, korean, italian, dutch and other languages.
in march 2018, the spanish version of "pingru meitang" was published, and the local media sent an interview outline to rao pingru. he responded in full handwritten english.
rao pingru's handwritten english reply
in answering the question about "creative motivation", rao pingru wrote: "i didn't choose to write this book. in fact, i was compelled to do so."
he capitalized the two english words "choose" and "forced" to emphasize the "involuntary" impulse.
on september 23, 2020, 56-year-old su min drove out of the underground garage and onto the highway, driving faster and faster until she left zhengzhou. she temporarily left behind her identities as a mother, wife, and grandmother. at that moment, she was just a woman on the road alone.
the impulse that drove her to leave the first half of her life and the impulse that made rao pingru use paper and pen to review the past half of her life were equally strong and equally compulsive: if she didn't do so, it would be unbearable.
picture from su min's weibo @50岁阿姨自驾游
as long as the heart is not dead and the soul is still breathing, the yearning for freedom and the attachment to loved ones will eventually break out from the pressure of life and the obstruction of time, rush to the tip of the pen, and rush onto the steering wheel.
red star news reporter qiao xueyang editor su jing
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