Film Name:男与女 / 雪国恋人 / A Man and A Woman
In my opinion, this is a movie with rich and subtle emotional language and extremely layered delivery. Some say that the plot progresses in a cheesy way and that it starts with 47 minutes of inexplicable love, but that’s just the surface.
The man and the woman, who are de-socialized, are naturally attracted to each other, but the paradox is that it is impossible for them to de-socialize. The movie’s delivery of their social identities is vague and wordy, but in this vague delivery is the loneliness and exhaustion of the middle-aged man and woman. Against this depressing backdrop, love is warm but difficult.
The movie has strong enough emotional tension.
The first segment is in Finland, where the snow is quiet and clean. Stepping into a warm sauna after a long walk, the exhausted woman needs rest and release. This time, love is like a sinking, an unknown sinking in an unfamiliar environment, regardless of the consequences.
The second part, the reunion in Korea. She maintains a sense of proportion and distance, he is deeply in love but restrained and gentle, approaching her step by step. There is deep love and distance between the two. She touches his fingertips lightly and moves. But reality interrupts to remind them again and again.
In the third paragraph, there are not many snippets of his life presented, but it is clear that it is a mess. Love is like an outlet in his tired life. It is joy and salvation. “I just want to hear your voice” “Have you had breakfast? I’m hungry” “You’re sitting too far away” Everyday conversations, but the deepest attachment. She ran to the past, with the passion of love, to the fire. Love is entanglement and an escape from the mundane life. She asked what time it was. He wants to see the time, she says it’s best not to know. In a fragment of time and space, it’s just her and him.
In the fourth segment, real life moves from the background of love to the foreground. The reality of the conflict on both sides begins to stand out in all caps. She is torn and sad. He needs to deal with a series of family relationships. She chooses to love openly, but he can’t let go of his responsibilities.
Some say he’s scum, and that perspective is too one-dimensional. I’d say he’s a deep and tender man with too many people to love and care for. His renunciation is exactly the same as letting go of his ego. That tear like the one at the end of the Persian lesson are both extremely restrained but very powerful expressions by the director.
A man’s tears have a deep feeling, but they can’t be unbridled.
What emotional movies need to let go of are the trials of the everyday. Underneath the rules and taboos are the individuals who are full of life, the yearning in the tired loneliness, the warmth and fondness in the coldness.
Another thing to appreciate about this movie is that while holding sympathy for the affair, it doesn’t vilify the other half of the marriage in the usual way; both his and her other halves are flawed, and in fact have something to hold on to. She calls him her brother, and her he will make the child speak out the family’s thoughts along with nursery rhymes. By filming it this way, the director is giving a deeper and more gentle expression of marriage, and the emotions that come with it.
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