爱情生活

《爱情生活》是一部以当代日本为背景的电影，讲述了妙子和她的丈夫二郎以及他们的儿子敬太的故事。故事开始，妙子的生活平静而幸福，直到一场悲惨的事故将多年未见的敬太的生父朴带回了她的生活中。朴是一位聋哑人，无家可归。妙子决定帮助他，以弥补自己内心的痛苦和内疚。她开始与朴建立起一种特殊的关系，通过手语与他交流。随着时间的推移，妙子发现自己对朴产生了特殊的感情，开始怀疑自己与丈夫之间的关系是否真的幸福。然而，妙子也深知自己的家庭和儿子是她生命中最重要的一部分，她不愿意伤害他们，因此她选择了放弃自己内心的爱情，继续过着婚姻和家庭的生活。这部电影通过展现妙子内心的挣扎和选择，揭示了现代社会中人们在爱情和婚姻之间所面临的困惑和抉择，同时也让观众思考自己的内心真正渴望的是什么。电影以细腻的画面和真实的情感打动了观众，让人们对爱情和家庭有了更深入的思考。这是一部感人至深的电影，值得一看。

（在letterboxd上用英文和中文混着写的，懒得翻译了，反正电影本身就是关于语言和语言之间的距离的，那就不翻译了。）

Favorite scene - Taeko sitting in the tub, naked, submerged in water, with Park sitting outside of the tub next to her. That was a really tender scene. Also the scene when it was earthquake and Taeko went to protect the last game that her son played. 那个残局的fragility真的很让人印象深刻。

The ending could have been better.... Could have ended with the scene of Taeko standing in the rain at the wedding, with her back turned so that there’s also a distance inserted between us and her. 又是一部电影关于untranslatability, alienation, 以及self 和other之间的ontological distance。 说同一种语言的人和人之间的距离，说韩语与说日语，言语表达和手语（这里的距离让我觉得很神奇，这个距离不只是来自于会不会打手语，而是“打”和“说“之间的一个fundamental difference。一个是language based的语言，一个加入了身体，动作，力度，表情，好像更加affective），能听见和不能听见（比如婚礼那里其他人在随着音乐跳舞时Park无法跟随节奏一起摇摆），还有文化和文化之间的距离，等等等等。除此之外还有比较meta的我们作为观众和电影角色的距离（不知道在想什么，没法access她看到的），因为字幕的缺失而有的距离。通过语言和语言的untranslatability导演想要指向人和人之间的ontological distance，self和other之间的gap必须会是一个鸿沟，是空白，然后问题便是到底该怎么看待这个distance？似乎导演的结论是需要make peace with that gap，love生长于这个空白之中（并非是一种romanticized love），这是他想要表达的，但我觉得结尾并没有很好地carry out这之中的subtlety，而只是用“回归了某种平淡的生活”替代。

Also - Apparently its not a female director & not from a female perspective, even though the main character is female and the director seems to have made the effort to 'touch on' certain female perspective..... Welp. The alienation that he attends to is more of a 'gender neutral' alienation.

But that scene at night, when the shadow of Park's hand doing sign language being cast onto the wall under the moonlight/streetlight. That was beautiful, and so sad. :( I cried multiple times in this film, not because of the film text itself but cuz that alienation because of language and cultural differences is too familiar to be true. Even if we speak the same language, even if we speak the same native language. 爱的确生长于这个距离和空白之中，对他者的爱与对于自我和他者之间的距离的焦虑/恐惧/悲伤交织在一起，这种‘爱’并非浪漫里的爱，这种爱感觉也是synonymous with ethics，这是一种ethical relationship with the Other. Idk, 至少for now我不想deny这种爱的核心对我来说是某种悲伤，but still we can make peace with it no? To appreciate that gap.

One final thought - drive my car, decision to leave, love life. Why films I watched recently all have this theme of untranslatability lol. Oh also that gap between languages, in the words that cannot be translated/meanings lost in translation, it opens up an interesting space in between. A space of much potential! Sign language & body is also another thing can be more explored.