Chapter 11 European Growing Up Movies (2)

European Growing Up Movies (2) After little Billy returned home, seeing the solemn atmosphere of the whole family and the letter on the dining table, he held his breath, held the letter tremblingly, walked into his small room under the gaze of the whole family, and closed the door.He didn't come out for a long time, and the family got impatient. They pushed open the door and saw little Billy sitting at the table with tears on his face. I passed... The little boy sobbed softly. The camera quickly jumps to a few years later.The grizzled old father sat down solemnly but carefully in the auditorium of the Royal Theater.Backstage staff respectfully and gently put a swan feather on a ballet dancer.

The curtain opened, and against the backdrop of many dancing partners, a soft swan named Billy jumped up like a proud prince.Tears of sadness and pride shone in my father's eyes. The father's love, poverty, dreams, struggles, the tragic fate of the miners and their descendants, and the admiration of art in the bones of Europeans in this growth movie...all show the director's understanding of the poor social level, the status of miners' families and the growth of teenagers. Observe carefully.The skillful technique makes the portrayal of the movie calm but extraordinarily touching: for example, when the family receives a letter, they take a series of cautious reactions and Little Billy’s actions in the process of reading the letter, without cheering or yelling, This delicate and talented child just cried and whispered, I passed...In the background of this kind of painful miner's life, the dream is too extravagant, so that the suffering father and child are accepting it. Sometimes, with tears of mixed feelings, the complexity of emotions can only be expressed in words.The director's handling of these places is really excellent.

It is worth mentioning that Russian coming-of-age films do well among European coming-of-age films.Roland Bekov, the director of the Soviet era, made a movie called "The Ugly".The story of how a little girl lived a life of kindness and forgiveness in the face of bullying by her peers.After the film was released in the Soviet Union, some people clamored to send him to prison on the grounds that the Soviet Union would not have so many selfish and cold bad boys.Omitted from many must-know lists for tastebuds, this film, with its deep morality and restrained, flat melancholy, creates a pre-Thaw masterpiece of Soviet cinema.Without it, Soviet cinema would have been much inferior.Russian films after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, such as "Forever Lilia", etc., also showed the tragic fate of the victimized girl in the family. The rendering was very sensational, but the expression was weakened, and there were even some superfluous idealized compromises at the end (For example, the boy at the end of "Lee" turned into an angel after death).

In 2003, Andrei Zuyakov's "Return" won the attention of the world with its very Russian flavor, and was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film and the Best First Film Award at the Venice Film Festival.The story of two brothers after their lost father returns home unexpectedly.Again a debut novel.It is rare to inherit Tarkovsky's narrative technique and use it skillfully and naturally, and it also deeply reflects the problem of patriarchal responsibility in Russian society.