「Do we become the way we look? Or do we look the way we really are?」
「If you're thinking, "I must use education for a career," Then you're already thinking of education in the wrong way. Education is a thing in itself. It's a way of fulfilling your potential. Looking for ways of thinking about things, Ways which, if you're lucky will help not just your career, but your whole life.」
「I think the lonely recognize the lonely.」
「You're lonely. All that hope coming out of you, all that cheerful resolution. All that wonderful enlightenment. For what? For nothing. You know it's for nothing. Don't tell me that cheerfulness is real.」
「When you're a boy, you think, "oh, it's so easy". Always wipe the slate and move on. Then, with the years, you find you become a prisoner of dreams. ↓ A girl ran away this morning. ↓ Good luck to her. ↓ Yes. Good luck. ↓ To all our escapes.」
“I only know goodness, and anger, and revenge, and evil, and desire. These seem to me far better words than neurosis, psychology, and paranoia. These old words, these good old words have a sort of conviction, which all this modern apparatus of language now lacks. We bury these words, these simple feelings, we bury them deep. Nor the building over that constitutes this century will not wish these feelings away.” John Morgan
How easy sometimes it is to fake cheerfulness! These good old words shall be respected, as well as one's true feelings too, respected and recognised, not faked nor buried. These words build the fundamentals of humanity, and there is nothing wrong of coming across them, experiencing them, feeling them, deeply. What is hindering us from expressing what we really think and feel? What if death comes and finds us in utter ore? The boy died with contentment, respecting the truth.
Why did he have to kill himself? He brought a gun before he came, obviously it was a planned death with a purpose. What was this purpose? As he was watching from the window the market, the people coming and going getting their shoppings done, what is in his mind? Is it that he could not connect to people? He could not come to terms with the faked cheerfulness and peace. Finally he found his comrade, yet, she shared, but did not want to admit. These mutual feelings electrified them both, especially her. She did not believe such moments existed that when they came, she denied and rejected them. He thought she would be different, but she chose to give in, being part of the prevailing society.
Like Gandhi, death is a non-violent way of him saying NO. Maybe to wake the living up too.
一天一个单身女老师请了一班朋友到他家里吃饭，其中有个叫做约翰莫根的，不知道是谁的朋友，潜入了他们的聚会，然后过了没有两天这个约翰莫根就来到老师家吞枪自杀了，故事围绕着这样一个迷团展开，约翰莫根是谁？他为什么自杀，接着镜头又转到一个就快要奔赴前线的战士和他的女友间，女友不肯和战士结婚，直到战士奔赴战场，在一次游戏中，战士被杀死了，女友独自一人走在飞机场的跑道中，而这时的片段也回到了约翰莫根自杀时的那一枪，也是战士被越南人民杀死的那一幕重合，这已是故事的结尾，当中有许多不可告人的秘密隐藏在这个教师当中，就像电影开头时讨论的尼克松的水门事件，涉及到政治，但是，在政治面前，普通人是普通的，他们孤独，需要爱，在得不到爱的结果就像约翰莫根那样，吞枪，对比下是教师的博爱，他可以和约翰莫根、图书馆朋友的丈夫、警察……发生关系，甚至可以在同学面前吸烟来上好这样一节课，其中有位女学生问老师：“文学有什么用？”“我担心以后毕业找不到工作时。”老师还是用那种老师的语气回答，读书不是为了别人，是为了自己的提升，一切的故事由这样一位孤独的对立面的老师来遐想，或者我们可以看成这部电影是这个语文老师的一部剧本。
「If you're thinking, "I must use education for a career," Then you're already thinking of education in the wrong way. Education is a thing in itself. It's a way of fulfilling your potential. Looking for ways of thinking about things, Ways which, if you're lucky will help not just your career, but your whole life.」
「I think the lonely recognize the lonely.」
「You're lonely. All that hope coming out of you, all that cheerful resolution. All that wonderful enlightenment. For what? For nothing. You know it's for nothing. Don't tell me that cheerfulness is real.」
「When you're a boy, you think, "oh, it's so easy". Always wipe the slate and move on. Then, with the years, you find you become a prisoner of dreams.
↓
A girl ran away this morning.
↓
Good luck to her.
↓
Yes. Good luck.
↓
To all our escapes.」
How easy sometimes it is to fake cheerfulness! These good old words shall be respected, as well as one's true feelings too, respected and recognised, not faked nor buried. These words build the fundamentals of humanity, and there is nothing wrong of coming across them, experiencing them, feeling them, deeply. What is hindering us from expressing what we really think and feel? What if death comes and finds us in utter ore? The boy died with contentment, respecting the truth.
Why did he have to kill himself? He brought a gun before he came, obviously it was a planned death with a purpose. What was this purpose? As he was watching from the window the market, the people coming and going getting their shoppings done, what is in his mind? Is it that he could not connect to people? He could not come to terms with the faked cheerfulness and peace. Finally he found his comrade, yet, she shared, but did not want to admit. These mutual feelings electrified them both, especially her. She did not believe such moments existed that when they came, she denied and rejected them. He thought she would be different, but she chose to give in, being part of the prevailing society.
Like Gandhi, death is a non-violent way of him saying NO. Maybe to wake the living up too.