Chapter 1,607 Those chaotic time, space and people
After the release of the movie "Trapped in Time," searches for Alzheimer's disease soared.
Many people have heard about Alzheimer's disease, know that this disease is not rare among the elderly, know that it is a disease that is still incurable, and know that it is difficult to treat such patients.
But I know it, but I don’t know why.
Some netizens answered: "The main manifestation is memory impairment. The first thing that appears is short-term memory loss. People often forget daily things and some commonly used items. As the disease progresses, long-term memory loss can occur, that is, for
The forgetfulness of things and people that have happened for a long time will also show personality disorders. After further development, patients will have logical thinking, reduced comprehensive analysis ability, repetitive speech, and obvious visual-spatial disorders. Some patients may also have more obvious visual-spatial disorders.
Behavioral and mental abnormalities. As the disease progresses, there may also be apathy, inability to complete simple daily tasks, paralysis of the limbs, and eventually death due to complications!”
As film critic Zhou Qingquan wrote in his analysis of the movie "Father Trapped in Time".
"Watching this movie, the first thing everyone needs to understand is that the perspective of the movie is from the perspective of his father, an 83-year-old man suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Everything you see is
, are all the "reality" in the father's eyes or mind. These "reality" present a chaotic and broken timeline and logic in the film, allowing us to witness the stories overlapping on different timelines, and the dialogue content scattered in various spaces.
, the characters that appeared were contrary to their original images, and even the story scenes were changed at the end...
There is a huge tear and reconstruction of time and space in this film, and all this is because of Alzheimer's disease - a disease known as the "fourth largest killer" in developed countries, with the number of people suffering from the disease increasing worldwide.
More than 50 million people suffer from geriatric diseases.
Judging from the description of this disease, it can be predicted that if you want to shoot a movie with Alzheimer's disease patients as the narrative protagonist, how many scenes from different times and spaces will be constructed, and the multiple narratives of time and space will inevitably
It causes visual confusion and discomfort to the audience, which places great demands on the director's narrative skills. The good news is that this film not only successfully created a complete and profound story!
So let's discuss and analyze, what techniques does the director use to create this sense of chaos? How does he organize the plot reasonably and finally reach a level that the audience can accept and appreciate?
First of all, it is not difficult to find that there are many recurring characters in the movie, but they represent different people in Anthony's perception.
This is actually a way of breaking up the character's image and characteristics.
Daughter Anne - the nursing home nurse Catherine; eldest daughter Anne - the younger daughter Lucy; son-in-law James - the nursing home doctor Bill; care worker Laura - the nursing home nurse Catherine; younger daughter Lucy - the care worker Laura, Paul - James, among them the daughter Anne - the nurse Catherine
—Nurse Laura forms a closed loop!
Of course, there are also inconsistencies in the identity of the characters. For example, when Anne was looking for the next caregiver for her father and interviewed the new caregiver Laura, her father woke up and found that the decorations in the apartment had changed, and at the same time, the new caregiver Laura and a strange son-in-law appeared.
, the son-in-law beat his father mercilessly, the father sobbed, and the daughter came to comfort him!
In these two scenes, the father told Laura that he was a dancer and a circus employee respectively, but his daughter Anne said that he was actually an engineer!
Before, her father showed a hobby of drinking tea, but in Catherine’s final description, her father’s hobby changed to coffee!
The changes in the characters are the most visual impact on the audience. The changeable attributes not only play a role in creating chaos, but also play an important role in the connection of the plot. Through these, we can figure out the director's intention, so as to alternate timelines.
Grasp the clues to the truth.
The second is to break the timeline, break the linear narrative structure, and use flashbacks and interludes to increase the sense of suspense!
I believe everyone still remembers the first scene. In the first scene, the daughter told her father that she had been divorced for many years, and now she met her sweetheart and wanted to move to Paris. However, after that, Anne and her husband lived together again, obviously not divorced; when seeing a doctor,
Anne denied that she was going to Paris, but she clearly explained her intention to move to Paris at the very beginning; similarly, from Anne's description later, it can be seen that the order of medical treatment should be before getting sick and before eating dinner.
This is the director breaking up the complete story and presenting it scattered on different timelines.
At the same time, a multi-line narrative is used in the same scene. In the first scene, first the daughter Anne rushes to the apartment to ask her father why he wanted to get rid of the third caregiver, and then she tells her father in the study that she wants to move to Paris.
, but it is impossible for these two plots to appear at the same time! - The father drove away the third caregiver before moving into his daughter's son-in-law's home, but the daughter moved to Paris many years after her divorce;
Similar to the later scene, the father who had just been talking to his daughter turned around and found that her daughter was missing. Laura appeared with tea and told him that Anne had gone out long ago. Then the son-in-law came to question the father again.
How long does it take to be annoying here, but from the previous plot, we know that the day of the conversation with the daughter was the day after the interview with Laura, and the day when the son-in-law reprimanded his father, Laura had not yet come to work, so the two could not appear at the same time.
superior!
Here, I have to say that the director very cunningly assembled stories that happened at different times and put them in the same coat to confuse the public; his high level of control over the transition shots between different plots further enhances our understanding.
Difficulty.
After talking about time, let’s talk about the shattered space.
Constructing different story elements in the same space: quietly changing the composition elements in the space is usually the best thing for suspense film directors, and it is also the fun of movie fans who are obsessed with finding differences.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! It is not difficult for attentive viewers to find that the grandfather clock at the door of the apartment in the first scene turns into a black cabinet in the back.
Lucy's painting, which was originally hanging in the living room, disappeared later.
It has the same exterior layout as an apartment, but when you open the door, it turns out to be a hospital!
The painting on the postcard Anne sent to her father appears on the kitchen wall in the back, and the layout of her father's bedroom is consistent with that of a nursing home.
The same dialogue recurs in different scenes: "How long are you going to be annoying here?"
"everything fine?"
Wait, wait, it can be said that the director must have done it deliberately, but it has to be said that this is indeed a very smart and ingenious arrangement.
Because of Anthony's obsession with his home, his memory began to become spatially confused.
Then, of course, the logical chain is broken!
Many scenes in the movie are echoes, but they keep creating seemingly inconsistent facts!
Earlier in the movie, when Annie was on the phone, she said that her father did not recognize her in the past few days. At the same time, she only talked to Laura on the phone and had not yet met. But looking back, you will find that the interview with Laura and her father did not recognize her daughter who rushed home on the same day.
What happened is that the facts are contradictory.
And the narrative structure is also perfect.
The director used storyboards and different narrative angles to create a "Mobius strip" narrative cycle: (Father's perspective) The father heard an argument in the corridor - his daughter asked him to eat - left to get chicken during the meal - (couple's perspective) The couple got into an argument
—Seeing his father standing in the corridor—asking him to eat. The Möbius strip narrative structure has been tried and tested in film and television dramas in recent years. The main reason is that it breaks the conventional logic, enriches the characters, and then triggers deeper thinking.
.
Of course, in the real world, we certainly know that infinite loops cannot exist, and the director also understands: comparing the changes in the dining table in the shot of his father entering the house twice, the first time the three plates on the dining table were empty, and there was only one wine glass filled with wine.
At the second dinner table, there was leftover food on the plate and two wine glasses filled with wine. This shows that the fact only happens once and there is no cycle!
Breaking the logical chain does not mean random editing. We all know that a messy farce cannot keep the audience watching, just like a secret room game without clues has no meaning. The seemingly messy layout in the film is actually hidden.
The keys and clues to the puzzle can help us clarify the truth step by step.
So here comes the question, the exit from confusion—how to make it clear to the audience?
First, we need to sort out the normal timeline.
The eternal theorem of suspense films is that the truth is hidden in the lines of supporting characters, so the movie actually contains a lot of information through the dialogue and descriptions of characters other than the father.
Do you still remember the scene where Paul appeared to comfort the injured Anne, but the father became suspicious of the strange son-in-law, leading to verbal friction between the two?
In this scene, Laura appears, and Laura asks if it’s too early to come? It means that Laura’s interview time is in the morning, and Annie and her husband mentioned the day’s schedule, which means that after interviewing Laura that day, she went to
Saw a doctor!
In this scene, Anne and her husband talk about buying chicken, and there is a scene later in which Anne is shopping in the supermarket and receives a call from her husband, followed by a conversation about eating chicken for dinner. From this, we can see that the reasonable sequence is: in the evening, her father becomes ill——
The son-in-law called Anne from the supermarket to buy chicken. When Anne came back, her father didn’t know her. Let’s have chicken together for dinner!
In the previous conversation between her daughter and Laura, she mentioned that her father once lived by himself.
The conversation with the two sons-in-law corresponds to the first scene of the film when the daughter asks her father why he left Angela in anger. We know that the father later moved into his daughter's house!
Explain that when the father moved into his daughter’s house, his daughter’s son-in-law had been married for 10 years!
In the end, Anne told her father that she was going to Paris. This echoes from beginning to end, corresponding to the chat between the daughter and her father in the first scene. It is very subtle and also explains that the daughter sent him to a nursing home shortly after the father moved to her daughter's home!
In the second act, the new Anne says she was divorced five years ago!
Corresponding to the previous article, Anne said that she met a man and wanted to move to Paris with him, which means that she moved to Paris at least 5 years after the divorce!
At the same time, the movie also uses a lot of symbolic hints!
First up is the clock!
In the play, the father attaches great importance to time. Every time he loses consciousness, he has to look for a watch. The watch is his source of security. When the watch on his wrist keeps disappearing, it also shows that the father's memory is constantly declining.
At the same time, the "time chime" that "accidentally" appears in the play is also one of the clues we can use to solve the mystery:
In the first scene, after Anne arrived at the apartment, the time on the grandfather clock at the door showed 6:45. When she entered the room to chat with her father, the father turned on his watch and told his daughter that it was 5 o'clock, implying that the two stories happening here should be at different times.
Point to point – the father has not yet moved into his daughter’s home and divorced her after many years!
Later, in the scene where the father has breakfast, pay attention to the clock on the wall. It is just after 9 o'clock, and then Laura appears. Combined with the fact that Laura came and asked if she came too early, it means that Laura arrived at the interview yesterday.
9 o'clock!
Anne was out shopping and rushed back after receiving a call from her husband. She noticed the clock on the wall of the supermarket: 5:30 pm - indicating the time when her father became ill in the second act.
The father suspected that his new son-in-law had stolen his watch. During the conversation, the son-in-law revealed that it was almost 8 o'clock - indicating the time when the dinner took place.
There are also umbrellas and bags!
First, the daughter returned to the apartment while making a phone call. She revealed on the phone that she had not seen Laura yet. Then the camera cut to the father lying in bed and heard the doorbell. Then the daughter went to open the door to greet Laura. This transition was very useful.
It's wonderful, one would think that the daughter's phone call and the meeting with Laura were preceded and followed, but by comparing the details of the objects in the apartment, one can know that these two scenes took place at different times.
And my father's clothes.
The father usually wears pajamas or sweaters, and only puts on a suit when going out. But in the second scene, the father was wearing a suit while making tea in the kitchen, indicating that he had been out before. Then it happened that the father did not recognize his son-in-law, and the son-in-law called.
The plot of Annie's return, and after combining it, we can know that the father was wearing a suit when he went to the hospital that day, which explains that the father became ill after seeing the doctor!
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! Based on the above, we can summarize the plot on the normal timeline:
About 10 years after her daughter Anne's marriage, her father Anthony suffered from Alzheimer's disease and his temper became erratic. After driving away three caregivers, Anne took him into her and her husband's apartment to take care of him and began to look for a new caregiver, but her father
Her condition became increasingly serious, and she could not even recognize her relatives. Her stubborn character also caused harm to her daughter's family. After discussing with her husband, Anne finally sent her father to a nursing home. Time passed, and five years after her daughter's divorce, she met a man.
They were preparing to move to Paris to live with him, but the father and daughter separated. However, due to the aggravation of his illness, his father was trapped in the confusion between memory and reality and was unable to escape.
The most core plot happened on the same day and included multiple scenes. The story goes like this: Not long after her father moved into her daughter’s home, Annie contacted the new caregiver Laura and made an appointment to meet the caregiver Laura at 9 a.m. that day.
After an unpleasant encounter, Anne accompanied her father to the hospital for medical treatment. Around 5:30 p.m., her father became ill while making tea and could not recognize her son-in-law in the house. Even her daughter, who rushed back through the phone, could not connect to the phone.
He didn't recognize it, and then his confused father suspected that the strange son-in-law had taken his watch. The son-in-law couldn't bear it and hit back at his father. At 8 o'clock, his daughter prepared chicken for dinner. At the dinner table, the couple had a dispute over the issue of his father's adoption. The father behaved abnormally.
, the condition became more and more serious.
Regarding characters, Lucy's paintings appear many times. One is to explain the background and pave the way for Lucy's death later. The other is to express the relationship between his father and his eldest daughter Anne: his father has always emphasized that he likes his youngest daughter best. She is a painter and dazzling.
, likes to cling to him and call him little daddy, but Anne, who is not smart in the eyes of her father and wants to seize his father's property, calls him the same title gently when comforting him - the person his father loves most is actually always by his side.
Later, Anne told her father that only Lucy's paintings hung in his original apartment, which also confirmed that her father's memory of his two daughters was biased.
Doctor Bill and Nurse Catherine.
At the end of the film, it is revealed that the new son-in-law and new daughter who appeared previously are, in reality, the doctor Bill and the nurse Catherine in the nursing home. We finally discovered that the people and objects appearing in the father's memory are related to his current situation: the past apartment-nursing home.
, daughter Anne - nurse Catherine, son-in-law James - doctor Bill, former nurse Laura - the little daughter in the bedside photo.
