"What does our ideal love look like?"

In the movie palace, Wu Yuan held the microphone and stood in front of the screen.

He faced more than 1,000 people and film critics who came to watch the movie, and talked eloquently.

"In the ancient saying of our Chinese people, the perfect love should be to hold the hand of the son and grow old with the son, that is, to accompany the child happily until old age."

"Sounds wonderful, doesn't it?"

"However, these poems that praise love only tell us the beauty of growing old together, but they don't tell us what love looks like when it's old."

"Believe me, reality is definitely not as beautiful as poetry."

"This "Love" tells the story of a love when it grows old."

After a brief introduction to the movie, Wu Yuan didn't say too much about other irrelevant topics, and after bowing to all the guests, he walked back to the seats in the first row and sat down.

The lights in the Palais du Cinema fall and the screen lights up.

The still familiar dragon logo and the logo of the era of light and shadow have emerged one after another, and the movie has started directly.

The screen goes dark and lights up again, revealing an apartment door.

With a "duang" sound, the door of the apartment was suddenly slammed open by the outside.

A group of police and firefighters walked in through the door.

A pungent and unpleasant smell made them frown and couldn't help but cover their noses.

The leading plainclothes criminal policeman rushed into the bedroom of the apartment, but saw an old man wearing a decent dress, with his hands in front of his abdomen, lying quietly on a double bed.

It is clear that the old man has passed away.

Her skin had long since shriveled and lost its luster, and all the flowers around her had shriveled and withered.

Just when the audience was wondering about the development of the story, the picture on the screen turned, and the story returned to a year ago.

An old man who was still lying on the bed was a corpse, greeting her husband at the door of the theater.

The old man's name is Caihua, a name with a sense of age.

And her husband doesn't have his full name, but he knows that in the mouths of others, they all call him Lao Zhang.

After Caihua picked up Lao Zhang, the two walked on the side of the street and got on the bus.

In their bland conversation, the audience learned that Caihua and Lao Zhang were a pair of music teachers, and they had just finished listening to the concert held by the students in the capital, and they were still discussing the performance on the bus.

They are over eighty years old, have similar interests, live a well-off life, and spend a fairly long life together.

Although they are no longer as passionate about love as they were when they were young, their dull old age is still wonderful.

Lao Zhang will still praise his wife for being as beautiful as when he was young.

Caihua will also prepare fried river clams for Lao Zhang, who he still can't get tired of eating all his life.

is quite warm, and the love story that accompanies them to old age made many of the audience smile at their aunts, looking forward to themselves and their other half, and they can be like Caihua and Lao Zhang after they grow old, plain but happy.

However, happiness is definitely not the main tone of the film.

After what seemed like a happy day, by the next day, everything started to go wrong.

When eating breakfast, Caihua was still chatting with Lao Zhang normally in the last second, but the next second she was stunned, completely stunned, no matter how Lao Zhang shouted, wiped her face with a wet towel, there was no response.

Frightened, Lao Zhang immediately went to find a mobile phone and called the hospital.

But when he changed his clothes and went back to the kitchen to take Caihua to the doctor, Caihua returned to normal, as if nothing had happened just now.

Lao Zhang was very angry, thinking that Caihua was making fun of him, but when Lao Zhang questioned her, Caihua was at a loss, and she didn't even realize that her neckline was soaked with tea.

Lao Zhang didn't dare to be careless, he knew that at their age, death would take them away at any time.

At Lao Zhang's insistence, Caihua still followed him to the hospital.

The film was shown here and came to an abrupt halt.

Wu Yuan did not continue to put his perspective on seeking medical treatment, diagnosis, hugging headaches and crying, entering the operating room, and all kinds of straightforward sensational routines like most movies.

It's just a camera switch, and several workers enter Lao Zhang and Caihua's home and change a bed that can be folded up and down for them.

Lao Zhang used a wheelchair to push the colorful flowers back home.

Their daughter, who is also working in music education, also rushed home.

As the father and daughter sat face-to-face in the living room, the audience knew what was going on between the short shots.

Caihua was diagnosed with carotid embolism, and the operation had a 95% chance of success, but she just bumped into the 5% failure and ended up paralyzed.

Caihua, who has lived a decent life all her life, is really a little unable to accept her current half-body failure.

Lao Zhang was also a little embarrassed, and he didn't know how to face the colorful flowers that had always been arrogant, but now he even needed to be fed with water.

"I don't want to go to the hospital anymore, it's not a good place." Caihua's tone was low, but extremely firm.

Lao Zhang, who wanted to refute, only sighed when the words came to his mouth.

So far, Lao Zhang has become the exclusive nurse of Caihua.

He worked tirelessly to help Caihua switch between the wheelchair and the bed, help her wipe her body with a towel, wash her hair, go to the toilet, change her underwear, and read bedtime reading.

In order to be able to take care of Caihua inch by inch, Lao Zhang can only deliver his daily purchases at home to friends who live next door.

It's just that this also made Lao Zhang unknowingly, along with Caihua, trapped in this small apartment.

The little happiness and joy in their lives have also been pulled and wiped out in the pain and suffering of life.

Caihua gradually changed from an elegant and generous little old lady to an irritable, impulsive, and emotionally unstable patient.

Caihua has always been very mindful of being treated as a patient by others, and she desperately wants to forget about it.

But countless voices from the outside world reminded her all the time that she was a patient, a poor person who had lost most of her mobility.

One day, Lao Zhang, who attended a friend's funeral, returned home, only to find his wife sitting in front of the open windowsill, her expression revealing panic and grievance.

Lao Zhang saw what was happening at a glance, but he didn't say anything, just helped his wife back to the wheelchair.

He and Caihua recounted some interesting things that happened at the funeral, hoping that she would be happier.

But Caihua kept muttering in her eyes, "Let me die"

"There's no reason to live anymore."

"My physical condition is only going to get worse."

"Let's end this with dignity while it's okay now."

But Lao Zhang didn't think so, he retorted excitedly, he didn't feel tortured, he didn't have any opinion on taking care of Caihua, but felt that it was a happy thing.

If he was sick, wouldn't Caihua take care of him like this?

But in Caihua's eyes, she wanted to die not to reduce Lao Zhang's burden, but to get her own relief.

Caihua, who has always been elegant and decent, really can't accept the current self who is almost incapacitated.

Living in such humiliation made her feel more tormented than death.

Just seeing Lao Zhang's loving eyes, she understood Lao Zhang's thoughts, and for Lao Zhang, she thought in her heart, "Then try to live well." ”

She insisted on practicing walking, holding on to meet with students who came to visit her, and facing the trivial things of life.

During this period, her daughter and granddaughter also came to visit her, and even her daughter had many quarrels with Lao Zhang because of her illness.

But apart from being a bystander, her daughter didn't really help the elderly couple.

It's not even as good as her teenage granddaughter, at least when her granddaughter comes to visit Caihua, she will bring her some of her best pastries.

For Lao Zhang, his life is not easy.

Not only does he need to always pay attention to Caihua's behavior, but he is always ready to take care of Caihua, who has difficulty moving, but in this repetition day after day, his attitude towards Caihua has also begun to be a little impatient.

Love is gradually consumed in the torment of birth, old age, sickness and death.

Sadness and despair poured towards Lao Zhang like a tide, and Caihua's capricious emotions and the desperate future that could be seen at a glance made Lao Zhang feel suffocated.

It was as if he was locked in this small apartment, and his depressing life took his breath away.

In the screening room, more than 1,000 people fell silent as the story was screened.

When the beautiful coat of love is peeled off, what is left is always a messy and cruel reality.

Most movies about love are about the beautiful side of love, romantic, beautiful, and romantic.

But what does real love look like?

When marriage comes to an end, it is not about living together and supporting each other, but also about knowing and cherishing each other after the decay of the body, and the courage to accompany each other to death.

There is no filial son at the head of the bedside for a long time.

Death is not scary, death is only a momentary thing.

What really tortures people is the horror of Caihua's inability to take care of herself, and the torture of life will be in her body, tormenting her day after day, torturing the people who love her, and making people unable to survive and die.

Many of the guests have already guessed what the ending of the movie will look like.

And just as they guessed.

Caihua's condition is getting worse and worse, and she has been delirious for a while, and she only has a few minutes to an hour or two of wakefulness a day.

Caihua, who has experienced all this, is already like a stagnant water, and she no longer wants to live in the world like this.

But she lost her mobility, and she couldn't even make her own decisions about death.

She told Lao Zhang what she wanted by closing her lips, refusing to eat, and even spitting out the water that Lao Zhang had fed her.

But Lao Zhang didn't want his wife who had been with him for most of his life to die like this, so he was angry and slapped Caihua angrily when she refused to feed her again.

This slap hit Caihua's face, but it also hit Lao Zhang's heart.

To live like this, is it love for his wife?

He collapsed weakly in front of the window of Caihua, hugging his head and crying.

"I knew that one day it would all end."

"But until then, I will not be able to share your pain, nor will I be able to end it."

"I can only feed you, drink water, and change diapers day after day."

"But this makes life worse than death, is this love?"

The entire audience in the screening room fell silent.

Not only love, but also in family affection, many people have also faced such a choice.

Is it to let the relatives be full of tubes, and life is better than death, even if it can only live a few more days, or face death calmly?

Is it really out of "love" that chooses the former?

Is this love really what the person who is lying on the hospital bed and dying, and life is worse than death, wants?

No one knows the answer.

On the big screen, on a bright morning, Lao Zhang told Caihua a story from his childhood and calmed her restless emotions, he reached out and picked up the pillow next to him and covered her face.

Caihua let out a muffled snort in surprise, and her body subconsciously struggled, but she couldn't hold back the scream and swallowed the muffled snort back.

Lao Zhang's entire upper body was pressed on the pillow, crying bitterly.

Instead of letting your lover live in such a painful and torturous world, it is better to follow her wishes and let her simply go to another world.

Lao Zhang, who has been with Caihua all his life, made this painful decision.

When all the struggles subsided, he dressed neatly as usual, and went out to buy a bouquet of flowers for his lover.

An elegant woman, even if she dies, she must be elegant.

Lao Zhang changed into her favorite purple dress and neatly spread the beautiful flowers beside the colorful flowers.

After doing all this, he walked into the study with a smile, wrote a suicide note seriously, took a whole bottle of sleeping pills, and lay on the folding bed in the study with a smile.

I don't know how long it was, until he heard the sound of washing dishes outside, got up from the little bed, and staggered out.

Caihua was busy washing dishes in the kitchen as usual, she turned around and smiled at Lao Zhang: "Quickly change your shoes, it's time for us to go out." ”

Lao Zhang, as usual, obediently walked to the entrance and changed his shoes, helped Caihua put on a coat, and put on a coat for himself, happily followed behind Caihua, and went out together.

Vaguely, you can hear Lao Zhang Le's laughter: "You go first, and I'll follow later." ”

Yes, no matter where he goes, Lao Zhang can keep up with Caihua every time.

This time, of course, is no exception.

This is the end of the movie.

The lights in the Palais de l'Cinema came on, followed by overwhelming applause and faint sobbing.

"I love the story, it's so true."

"It's too real, it's too heavy, like the things we've been afraid to face, but we have to face."

"It's still what Daniel is best at, minimalist narrative, head-up perspective, pseudo-documentary style, but it feels real and powerless."

"Aging, dying, sickness, loneliness, the last things we want to experience in life, the hidden pain that we know but don't talk about, are put on the screen by Daniel wu, and the cruelty is even worse."

"No one can escape aging and death, we will all face all this, isn't life crueler than movies?"

The film critics quickly jotted down their first thoughts after watching the movie in the notebooks they carried with them.

There is no doubt that this is another very "Wu Yuan style", minimalist, real and cruel movie.

But it's definitely a good movie, isn't it?

"A really good movie." Gilles Jacob stepped forward and hugged Wu Yuan hard, "Especially for us old people, uncovering the one thing we have the least courage to face. ”

"Death."

"The filming technique is like a documentary, and the simple, down-to-earth, calm and powerful style is not like that of a young man in his early twenties."

"But that's your unique cinematic aesthetic."

Compared with Gilles Jacob's praise, the other members of the jury were concise and to the point, and a few even just nodded and said hello to Wu Yuan before politely leaving the venue.

The festival has a policy that the jury cannot publicly discuss any of the films shortlisted for the main competition until all the awards have been announced.

However, the on-site house catalogue and the film critics from all over the world gathered in Cannes can speak freely.

The night after the Cannes premiere of "Love", it received good reviews from the media.

The next day, the house magazine was updated, and "Love" temporarily ranked first in all the main competition units that have been scored with a comprehensive score of 3.25.

This will be Wu Yuan's turn to be anxious.

With such a high score from the house magazine, the judges don't really want to do against the house magazine, right?

(End of chapter)