It's Christmas Eve....
I'm old, it's cold, don't toss, stay at home and watch a movie...
I won't talk about "Love Actually" this year....
Recommend a new film:"Stay-at-School Alliance".
It's not like a 2023 movie, it's more like a story that takes place in the 90s of the last century....
Classical, elegant, subtle and plain.
The whole movie is filled with unobtrusive warmth....
In this vulgar era, it's hard to see such heartwarming movies....
imdb gave it an 81 point....
Douban is only 78 points, only more than 5,000 people participated in the scoring, which is a niche film...
Just look at this poster.
It feels like a 90s movie.
On Christmas Eve 1970, in a boarding high school in the United States, a small incident happened...
There was a 15-year-old middle school student who couldn't go home for the holidays...
You know, Western Christmas is equivalent to our Spring Festival, and not going home for the New Year in the Chinese New Year's Eve is a big deal for a fifteen-year-old boy....
Student Angus is played by Dominic Sesa.
Anyway, the school has a quirky history teacher....
This old man has no relatives, no friends, and no home to go to for Christmas...
Every year, he spends Christmas alone at school....
So, the responsibility of taking care of this child during Christmas fell on this history teacher....
History teacher Paul is played by Paul Giamati.
It just so happened that the chef in the school cafeteria, a black aunt, also had nowhere to go....
That's all....During two weeks of heavy snow in New England, in this old and empty school, three people who were originally out of bounds were forced to join forces for the holidays...
Maybe it's because the colder the weather, the more people crave warmth...
Maybe it's because the closer you get to joy, the more fragile you become...
The three of them gradually open their hearts, share their misfortunes, and realize that none of them are grateful for their past....
silver joy,damien jurado - the holdovers (original motion picture soundtrack)
High school students used to have a happy family....
But my father suffered from a strange illness, mental **, and was imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital....
Parents divorced, mother remarried....
Until this year, his mother didn't even let him come home for Christmas in order to go on vacation with his stepfather...
Or, to put it another way, he doesn't have a home anymore....
The history teacher was a top student when he was young, and he studied at the prestigious Harvard University....
He is withdrawn and suffers from a strange disease: trimethylaminouria (a rare and incurable disease in which the patient's breath, saliva and saliva smell of rotten eggs, rotten fish, feces and garbage smell are present).
As a result, he has an even lower self-esteem and is often ostracized by his classmates and teachers...
In the end, because of a non-existent plagiarism incident, he lost control of his emotions, drove into a classmate who framed him, and was expelled from school....
To make a living, he became a high school history teacher....
Aunt Chef is a black aunt, born in poverty, her husband died early, and she lives with her son....
The reason why she became a cook in this middle school was because she could help her son enroll in this aristocratic high school...
My son's grades are very good and he is admitted to a prestigious school, but his family can't afford to pay for tuition....
The son decided to go to the army, and he said:Hey, Mom, think about the bright side. After I was discharged from the military, I was able to go to college for free under the GI Bill of Rights....
In this way, the son went to the battlefield in Vietnam, and then died there....
In this way, three frustrated people, as if in this ice and snow, formed a temporary small family...
They carefully maintain the hidden pain in their hearts, but they are also tentatively trying to warm each other.
They ended up with a Christmas full of painful memories, tender details, a short but joyful Christmas...
When the dawn of the new year shines on the earth, they must go on their own journey into the unknown...
Although the cold has not dissipated, there is a little warmth left in their hearts, which is enough for them to have the courage to fight against the frost, rain and snow on the road of life...
This"Stay-at-School Alliance".'s narrative rhythm is very slow, and it may be a torment for contemporary audiences who are used to brushing short **....
In other words, this movie gives you a 90s movie-watching experience....
Although it was shot digitally, the director added film-like grain, deep colors, mottled irritability, and a classical soundtrack to the image....
Even the opening credits have a retro feel from the 70s of the last century....
It seems to say: only in those days could there be such characters, such emotions, such kindness and sincerity....
The pleasure of watching the movie comes from the subtle emotional exchange between the three of them.
The contradictions and conflicts that are not intense, the cold humor that makes you smile, and the sudden sadness and warmth...
This movie won't make you laugh out loud, it won't make you cry, it won't shock and anger...
It's like a cup of hot coffee on a cold night, steaming, warming your palms and making you feel at peace and **....
The acting skills of the three main actors are superb, and their performances are meticulous and just right....
The history teacher, Paul Giamati, is my favorite actor, and I was impressed by his "A Cup of Life" many years ago....
"Cup of Wine Life" poster & stills.
He is not good-looking, the top of his head is slightly bald, and he has a beer belly...
Limited by his appearance, Paul has played countless supporting roles, played many big stars, he has played slave traders, rhinoceros people, poor writers and hotel waiters...
Benefiting from his excellent acting skills, he has also played many leading roles, John Adams, the founding father of the United States.
I almost got an Oscar....
But his commercial value has never been recognized by Hollywood, and he can only be trapped in the setting of "a green leaf actor with good acting skills".
Stills from "Twelve Years a Slave".
The Amazing Spider-Man 2" stills.
John Adams poster.
It is worth mentioning.
The second male lead, played by high school student Angus Dominic Sesa ....
The young man is very handsome, and he is still a student at an Ivy League school, and this is the first movie he starred in....
He doesn't look like a newcomer at all, he plays a sensitive, fragile, headstrong, but sentimental frustrated young man....
High-intensity dialogue, close-up close-ups, and a large number of micro-expressions that are magnified dozens of times.
Dominic did a great job of creating this character....
The future is promising....The most touching thing about this movie is that it is a "concrete person-centered" movie....
What do you mean by a "concrete person"?
It's all you and me who want to eat, and pay the mortgage, and ride an electric car to and from work in the cold wind....
The counterpart to "concrete person" is "abstract person"....
For example, the people in the statistics, the people in the grand plans, the "people" in the mouths of the big people, are general, abstract, conceptualized...
Abstract people, who don't breathe, don't eat, don't speak, and don't feel hot or cold, they usually understand the righteousness, don't care about personal gains and losses, and can be moved, motivated, and grateful anytime and anywhere....
I forgot to read a sentence in **:The more you love all human beings, the less you love specific people.
Back to the movie....The films of this era are keen on big productions, grand narratives, filming all mankind, shooting superheroes, and filming the moral high ground that ordinary people can't reach....
In this world, there are more and more films made for "abstract people", and fewer and fewer movies made for "concrete people"...
And "The Alliance to Stay in School" is a movie about "specific people"....
It uses a slice of time, meticulously, honestly, and quietly tells the story of three living people, portraying their complex, subtle, tragic and joyful lives...
In the movie, the history teacher's Christmas gift to the students is a book:Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
We can think of this book as the main theme of this movie....
We need to know....
The author of this book, Marcus Aurelius, was the emperor of the Roman Empire, one of the five most brilliant emperors in the history of the Roman Empire....
But he wrote a philosophical book: this Meditations
Plato wrote in the Republic of Ideals:Only when a philosopher becomes a king, or a king becomes a philosopher, combining political power and philosophical wisdom, can the state be freed from ** and humanity from suffering.
Marcus Aurelius's Meditations is one such philosophical book written by an emperor....
He admired Stoic thought:Live seriously, be independent, restrain desires, remain rational, and accept the arrangement of fate.
In this film, there is a Stoic aesthetic of life....
For example, each of the main characters in the movie has a painful past, but the movie shows those pains in an indifferent way...
There is no heart-rending crying, no over-exaggeration of sadness, no exaggerated anger, no distorted humanity and fierce fighting...
It seems to be saying to the audience:Even if it is a life full of holes, it must be spent indifferently, seriously, and decently. Because, life is fleeting, fate is irreversible, and you can only follow the trend.
As it is written in the Meditations:You have to do everything, say every word, think about everything, as if you were going to lose your life at any moment.
When this post was written, the weather in Guangzhou was cold....
A year of many disasters and hardships is coming to an end...
To the foreseeable level, I don't think next year will be any better...
However, when the "jingle bells" ring, look at the carefree smile on the child's face, when the snow is clear, when the green Christmas tree is full of red lights...
When I was calm, I didn't fast-forward, I didn't double the speed, I didn't rush to watch this old-school new movie...
In my heart, I have more expectations for the future...
On the bookshelf, I flipped out the dusty "Deep Reflections" and turned a page at random...
It reads:When you fall in love with one person, you love all of humanity.
When you know everything in the present, you know everything that is in the primeval period and everything that exists in the future.
Because everything is of the same origin, all of them are of the same kind.