I was mesmerized by those old beautiful hands repairing that wonderful bowl. This scene could have been a "Short" all by itself. I also felt the bowl was symbolic of a true love that had been shattered but can still be repaired and end up just as beautiful as it was before. Anyone else agree?
shareTotally agree
beautiful close up on the hands, a story by itself.
That was a beautiful shot! I reckon it was one of the most beautiful and interesting shots in the movie! Nice metaphor too!
I just don't dig on swine, that's all.
I also agree. Very beautiful. Later I wondered if it was an actor playing the role or if this was a real craftsman.
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It's amazing how you can take just about any shot from this film and make a story out of it. I've never seen anything like it. It seems like they hired National Geographic photographers to frame every shot.
Of course he's a real craftsman and I think they had problems to find one still alive in the present. In our current culture when a bowl breaks, we just throw it and buy another one (seems very "logical" but it hasn't been this way in the past), but I love the way this movie shows a different set of values for everything. The bowl has huge value, both material and sentimental. Perhaps they wouldn't have repaired the bowl in other circumstances, but hey, the repairer was available to do it in any case.
Damn, the first moment I noticed this movie was going to be great was when she breaks the bowl: I was in a theater trying (in vain) to contain my tears... for "just" a bowl! That means something. I have to say the music in that moment (with a chinese Er-Hu, a high-pitch two-stringed "violin") was very conditioning me, but...
The second moment was when she loses the hair clip and later she finds it. Again, the movie transmits us a huge value to a quite "cheap" thing. And we all felt it.
That old chipped and stained -- but favorite -- bowl was innocently imbued with and vessel for an innocent, open, generous heart. And the shattering of that heart -- um, "bowl" -- was the very first wound of very first love.
And that compounded by both her inability to catch Changyu, but also the loss of the barrette.
Yes: we've all been there: a thing meaningless to everyone else in the world is in our reality priceless and irreplaceable . . .
Most likely he was a real craftsman, because Zhang Yimou tends to cast stars as the main character, but use real people, locals and such for the rest to give the look of authenticity.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
In the same year Yimou made the film "Not One Less" -- also focused upon education, but with no "professional" actors or actresses at all. (It too is a wonderful film, though obviously a pro-education propaganda or "message" film.)
So Zhang Ziyi, Sun Honglie, and perhaps two others (Di as old and newly widowed, as example) were actual actors. I believe the mayor (as obviously the craftsman), as example, was at least an actual villager, if not actually the mayor (or the Western equivalent).
that's a really neat symbolism for the bowl :) i never thought about that, but it makes a lot of sense.
shareI totally agree. I've seen this movie three times and I'm fascinated by this scene every time.
shareSeems like everyone has taken something from the love bowl :D! Simply great storytelling by how much symbolism this one scene holds; all the dominant themes of hope, love and kinship can be interpreted by the bowl, whole, broken and renewed. It doesn't hurt either that it (like the rest of the film) was beautifully shot. Like most Westerners I believe, I was wholly oblivious to bowls/ceramics being repaired in this manner... so that added an extra oomph to the magic.
Say NO to dubbing. Give IN to subtitles.
This is the magic of Yimou Zhang, to make a simple object carry special meaning.
He did the same thing in "To Live (Huozhe)" on the wooden case, that everything began with it, and ends with it.
Though I don't know that I should tout in my own behalf, see my review of the film on Amazon. Especially but not only as concerns the bowl.
I repair many different things, & I loved watching him use old school methods to repair the bowl. I kept waiting for the glue.
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