"When I was young, I was a left-behind child at home. After finally growing up, I came to a big city to work hard, selling houses to others, but I became an empty-nest youth. In a few years, I I don’t know if I will become an anxious middle-aged person, and finally end up as a lonely old man..."
The above sentence was written on WeChat with a friend of mine who is a real estate salesperson in Beijing. During the chat, he sent it to me in language, and here it is translated into words. The negative energy contained in it still makes people feel desperate.
In a city like Beijing, selling a house seems to be something that comes easily. A commission of several thousand or tens of thousands for a house seems good. But in fact, for those project sales without brand endorsement, the pressure is huge.
There are few customers, high competition, and it is getting more and more difficult to close deals now. This has become a big problem in the hearts of ordinary salesmen. It is common for them to not be able to close a set of sales in a month. They rely on a meager basic salary to work in big cities. Renting a house.
Unfortunately, my friend is the most inconspicuous member of this ordinary sales force.
How good it is to introduce the project to customers every day. Do they really think the project is good?
Yes, in cities like Beijing and Shanghai, no one understands better than them how precious it is to have a house of your own.
His experience reminds me of an old movie I once watched. I can’t remember the exact plot, but I remember that the heroine is also a real estate salesperson in a big city.
The only thing I remember is that the last five minutes of the film were all about her crying on a park bench.
I reviewed this movie again over the weekend. It is called "Long Live Love". Judging from the name, it is a very literary film. The director is the famous literary star Tsai Ming-liang.
The stories described by Tsai Ming-liang have a unique style. They seem simple and tasteless, and sometimes a bit absurd, making people confused and even drowsy. But at the end of the day, they always give A heavy blow to your heart.
Of course, the story "Long Live Love" is no exception.
In the movie, with an empty room and a bed, and with the portrayal of three little characters, Tsai Ming-liang vividly expresses the desire, confusion, fatigue, loneliness, and despair of modern urban young people.
Among the three young people, Miss Lin is a real estate salesman.
Start your day's business at a roadside food stall every day.
Xiaokang sells tombs.
Every day when I go to work in a convenience store, I have to arrange my hair meticulously.
Although the next shot is a mess in the wind on a battery car.
Ah Rong survives by setting up a street vendor.
Although he is handsome, he is just a street vendor.
Because it contains a lot of long shots, the 105-minute movie is actually very short.
Xiaokang stole the key that others forgot on the door, and after discovering that the apartment was actually an empty house, he secretly moved in.
And this apartment happened to be represented by MISS Lin.
MISS Lin is busy selling the houses she represents. Although there is not a single transaction, she at least has a house to live in because of her work. When she is tired, she hides in an apartment that cannot be sold. rest.
Ah Wing and MISS Lin met by chance in a fast food restaurant and quickly hooked up. Then they often came to this apartment to do shameful things. Ah Rong took the opportunity to steal MISS Lin's key and moved in secretly.
Xiaokang has autism and feels lonely. He originally planned to commit suicide by slitting his wrists in his apartment room, but he heard the voices of Ah Rong and Miss Lin next door.
So, three people gathered in the same stolen space. One of them committed suicide, which was terminated by the lovemaking of the other two, but the result was the same loneliness.
In a house of just over 80 square meters, the three of them hid and were careful not to bump into each other.
Ah Rong hid alone in a dark room tasting watermelon and hid under the bed while they were having sex.
But as time passed, it was inevitable that they would bump into each other. Ah Rong and Xiao Kang still bumped into each other and could no longer escape. They finally understood that no one was the master.
However, there was no sign of a violent conflict that was supposed to break out. They acquiesced in each other's existence and naively maintained this fragile balance.
Because they both know how precious this space is to each other.
Because they all know that only if the home is not an empty nest, can the empty-nest heart get the minimum comfort.
Ah Rong and Xiao Kang began to know each other and became close friends. They could eat hot pot and drink beer together in the house.
The two of them also acted like thieves together, secretly avoiding Miss Lin.
In the end, Ah Rong still had a night of passion with Miss Lin in the apartment, and Xiao Kang still hid under the bed all night. In the morning, MISS Lin left without even looking at Ah Rong, but Xiaokang got up from the bed, hugged Ah Rong who was abandoned on the bed, and kissed him.
It turns out that Xiaokang, who has a homosexual relationship, had already developed feelings for Ah Rong from secret peeping.
At the end of the film, MISS Lin was crying on a bench in the park alone, and kept crying...
The wind in the park was strong, making her hair disheveled. Like a wild ghost who has lost his soul.
I expected a reversal in the ending, but it didn’t happen. She was still crying. In the end, the film ended abruptly with her crying.
The film is called "Long Live Love", but there is no trace of the sweetness of love at all - just like what Mr. Qian Zhongshu borrowed from Fang Hongjian in "The Besieged City": Where can there be love in the world? , it is basically the reproductive impulse.
After the impulse, loneliness follows.
If we were to define the status of these three people, they would be the "empty nest youth" that we have been talking about recently.
Although there are three people crammed into an apartment, it is full, but they avoid each other's sight, and even love is limited to physical desires, isolating each other, isn't this what "empty nest" means? "What?
Why does the film end with MISS Lin crying?
Because she is the one closest to the concept of home. After all, she sells houses.
Because she is also the person furthest away from the concept of home. She flatters clients but does not have an apartment of her own.
She is a woman who wears short skirts and high heels and uses Lanc?me facial cleanser, drives a car and ties advertisements to trees with her mobile phone, and can go to bed with a man and leave without even looking at him, but she still has to Find a deserted park and cry for five minutes...
Life is nothing more than this. Too many young people have their own sadness. They long for love, but are limited to physical pleasure. They long for luxury houses, but after living in them, they become increasingly lonely due to the spiritual and material gap.
Young people may be able to buy their favorite house in a sales office, and have several hearty sex sessions with their loved one in this house, but what happens next? Hiding on a park bench and crying over the unsatisfactory life?
Lock the bodies of young people in a square box, regardless of whether the box belongs to them or depend on others; tie the minds of young people to the established track, let them close their horizons and laugh in the same way , pain, anxiety, growth.
Does this really make young people grow up? Or can we only produce "empty-nest youths"?
Therefore, what this film brings us to think about is not only how miserable young people are, but also whether the physical pleasure we have always longed for and the house that will last forever are really worth young people's deliberate pursuit of this. question.
I don’t know if it’s worth it, but from ancient times to the present, those who long for “long live the body” have died; those who have narrow vision and are too materialistic have been nailed to shame. On the pillar.
Finally, although Tsai Ming-liang named the film "Long Live Love", it was actually very ironic. He told us:
In this materialistic society,
Don't talk about love, I only see eyes full of desire.
There are those spiritually barren souls,
This desire can destroy everything alive...