On the other Side of the Bridge When I watched the movie Finny’s Smile I was engaged with the struggle for my dissertation last year in the UK. And today, one year later, the memories of last summer rushing into my mind, just as I am dragged back into that movie, the engaging fragments Finny’s Smile appear once again…
The movie uses a true story to show that 60-year marriage of an Austrian woman (Finny) and a Chinese man (Ma Yunlong). It is also linked to an image of the spread of social, cultural, and historical transformation across the last several decades in China.
It is faith in love that I gained from that case, something deeply felt with almost mystical conviction to such a degree that everlasting love becomes utterly possible.
The astounding and moving journey of Finny’s smile gets with by the arrival of the heroine Finny in China with one-way ticket from Austrian across the sea on a sunny afternoon.
About 60 years ago, Mr. Ma Yunlong, with a decorated Sedan Chair (花轎), had the luck to marry Miss Finny, an Austrian lady, in the county of dongyang, Zhejiang (浙江東陽).
Ma Yunlong arranged her wife-to-be in the Sedan Chair so she could be safe on their way to pass by the single-plank bridge over fast flowing rapids, smiling at the realization that how happy she was to be with a man, like Yunlong when she lift a corner of the Sedan curtain to look at his back carrying a pole of the Sedan before her…
It is another impressive scene displayed in the adventure of their love that drove Finny to have crawled over the bridge for her first time after their marriage for delivering Christmas dinner to Yunlong who was in political isolation under the Cultural Revolution.
It was 1990, Ma Yunlong passed away of illness.
The movie ends with Finny and her Children lifting Yunlong’s coffin, approaching the single-plank bridge. The scene, the Sedan Chair of her marriage with her husband marching from the other end of bridge were back again, just like before.
Everlasting marriage is a bit of a sore subject in the world today. We are at the present day passing through a somewhat confused period, when many people have sceptical doubt over their beliefs in marriage of the past standards. This leads various troubles, despair, remorse, and cynicism: high divorce rate, single parenthood, and love affairs…. I believe this blind sceptic to be very largely due to mistaken views of love, and mistaken views of marriage.
In short, happiness with love depends on internal faith and efforts instead of external impact.
羅文-黃昏 如果我能為你求得一點青春 我會留在心中保存 縱然青絲如霜黃花飄落紅顏已老 隻求心中還有一些純真 日落西山天際一片暮色沉沉 我倆就要走進黃昏 回首多少甜蜜幾番哀愁起起落落 始終不悔與你共度此生 山穀中已有點點燈火 暮色就要漸漸昏沉 你和我也然笑淚滿唇 感歎年華竟是一無餘剩 晚風中布滿我的歌聲 道盡多少舊夢前塵 夜色中隻看到彼此眼神 我倆終會消失在那黃昏 With much love By ≠paleink 2004-10-03
|