The Era of Rebellion: Hins Cheung's "The Pretty Man"

In this day and age, there is one kind of inauthenticity that I especially hate-love home. At 8 o'clock every night, it keeps flipping through the same but untrue teachings regardless of the weather: it turns out that nothing matters until a family is neat and tidy; It turns out that no matter what happens outside, the home will be a safe haven that will never hurt you, and there will always be someone willing to care about you and willing to cook noodles for you.

However, in reality, there are probably not a few people who don't like to go home or even can't go home. Even though many families still sit on the same table today, to put it bluntly, they are all so fragile that as soon as the TV news is turned on, they will immediately turn into a mess. What's more, there are quite a few people who were oppressed by the outside world to the point of despair that they could no longer despair but went home just for a little comfort - only to find that they had been locked out by the person they used to be closest to. The small world that is supposed to not harm oneself has never been able to enter.

It turns out that in the incomplete era, any love, friendship, or family relationship can become extremely fragile immediately. Although everyone always likes to talk about the truth of "drinking water with love", as the song "Pretty Man" said: there may indeed be some values ​​in the world, which are far more than love and hate, far more than love. Food and clothing are more important.

don't like to go home

When I first heard "Pretty Man", what attracted me the most was its arrangement. Whether it is the slide of the synth lead or the sound of the electric piano reverberating with reverberation in the first part of the song, they all create a sad and indifferent sadness. However, it wasn’t until the appearance of the deliberately distorted chord in the latter part and the bass guitar that ended abruptly and from time to time with off-beat and crash, combined with Zhang Jingxuan’s progressive interpretation of strength—neither falling into the typical tragic love song It's clichéd, but it can express that kind of emotional contradiction to the heart and lungs.

But what always bothers me the most is a message under the MV: She and her boyfriend are actually close enough to start talking about marriage, but they have one yellow and one blue politically, so in order to avoid breaking up, they had to make an agreement to avoid it Talk about politics. As a result, on every day when she burst into tears, even though the other party never said a word, his high-spirited appearance was actually enough to make her very uncomfortable. Until November 25, 2019, when she had a rare smiling face, her smile actually ignited the medicine on the other party's body——In an instant, all the grievances accumulated over the past six months, all the hidden and ugly words were suddenly completely wiped out. After all, they could not escape the fate of breaking up.

Between lovers, speaking from the heart is easier than reasoning.
After a lingering time, it is difficult to compare righteousness and reason with each other and also dilute it.
To accompany you through the catastrophe, to share the misery of the world,
Unexpectedly, it will still break up in the end, just because of your biased perspective.

Even though people always say things like "It's good that he is in your family" and "It's not worth giving up a relationship for this", they always forget that truth is death but people are alive . If the thorn in the heart can be pulled out easily, who would not want to return to the good old days when everyone was harmonious and happy?

It is precisely because the two sides have gone through the disaster together and love each other that every word he utters that tramples on his beliefs will be especially painful. Helpless, everyone's understanding of good and evil, right and wrong is really different. In the end, the two of them actually knew each other: if it weren't for the fact that there is still a fragile bond between us, each of them would like to immediately beat the other into ten. Never be reborn in the eight hells. Even though that vicious sentence was never uttered by either party, the deep hostility always seemed to be lurking in the silent air, waiting for an opportunity to tear the other party into pieces.

It turns out that the world is too ridiculous,
The hand that you and I part is the most reasonable and gentle first.
In every fight, who will pretend to compromise,
There are also wounds in the dark, and there is no way to deal with the aftermath.

I tried to accommodate with you, and I didn't break up even if it hurt,
I first realized that in the world, there are some values ​​that are greater than love and hate.
To mend this deep gap, love is not enough.

The unusually old-fashioned title of "Pretty Man" is actually taken from a classic American movie in 1973. The heroine of the story, Katie, is a left-leaning anti-war person who is keen to participate in social movements. In order to pursue her political ideals, she is even willing to show her face at any cost; but the male protagonist, Hubbell, is a cynic who seeks to be wise and safe in everything. In order to pursue personal ideals Preferring to keep making bottomless compromises - yet they somehow remain attracted to each other and deeply in love.

However, although they have tried to be tolerant, in the end they really couldn't bear to see the other party looking at them with a thoroughly disappointed expression, and they couldn't bear to betray the most precious and important value of each other in order to accommodate the other party. In the end, they could only part ways As for Yang Bi, he completely dismantled the false harmony that was actually binding the two of them constantly.

I think, if they lived in an era without wind and waves, they would probably be able to stay together forever in the end. Reluctantly, this pair of lovers who went to extremes on the spectrum because of their very different growth backgrounds and personalities lived in the Cold War era full of undercurrents. Important values, and with all the values ​​there is always a gap that no amount of love can fully fill.

I wish you and me each have a new exit.
I only see it through meeting you, my lifelong wish,
Accept your fate for what you love, or separate for what you believe,
If you can't, you can have both.

For many people, the saddest thing is that they can't have both what they love and believe in like a fish and a bear's paw—this is probably an inevitable evil of this era. So, why are there still so many people who still firmly believe that tearing is unacceptable, and then keep trying to superglue everyone who is impossible to communicate effectively at the moment into some seemingly incompatible and constantly cursing each other inside. Spherical objects that hurt each other's hands and feet?

I think of the very bittersweet ending in "Pretty Man": the two protagonists reunited by chance a few years later, the woman is still standing on the street to promote what she believes in, and the man slowly begins to live a life of fame and fortune The ideal life in his mind. The two looked at each other with a little bit of regret but also a little bit of relief in their eyes - because they both seemed to realize that the decision to separate that day was only out of their own protection and blessing for each other.

Probably no one likes to turn against each other. But this classic play tells us a very weird truth: tearing up, it turns out that sometimes it may be the most sincere and even the most reasonable way to love a lover.