"Pictures of the Old World" was very successful. It felt heavy and shocking. In particular, the film’s black-and-white recording style, photo-like freeze-frame personality, close-ups of the elderly’s physical details, and real interviews interspersed in the film have left me unforgettable to this day. The reason must be that the film has indeed captured the true nature of the phenomenon. It is no longer just a "expression" of the object. To a large extent, it is the subject's "discovery" and interpretation of the object phenomenon. .
The objects recorded in the film are of course the elderly. The life of the old man, just like the overall style of the film, is gray, dim, and colorless. Perhaps, the whole meaning of their "life" is just "survival". They may have different beliefs and persistence in their hearts, but their states appear to be the same "emptiness", or like the superficial "delicacy" of rural intellectuals toward Gagarin and the "second cosmic speed", or like the superficial "delicacy" of their legs. The deep "roughness" of a crippled old man raising livestock day after day. Their so-called "laughter" and so-called "happiness", in my opinion, were just a state of forced laughter at that time.
After the video was played for a while, I noticed that the photographer seemed to want to show the lives of various elderly people. He photographed patients, veterans, prostitutes, disabled people, farmers, rural intellectuals, small traders, skilled craftsmen (the makers of the musical device) and other types of people, of course they must be old people. I was looking forward to the appearance of an old man with a prosperous life, but at the end, there was still no one. So, I finally understood that the photographer was not actually "showing" the life of the elderly, but "discovering" a common state in the old world - if you consider the shooting background of the film, you can know that it is socialism state, a state after the "Prague Spring".
Not only that, while the material life of the elderly is desolate, their spiritual world is even paler. Interviews interspersed in the film ask: What is the meaning of life? When the old people answered, their expressions, body movements, and language were very rich, but they all hesitated and felt trapped for a few seconds, and some old people hesitated and then said bluntly, "I don't know." This question seemed to be asked very suddenly, but it also unexpectedly revealed the despicable spiritual world of the old man at that time. Their answers were hesitant, jerky, and similar; their descriptions and metaphors were pale and tasteless; their expressions were a bit exaggerated and somewhat forced. All of these are undoubtedly the rhythm and context of the old world.
Finally, in the silent night, the clear and loud cry of a baby suddenly appeared, heralding the birth of a new world after the old one. While we were looking forward to the dawn, the director and photographer truly recorded the dark night. We look forward to the light, but we should not forget the darkness. This film just becomes a memory that we can never forget~~~
