Ning Ma's Blog

I wanted to write about a movie I watched last week, (500) Days of Summer. So I searched on Youku where I watched it the first time, wanting to see it again for details. But I couldn’t find it any more. I realized that what’s left in my memory is nothing but fragments: a sentence the character said, a facial expression … but when I try to focus on these fragments, even they become blurry, leaving me with the vague mist of colors and indescribable feelings of loss and tenderness.

Walter Pater said in his Conclusion to The Renaissance, “Experience seems to bury us under a flood of external objects, pressing upon us with a sharp and importunate reality … But when reflection begins to play upon those objects … each object is loosed into a group of impressions—color, odor, texture—in the mind of the observer.” So I shouldn’t feel bad about what I’ve already forgotten. Time filtered my memory for me; whatever is left is the whole essence of the movie.

His name is Tom. His dream is to be an architect. His real job is to write unrealistic romantic words on greeting cards. His favorite movie is The Graduate. He believes in true love and that he cannot be happy until he gets it.

Her name is Summer. She has only liked two things since the disintegration of her parents’ marriage: one is her long dark hair, the other is how easily she can cut it off and feel nothing.

They are together. One is in it for eternal love; one for that of the very moment. His love is a building he’s constructing; hers is her long hair. The outcome of this love story is not that hard to predict: his building falls apart along with himself; her hair is cut off by herself—and she doesn’t feel a thing. He is surprised that the woman who doesn’t share his faith in love is soon engaged, telling him about “this guy” she’s willing to spend her life with. What you want from me is not that I can’t give, it’s just that I can’t give to you.

Now that I wrote the plot, I am disturbed by it. It’s so real that it’s plain and sharp at the same time. Reviews call it a “postmodern, urban love story,” which I think is in regards to the non-linear narrative of the movie.

The 500 days with Summer are shuffled like poker cards and displayed one after another in front of us in a random order. We see “Day 1” of sweet encounter, then “Day 488” of a defeated Tom, then back to “Day 3” of romance and sweetness, which is shadowed with the dark, ominous clouds of “Day 488.”

Time is subverted in the movie. But the power of time is not crippled; it’s intensified. It reminds me of the French movie Irreversible. The story is told backward in a reverted time frame, which generates a destructive force so powerful that the story itself becomes a supporting character. Time, having been subverted, is what the author really tries to tell. This shapeless yet orderly force rushes forward endlessly, carrying all that is beautiful and precious, till it hands it over to death.

What we see is always the crime scene; the criminal remains invisible.

If Irreversible is ruthless condemnation against time, then (500) Days of Summer is nostalgic recollection of the past. During the reminiscence, we even see the future, just a glance—as light as a dragonfly dancing on the surface of a summer lake.

Tom quits his meaningless job after a heroic speech, determined to pursue his real dream in architecture. When he waits for a job interview, he meets a girl. They chat for a moment. He asks her out for a coffee when he walks off to the interview, but she says no. Then she says, “You know what?” He walks back. She smiles with a subtle sparkle in her eyes, “What the heck, yeah I’d love to get a coffee with you.”

He asks. “My name is Tom. What’s yours?”

She says, “Me? I’m Autumn.”

The only one who can drag him out of that long disastrous summer is—Autumn.

I believe in things like this in life. Like the story Lily told me about: her friend felt a calling to go to Putuo Mountain and she really went. There she met a guy who she later on married, and they lived happily ever after.

I love you, you don’t love me. I believe in eternity, you believe in the moment. For thousands of years our love stories haven’t escaped these few patterns. Yet for the main character of each role, their love story can be heart-wrenching.

Summer is hot, burning with dangerous intensity. The question is: when you pick up the first leaf from the ground, can you recognize the person you’ve been waiting for all these years?