Three women across time and space, linked by one name——Mrs. Dalloway. That’s a really brief summary of the plot of my favourite film, The Hours. And I’d really like to delve deep into it.
The Hours is a feature film based on the stream-of-consciousness novel Mrs. Dalloway by English writer, Virginia Woolf. It focuses on one ordinary day of three women. Virginia Woolf, living in a 1920s London suburb, is finishing her last novel, Mrs. Dalloway. Walking on the edge of fiction and real life, Virginiais under great pressure and a sense of bondage, and even yearns for death. Laura Brown, who is a Los Angeles housewife living at the end of World War II. Mrs. Dalloway causes her to constantly ask herself, what’s a more meaningful life? She also feels like killing herself because of the daily stress of caring a family. Clarissa Vogan, who is living the life of Mrs. Dalloway in the 1990s in New York City. Her beloved friend Richard, who is brilliant but unable to take care of himself due to AIDS. So she hoststhe party and brings happiness to everyone, but it’s still hard for her to resolve the loneliness and sadness in her ownheart.
The reason why The Hours is my favourite film is very simple and obvious. It’s because of its theme of feminism. Several female characters in the film all yearn for freedom, independence, self-worth realization and even political status, which both shows the awakening of feminist consciousness in the male-dominated society of Victoria in England and reflects the feminist proposition of "killing the angel in the room". As the image of "angels in the room" in the style of virtuous wife and mother is the concentrated reflection of the patriarchal center at that time, the film describes the rebellion of "angels in the room" to appeal people to reunderstand women's status in family from the perspective of female identity, so as to strengthen women's dominant consciousness and deconstruct the patriarchal center.
Just as CNN commented, The Hours proves that film is an art. Every frame in the movie is extremely aesthetic, which shows its brilliant filming techniques. Under the montage's easy switching and connection, the alternating fragmented shots cross-describe the three space-times, while flowing smoothly with the background music. For instance, a character looks down to wash her hands and water splashes, and the next moment she looks up and becomes another character. In addition, all three women in the beginning wake up and look in the mirror with a bewildered look, which is a symbolic montage used by the film to suggest that they all face a similar problem. They can’t find an understandable way to express their pain and spiritual struggle beneath the surface of false peace and happiness.
With the development of feminism in the 20th century, more and more women have higher spiritual needs, but they have to compromise with ordinary life. People also tend to ignore their own existence and only see them as wives and mothers. The film reproduces such dilemma and those women’s struggle between nihilistic loneliness and individual freedom.
From The Hours, all I know eventually is that everyone has a destiny to be who they are. Just as Laura said, I can't say I regret the choices I've made to be who I am.
