In the movie, Bill, the doctor who plays the role of Liang Tang, is a typical good man with a good background and quality work, loyal to his wife, not to mention the transgression, even in the face of the clinic every day, he will not get up the nude female patients, and the lucky for him there is no attraction to the slightest bit. Under his dedicated management, the family is successful and harmonious.
It seems that everything started to turn around after a banquet, and his wife's unnecessary jealousy after a word was to intensify the contradictions in his heart, she told him that she had been out of the track, fascinated by a naval officer, and had sex with him. In that moment, he was confronted with the darkness and cruelty of marriage, and internally questioned himself.
Then came a long night about him. He fell off the wagon and spent the night wandering around. Went to a jazz bar where a classmate played the piano, got the pass code to participate in a mysterious party, caught an adulterous act with the owner of a store where he borrowed a tuxedo, chatted for a while with a stranger prostitute and received a kiss ......
In the pale cab, the images of his wife's infidelity kept popping into his imagination, and the more he could not restrain the gentlemanly manner under the cover of that hungry and impulsive heart, this is the crisis of middle-aged men, common disease. The cab's destination arrived, an even more desolate suburb, and inside the cold iron gates was a gothic church, and at that moment, no one could have predicted what would be inside.
Following Bill's lead, we are treated to a chilling glimpse of what's to come. A bizarre religious ceremony, naked women who suddenly take off their outer clothes, the grim faces behind people's masks, the more to the inner room the more disgusting promiscuous lewd images ...... He was numb but did nothing, but did not expect that the next punishment far exceeds its gain, was warned, was followed, death threats, HIV, and even, the black hand of sin had proven to him that it could reach out to his innocent wife and daughter at any time. He goes from shocked to nearly broken, perhaps already regretting his attempts at sexual promiscuity, and thankfully, he is shallow enough to receive nothing more than a shuddering warning. Luckily, it was all a warning, and their lives finally returned to routine, as a terrified Bill and his wife discussed solutions to their problems and finally came to a decision: to have sex immediately.
In the process, let me see Kubrick's narrative attitude is serious, because he used the traditional film language, red symbolizes desire, black brings solemnity and gravity, in the movie, we often see the beautiful soup in the darkness drowned in the expressionless face, such a scene is enough to make us also silent, depressed mood. Kubrick is even more cruel to add an even colder monosyllabic piano sound to the fearful plot, so that the depressed mood reaches a point of no return, but hopelessly suffocated.
The ancient Greek festival of the god of wine is a true reflection of the party in the movie, where they partied hard, letting their desires run wild, drinking, singing, dancing and carousing. Apollo, as the god of the sun, represents light, reason and wisdom, and in the hearts of his worshippers, he even represents the brightest and most beautiful side of all human nature; in contrast, the god of wine represents all the desires latent in our hearts. The God of Wine and the God of Sun is at the two extremes of human nature, which corresponds to the black and red, reason and sexual desire in the movie. Their intertwining and mixing in the movie represents the interpretation and conflict of restraint and impulse in us. Modern man, like a well-dressed beast, is superficially refined, but once his desires are not given vent to, he is in danger of a crisis. This is a fatalistic paradox, that is society in order to constrain us and fabricated traps. In the day deep wine God's war, under the threat of this society, we can only helplessly live, fear and trembling to maintain the poor balance of reason and desire for a lifetime, although always looking for a way to relieve and indulge, but unfortunately, are just not helpful.
The conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Bill at the end of the movie is undoubtedly the best illustration of the above assertion, with the wife saying, "We may not understand the truth of life for the rest of our lives, but thankfully we are awake and will continue to be sober. Perhaps such talk is slightly sad and helpless, but the husband does not present a better debate, unable to struggle, and it is evident that this is how real life is lived and the best way to end a movie, which ends well and ideally, even if it is a tragedy.
The conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Bill at the end of the film is undoubtedly the best footnote to this kind of assertion, with Dr. Harvard's wife saying, "We may not understand the truth of life for the rest of our lives, but thankfully we're all awake, and will continue to be so.