An angelic boy, a lame old horse-like father, in the context of a violently turbulent era, can only struggle to survive like a snail carrying a house on its back along the edge of the volcano.
French cinema has always been a small freshness in the film world, strong humanistic colors, playful dialogue, extreme irony, hints, special scenes, and exaggerated performances of actors.
The film begins to recall under the thick and obscure colors, the male protagonist Pi Gu guards the crumbling theater work, the wife also runs away with other men, because the builder can give him a stable life, the little boy in the family finds the former music conductor of the theater to learn the accordion, sells and sings on the street to earn some loose silver to subsidize the poor life of the family, in order to take care of his father's self-esteem, and the grocery store owner agreed to give his father some daily necessities on credit and hide from his father, the money was slowly replenished by himself, and his life was slowly lived.
The storm began in the social context at that time, the theater was squeezed by the underworld and its own poor boss committed suicide and closed down, resulting in Pigu's unemployment, the boy's mother is Pigu's wife to regain the custody of the boy, under the law at that time, Pigu could only separate father and son with pain, and put his son where other men were, and the little boy's pain could be imagined.
Life can not always be like this, with the pain of depression for a period of time, with the help of two strange friends around Pi Gu revived, stemming from the underworld boss wanted to share in the partisan interests of the time, eager to earn a good reputation for themselves, so that the theater in the cracks of the times to revive, surviving, which gave people struggling at the bottom of society unlimited hope, burst out of great vitality. However, in the social context at that time, it was too difficult.
No money, then no salary, no actors, then act yourself, no material equipment, then find a bank to borrow, although not very smooth, no matter what the road ahead, life always has to continue, the highlight of the film is that the daughter of a former theater actor with a lofty ideal is to find a job, and the color of the whole film is bright at the moment of appearance.
The theater performed in the stumbling, although the performance was very jerky, the program was performed with some embarrassment, but it always began, the heroine also began to emerge to attract the attention of the owner of the grand theater, willing to provide the heroine with better development opportunities, under the encouragement of the kind male protagonist in the barren life, the female protagonist flew to a better sky, so the theater slowly turned yellow again, the desperate life of not seeing the head, the fierce thoughts of the son who could not get the response made the male protagonist feel the end of his life, could the suicide attempt be desperate?
The irony is that their own dirty, despicable people always hope to possess the good, with the beauty to satisfy their own flesh desires, with the dirty soul to climb the light, may feel that this will be closer to heaven, the heroine of the film with her own physical sacrifice in exchange for the second beginning of the new life of the theater, the former theater conductor ended autism plus the return of the heroine, life finally showed new hope from the gap, the male protagonist's son also returned, the performance of the two strange friends also gradually improved, and the heroine performance of the heroine who harvested love in the film also shone brightly, Everything was smooth sailing, the money was rolling in, and life finally leaked out a smile, but the joy was extremely sad.
Darkness can not allow the sun to shine into their corners, driven by strong jealousy, the film's underworld boss sent Ma Zai to the theater to steal and rob and beat, Yin and Yang mistakenly killed Pi Gu's friends, in order to save the boyfriend of the heroine who retaliated under anger, Pi Gu went to prison, life still has to move forward, just like this.
After his release from prison, the male protagonist never left the northern suburb theater in his lifetime, and the life of the theater was finally on the right track, touring around, and the little boy finally saw the sea, and the open end of the film was very good.