The first part of the “Fantasia Trilogy” is also the one with the strongest storytelling, but of course, the so-called storytelling is also the conclusion of the comparison between the video styles of the last two films “Wanda’s Room” and “Looking Back to the Past”, which almost blur the line between documentary and feature film ……. The large number of long, fixed shots, the expressionless actors, the simple scenes, the numerous partial close-ups, the omitted information, the blurred backgrounds of the characters, make it more difficult to guess the motives of the characters’ actions, or Costa does not want the viewer to guess a single motive, but hides them in the fragments of daily life, in the environment, as in the case of Jeanne Dillmann and Bresson. Dillmann” and Bresson’s film style, minimalist, restrained, cold and detached. When poverty takes over all of life, all perverse and even anti-ethical behavior is no longer incomprehensible.
The first thing Tina does when she returns home from the hospital with her newborn child is to turn on the gas tank and attempt suicide, while the child is put aside, such a devastating act is not overly explained in the film, but the dilapidated living environment seems to say it all. Then the boyfriend came back and did not do anything but lie in bed, he also seems to have the will to seek death …… finally Tina woke up to end this absurd behavior. The next day the man was begging with his child in the crowded downtown area, and finally a kind middle-aged female nurse bought milk powder for the child in his arms. But the poor quality milk powder made the child sick, and the man took the child to the hospital, which also happened to be the hospital where the female nurse worked. The woman nurse out of guilt and sense of responsibility to the desperate man and the cured child received their own home to live under, and and between the man and a love affair, not talk about love, more like two lonely patients between the mutual comfort, at the same time, the woman nurse clean, open apartment far more comfortable than the dilapidated slum life. The man then abandoned the child outside the rented room of a prostitute …… He stops to watch from the dimly lit hallway, the scene of indecision is breathtaking. After a short time the man visits the prostitute’s rented room to see the child and tries to sell it to the prostitute, who eventually agrees to buy the child …… Selling the child is the best option for the man and even Tina to ease the burden of life, which makes the beginning of Tina’s attempted suicide with the child decipherable.
Tina’s best friend Claudie, on the other hand, is a bellhop at the female nurse’s house, and she discovers the unspeakable relationship between the man and the female nurse. Claudie sometimes brings Tina to work at the nursemaid’s house, allowing Tina to help share her tasks while also giving Tina a taste of clean apartment life. Later, Claudie gives Tina the part-time job due to her illness, but Tina turns on the gas at the nurse’s house again and tries to commit suicide, but she is eventually saved by the nurse who comes home. The female nurse and Tina also have some kind of affair with each other, the female nurse specially came to Tina’s house to visit the depressed Tina, but ended up sleeping with Claudie’s black boyfriend ……. And after Claudie saw this, she came to the female nurse’s house and saw Tina’s boyfriend sleeping in the bed, she turned on the gas and unlocked the door and left …….. It was as much a revenge as it was a relief. Claudie ended everyone’s chaotic and hopeless life with murder.
