The Coffee Storm tells you three parallel stories linked by coffee.

Three parallel stories, although linked by coffee, are not entangled with each other. The only overlap is that Zorin was involved in stealing coffee beans from Yunnan, China, while Ren Fei once saw Hammerd's coffee pot on the Internet and was impressed. These three separate stories are all plump and have different meanings, but what they all have in common is that they can make people think about life and fate with the characters in the film.

■ Zhong Ling

Among the 15 finalists for the Temple of Heaven Award at this year's Beijing Film Festival, I was most impressed by the Chinese-Italian co-production Coffee Storm. Although the coffee-related film takes coffee as a clue, it has nothing to do with good food. In the occasional aroma of coffee, the film tells about all kinds of helplessness in life. As Hammond, one of the protagonists, said to his son at the beginning of the film, the world and life are so fragile and precious.

Belgium, Italy, China, different countries, connected with coffee are three different life stories.

Hammond, a small antique dealer from Arab countries, lives in Belgium. He is kind and loyal, and often gives his friends nothing in return. But because of the riots in Belgium, a large number of unemployed people took to the streets to rob and smash shops, and his pawn shop was ransacked by a group of young people. Among the stolen items was an ancestral silver coffee pot that meant a lot to him. Hammerd accidentally found that the man who took the coffee pot was a young father and felt compassion for it. Instead of notifying the police, he decided to take back the valuable coffee pot from the thief on his own. Instead, he was imprisoned by the other party, stabbed by his friend and on the verge of death.

In Italy, Zorin, a barista who was full of longing for life, could not find a regular job and had to make a living by doing manual work. He had no fixed abode and could be fired at any time. When his girlfriend, a maid, told him that she was pregnant and wanted to have a baby because of hardship, he took part in a robbery in desperation. The "prey" is eight cases of civet coffee from Yunnan worth 120000 US dollars. However, he and his companions were surrounded and intercepted by the police before they left the scene of the crime.

Ren Fei, a Phoenix man from rural Yunnan, China, has achieved little in Beijing for many years. He is already an executive of a company and will marry the boss's daughter. But on the eve of the wedding, he was sent back to his hometown, a remote village in Pu'er, Yunnan, to solve production problems at a factory owned by the company. There, he found that obsolete factory facilities could lead to chemical leaks, polluting the village land, not only the patches of coffee trees, but also the people living in the village. But his father-in-law-to-be disagreed and only wanted to resume production for his own good. Ren Fei, who grew up in a coffee farm, is faced with a difficult choice between conscience and the future.

Three parallel stories, although linked by coffee, are not entangled with each other. The only overlap is that Zorin was involved in stealing coffee beans from Yunnan, China, while Ren Fei once saw Hammerd's coffee pot on the Internet and was impressed. These three separate stories are all plump and have different meanings, but what they have in common is that they all make people think about life and fate with the characters in the film.

Every story in the film looks depressing at first, and the stories of Italy and Belgium take place most of the time in their narrow residences and mostly on dark nights. Although part of China takes place during the day, the problems behind it are even more worrying: contaminated land, coffee farmers living in danger. It is "shocking" all the time. Therefore, the tone of the film has always been gray, implying their lives, full of crisis everywhere.

Hammerd said that God has added a little bitterness to everyone's life, so many people's life is like the taste of coffee, first bitter, then astringent, then sweet.

What an image, isn't it like the fate of the main characters in the film? At the end of the film, every story that seems to be in a corner brightens up. It was not until now that there was a glimmer of light in the sad tone.

Hammond was loaded into a car by thieves and his father to be disposed of in the suburbs. In tears, he thought he had no chance of survival and would never see his wife and son again, when an accident happened. Their car collided with a van. Hammerd narrowly escaped death. Renzo was not so devoid of conscience that he was not caught by the police because his friend stood up for righteousness. In the heavy rain, he rushed to his girlfriend and ushered in the birth of a little life. The "wanton smile" on his face also heralded his new life. Ren Fei hesitated, struggled, and even made the wrong decision, but after meeting a mysterious female artist A Fang, he began to face life. Ah Fang, a female painter who paints with coffee, rents a piece of land every time she sells a painting to prevent the land from falling into the hands of profiteers and being destroyed. She, who is suffering from cancer, has been working hard for this until her death. Her selflessness moved Ren Fei and melted his heart with a trace of warmth. Ren Fei finally chose to protect his hometown and gave up love and smooth road.

After the storm, is the sky bright? Is it a gorgeous rainbow? In short, it was not until now that my heart, which had been clinging to their fate outside the screen, relaxed and relaxed.

The most amazing thing is Hammond, when the accident happened, in the face of people trapped in the car, injury, and even want to kill him, he still did not hesitate to choose to save him. He never seemed to think that the people who wanted to take his life were really worth saving. His kindness engraved in his bones makes him forget the past grievances to the "bad guys". This kind of mind is too rare. Hammerd's tired figure grew taller as he hobbled towards the oncoming police car. His story may be that there may be moments in the roulette of fate, but good will be rewarded with good and evil with evil.

And Zorin, he has not tried hard, he has also faced life with a smile, but fate has given him, even if he has been positive, but hit a brick wall everywhere, unable to do the work he wants to do, let alone make life on the right track. Under the pressure of life, he did something wrong on impulse. What his story tells us may be that although life is always full of thorns, there are still beautiful places, as long as you stick to it, you will see the willows and flowers.

As for Ren Fei, his story is to tell people that the reality is cruel and that perhaps no one will be grateful for what a person has done! But at least, you have to have a clear conscience. If you live on other people's blood and tears, even if you live a glorious life, how can you feel at ease?

In fact, there is another character in the story, which also makes people think a lot. No one was born evil, and neither did the young man who stole the coffee pot. He also has a kind side. For example, he has been taking care of his old and sick grandmother. There is a crib he made for his son in his room. He is both a filial grandson and a loving father. When his friend hurt Hammond, he also wanted to find a doctor for Hammerd. Perhaps, everyone has a bright spot, but in the face of survival, human beings sometimes seem too small. An impulse can have unpredictable consequences.

The film's director, Christian Botoner, has won many international awards, and his film "hearing Paradise" won the highest award, the David Award, at the first Rome Film Festival. at the same time, he has also won important awards at more than 20 international film festivals, including the S ã o Paulo International Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival. This time, under the background of ethnic conflicts, economic crisis, ecological problems and other global issues, he took coffee as the "cause" to explain the struggle between small potatoes and fate in different cultural backgrounds.

Coincidentally, during the filming of the film, the director and his crew were also hit by terrorist attacks in Brussels. How similar to the background in the first paragraph of the story. Maybe that's how he made Hammond's story so vivid. Let us also firmly believe that although fate is fickle and no one knows where we will go next, as long as we are kind-hearted, there will always be hope in life!