Wen | racer
The reluctance to compare Jiang Rong's novel with Jean Jacques Arnold's film of the same name is not only that there is not too much comparability between images and words, but that it will involve too many folk customs and many hooks of history. The satisfaction of a pure moviegoer in the sound and image should not stop at the supply of social science common sense.
This film, called "Wolf Totem", probably doesn't want to be here. More often, like any of Arnold's previous works, it is too simple, and this simplicity is not bad boy-like stubbornness, but can easily accept the subtlety of the most universal way of survival, which is a good baby who believes that the world should be beautiful. Even Arnold's colorful and fragrant "Lover" does not have the burning pain of youth. The old French man put more ink and ink on the mysterious East, or on the Chinese Kuo Shao, rather than the curiosity and trepidation of the original author Duras when he first lusted.
Just like vegetarians and meatless people and the like can do their own destiny and do their own thing. In front of the expressionless food chain, Gein's equality can only be reduced to a vision that has no execution. "Wolf Totem" also involves the basic theorem of this ecological discipline, but the film does not find an effective point of force in the face of the most natural laws of life. That said, it's not cold enough. From the most general viewing experience, only if you are cold enough, you can get more lasting heat. Whether it is a man or other animal, a wolf, a yellow sheep, a military horse in the film. When they, or when they are summoned by the "Immortal Heaven", your lamentation and even the lamentation of the next level are difficult to follow, if you really want to touch it, it is just a trivial kind of thing, rabbit death fox sorrow.
Looking at "Wolf Totem" from the most impactful audiovisual language is also unsatisfactory, we can't hear the grinding of teeth and bones, nor can we hear the heavy breathing of wolves as they run long distances. Arnold, who has filmed so many inappropriate films, this time in the image is also too green, the kind of blood blurred, snow white blood red visual impact is not enough.
China's rapid economic development has many signs, such as the inclusion of all ages in the new era, and sweeping the global shopping army. Another hidden sign is the geometrically proportional growth of pet owners in urban areas.
Many years ago, there was also a film called "Carla is a Dog", which explained the difficulties of working people to keep dogs. Privately, the relationship between urban people and animals, compared with the emotions between hunters and hounds, warriors and military horses, is too easy to fall into the cliché of paleness and busyness, which is of course a general reference. The two types mentioned above have too many interactions of life, people do not need to be teased, dogs and horses do not have to be petted, and the emotional bond between them is more unbreakable, and these two types of life bodies are more inseparable due to the attachment relationship of lips and teeth. The emotional space of people and animals in "Wolf Totem" only allows us to see Chen Jin's careful care and inseparable treatment of a little wolf, let alone perceive what kind of attitude this popular little wolf will have towards people.
As for the other emotional elements, each character does not have a strong sense of existence, and you can't see their love and hatred in practice. The love between Chen Jin and the Mongolian widow is abrupt and blunt. Chen Jin's good friend, Dou Xiao's Zhiqing Yangke, is even more dispensable, and his wild union with a Mongolian girl on the grass is only a big and inappropriate landscape.
As a teenager, I watched some animal movies. Such as the former Soviet Union's "White Bim Black Ears", Romania's "Silent Friend" and Japan's "Hunter". These films, whether like fairy tales or like myths, all point to the attachment and hidden fear of human beings and another species when they are dependent on each other, and also tell the most basic essence of the existence of life, with the dazedness and vicissitudes of desperately looking for a living space in the face of the huge pressure of natural selection. I have also read some animal novels, Jack London's most famous "Love of Life", which tells the story of an old wolf who follows a wounded young man for several days and nights, and finally is bitten alive. What impressed me the most was a series of novels about "wolves" by Our writer Shen Shixi, who always liked to emphasize the almost desperate escape when wolves entered human society, when they enjoyed the warmth of the world and returned to their nature.
Like "Wolf Totem", there is always a simple teenager who tries to destroy the "wolf nature", and the result is often unhappy. The narrative core of "Wolf Totem" is nothing more than the implementation of two types of supposed extermination policies against wolves. One is the carpet purge, a stronger and more orderly socialized organization, and a large-scale encirclement and suppression of another primitive socialization. The other is to transform it through careful and heart-warming feeding, but Chen Jin quickly gave up. The paradoxical narrative is that the purpose of raising wolves is to stimulate the wolf's ability to survive in the wild, that is, to restore it to wolf nature. This is as strange and absurd as locking people up in concentration camps in a vain attempt to show off their humanity.
The process of man's humanity is, in fact, the process of man's constant struggle with his animality, or whether he only hates it on the surface, but looks forward to peaceful coexistence on the inside. Good animal novels and animal movies will produce mutual referents, and people and animals will form a strange mirror image relationship. Behind man's self-righteous goodness is also wrapped in the pride of dominating all things. And animals, in addition to being obedient, have the impulse to return to heaven and earth. Only when these two types of life are together will they form a community, and they will be separated from each other when they are together, and it will be difficult to give up after separation. And this kind of entanglement and ambiguity, the emotional impact of the aftermath of the aftermath can not be seen in Arnold's previous films, and even more in "Wolf Totem".
I remembered some of the social news I had seen about a baby girl adopted by a she-wolf and raised her. Scientists call such children wolf babies. There are about three hundred such stories in the global knowable range. Why wolves do not feed other species, but have a special affection for humans, is really strange. In this regard, scientists also believe that humans know too little about wolves.
And in "Wolf Totem" you can't find this kind of answer, or this kind of way of asking questions, probably not necessary.
About the Author:
Sai Ren, a veteran film curator, was the deputy editor of Movie World magazine.
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