"The Next Layer" is an eleven-minute short film, directed by: Dennis Villeneuve was first released in Canada, if "Hunger Station" is to tell you the darkness and light of human society, then "The Next Layer" has no light but depravity and demise, this Douban score of 8.2 won the best short film at the Cannes Film Festival, if you read carefully, it is the history of the degeneration of the human "ruling class", that endless repression and demise, without a little killing and conflict, can let the audience understand the so-called How filthy and depraved "high society" is.
"God?"
Slaves serving the powerful? Or an ambitionist waiting for an opportunity
In an ill-lit room, guests, some military officers in military uniforms, some nobles, some religious leaders, some well-dressed merchants and dignitaries, but without exception, everyone's head and shoulders were dusty, as if they had just experienced a great catastrophe. "Delicious" plates were served on plates full of bloody corpses and offal of animals. The guests are like hungry ghosts who are hungry and eat without anyone around. At this moment, the floor suddenly broke, the guests fell to the next floor along with the dining table, and the "waiters" calmly went to the next floor, cleaned up and the banquet continued. Diners seem to be never satisfied with their gluttony, devouring everything that can be devoured.
It seems that the protagonists of the film seem to be a group of eaters who are feasting, they represent the "elite class" in all fields of society, and the waiters around them wear white suits and continuously supply them with "delicacies", but an elder in black stands still around everyone, directing the white waiters to do things with their eyes, and the white waiters are like a class attached to the "magnates", they have no right to sit down with the magnates to share the "delicious food" and enjoy the fruits of victory.
But after their "hard work and attentive service", when the "magnates" have fallen and died layer by layer, these white waiters will surely take off their white suits, change into the outer clothes of the "magnates" and dress up as they are, and continue to sit at the table and feast, while the black waiter standing on the side looks more like a god or more like a depraved demon? He watched from the sidelines that everything did not stop, or even directed the change of the "magnate", he was as if the devil was the epitome of the social environment, providing the breeding ground for all the dirt, but constantly eliminating the dirty, in fact, "The Next Layer" satirized the greed and distortion of human nature through this story, and may not want everyone to fall at the beginning, but under the influence of the so-called social rules, they are also unable to extricate themselves from it.
The black waiter in the movie can also be God, the 7 white waiters hint at the seven deadly sins, and the crazy eating scene also hints at the gluttony of the first of the seven deadly sins. "God" is punishing every greedy person for us, and this is probably the most attractive thing for the audience in this movie, you can interpret the movie from the perspective you like, and get an answer that is more in line with your values and heart.
"Delicious"
The "delicacies" in the movie are basically animal carcasses, or burned or directly bloodied on exquisite plates, human beings always feel that they are the masterpieces of the creators and the rulers of nature, indiscriminate logging, climate warming, wanton hunting and predation of wild animals, etc., in fact, this scene is more to imply that "people" have done harm to nature and other creatures, which undoubtedly echoes the rhinoceros in the movie poster. In fact, countless facts tell us how weak human beings are in the face of nature, in the face of natural disasters we are not only small, flash floods and tsunami earthquakes can easily take away the lives of countless people, even in the face of small microorganisms "people" are vulnerable, such as the famous "Black Death", "Spanish flu" and now "new crown pneumonia" small bacteria and viruses, easily harvest and plunder the lives of "people", human beings are not the rulers of this world, we are just part of nature, It is also just a senior primate, and the film is undoubtedly a reminder to protect nature and love the environment.
"Socialite"?
In the face of "authority" you have not given up thinking
In the film, there are two people who seem to be different from the people around them, namely the young woman and the patient, the young woman did not have any dust on her at the beginning, nor did she go crazy to devour food, but in the crazy plundering of the people around her, she did not control herself, and finally had to join this plunder, why she was helpless, it may be that she left a tear of unwillingness, she thought about insisting on her beliefs and ideals, but she was powerless to change all this, and she was wrapped in all this and kept falling, Finally she gave up the resistance and her own beliefs, and joined all this and even more frantic devouring, and the patient had been staring at all this with empty eyes, perhaps more of a hint of helplessness, powerless to change all this while her own body could not support him to continue to participate.
He is more like a dying "magnate" hinting at the fate of all the people at the dinner table, perhaps the final fate of all the other "magnates" is to watch others devour everything that belongs to them, this short film is worthy of sympathy and research is also the woman from before, for all of us viewers, we have the right to choose our own lifestyle and beliefs, many times in society we can not insist on ourselves, have done a lot of things that go with the flow, sometimes helpless and sometimes coerced. But are we innocent? Are we doing the right thing? Insisting that you are lonely and miserable in front of the "rules of society" will be bullied and destroyed, but these are not the most terrible, the most terrible thing is that you have lost your humanity and self in the clouds, and is the "happiness" without your own soul and faith really what you want?
The biggest difference between the movie "The Next Layer" and "Hunger Station" is that "Hunger Platform" tells you that human nature is good and justice will triumph over evil, and "Next Layer" tells you that human nature is inherently evil, and whether you keep falling with the tide or insisting on yourself against the current is your own choice. I hope that in the face of all the injustices and destruction in life, we can adhere to our own principles and bravely face them, after all, the prince will have a kind of peace. People who go with the flow will eventually be abandoned by time.