This article is written by Vicky Hedgehog
A few years ago, I watched Lu Chuan's "Nanjing! nanking! In the middle of the night, depressed to the point of not being able to sleep, I sadly wrote down some comments that were not film reviews. I feel that human nature is like a reef under the deep sea, and everyone will touch the reef. In that massacre, most people chose to blindly obey, whether it was chinese soldiers and civilians who surrendered, or Japanese soldiers who raised bayonets. Lu Chuan's reflection is sincere and also dilutes the narrow national hatred.
Later, when I watched "Raise Your Hand", I was amused by the humor of director Feng Xiaoning, but such a movie only satisfies our hatred psychology and is not real history at all. Zhang Yimou's "Jinling Thirteen Chao" is kitsch to the point where it is impossible to form a picture without tearing a woman's clothes apart, and I don't want to say more.
I don't like to be in a movie where the director takes a serious look for meaning. Their lenses were high above, and my perspective had to be lowered.
We recreate war in film to stay away from it, not to glorify fear or hatred. "Schindler's List", "Beautiful Life", "Sending a Letter to Copenhagen", "Eavesdropping Storm" and other films about war and the soul, full of human brilliance.
Jiang Wen, he teased, self-deprecating, and really put the camera down, not critical, not compassionate. He just moves the camera, aiming at the heart of each character, slowly pulling closer, showing, not evaluating. Therefore, in his films, there has never been a real sense of the protagonist and supporting roles, the characters are distinct and plump, they are all the protagonists in the center of the stage, and they can also retreat to the corner and become supporting roles.
"Here Comes the Devil" is exactly that style. I will not elaborate on the specific plot, let's talk about a few related associations.
1. [Stockholm Syndrome at the Hanging Nail Station]
The devils came and the village was occupied. The villagers are trapped in the hanging platform, like being locked up in a concentration camp and losing their freedom of movement. Army rangers and searchlights dangled in the village, and Navy boats spun around the river on the edge of the village. If you just present these horror atmospheres, or show the grand scenes of struggle, the film will be reduced to a killing game.
Jiang Wen slowly opened a Pandora box, making all the private thoughts in people's hearts rush out, so that the audience could slowly experience and find their own pain points.
The people who hung up the armor platform really hung up their armor and were accustomed to this kind of life ruled by the Japanese army. The children are waiting for the candy of the Japanese soldiers at the head of the village, Ma Dasan and the fish are in Kangtou male and female love, and the second neck nods ha waist enjoy the preferential treatment of the good people... Everything was calm.
When Hanaya Offered to thank the villagers for their hospitality and asked the captain for food to compensate, they readily agreed. There were four more truckloads of grain, which simply made them grateful. Captain Sazuka came ashore with troops and grain to the village to celebrate, and the villagers and Japanese soldiers hooked up and drank and guessed their fists. The grain was originally the villagers' own, and now they are just taking it back, and they are so ecstatic to use it?
When the Japanese soldiers suddenly changed their faces and took up arms and went on a killing spree, not a single villager at the scene thought of resisting. The only Japanese soldier who died was actually strangled to death by the old man who could not move his legs.
Stockholm Syndrome, also known as the hostage complex, refers to the fact that a kidnapped person develops feelings for the kidnapper and is tamed.
The villagers who hung up the armor platform were tamed in the Japanese military system, so that they could do nothing but obey and please.
2. [Contracts are only useful for trustworthy people]
When Hanaya Kosaburo was taken care of as a hostage, the villagers cared deeply for him. Tube eat and drink, heal the wound and shave the head. They wanted to treat this Japanese son not thinly, and his gratitude to them was sincere. So when Xiao Sanlang proposed to return to the military camp to ask the villagers for food, the fifth uncle and grandfather wrote a solemn contract letter of special care, and the two parties signed it.
With this contract, they believe that the Japanese will definitely abide by the agreement and repay their village with kindness.
The most meaningful scene began.
The military-civilian carnival naturally became a slaughterhouse for Japanese soldiers to burn and kill villagers. The first one to betray his faith was Kosaburo. When his bayonet plunged into the body of his fifth uncle, the old reader, who had always felt that he was highly respected and thoughtful, opened his eyes in amazement, as if he could not believe that this was reality. And the naïve two-necked mother, who has always thought that she is sitting upright, the Japanese will not do anything with her, she rushed up, and became the second person to die tragically. Her death made the always docile second neck fiercely resist, and as a result fell into the well, she was crushed to death by the Japanese soldiers with food. And the child who often got candy from the Japanese died at the hands of his uncle who usually gave him candy.
At the time of their deaths, they did not understand why they treated the Japanese soldiers so kindly, but they encountered such bad retribution. Why did they save Xiao Sanlang, but they brought death to themselves? It's so unfair.
In a world where the weak eat the strong, there is no point in demanding fairness and justice, just as the beautiful sheep pleaded with the gray wolf not to eat her. Contracts work only for those who abide by them. To a Japanese soldier without any principles, all good wishes are self-deception.
On December 7, 1970, West German Chancellor Brandt, who was visiting Poland at the time, silently knelt in front of the Monument to the Jewish Martyrs. In June 1995, reunified German Chancellor Kohl once again knelt in front of the Memorial to the Jewish Victims of World War II in Israel.
Japan's attitude toward this period of history does not show us the same sincerity.
3. [Unchecked power is the root of evil]
The platform was managed by two Japanese detachments, the Navy detachment and the Army detachment. On weekdays, the army squad patrols the village, while the navy squad patrols the river. Well water does not violate the river water and rarely travels.
One day, two Japanese navies climbed up the village to improve their food. When they first came to the Army's territory, they were a little timid. One soldier told the other that to treat Chinese as pigs, and the more rude and rude they were, the more obedient they were.
The torture experiments of the two soldiers began immediately. They first drew a circle for a villager and asked him to stay inside and not allow him to go out, then went into the village to catch chickens, and after eating Ma Dasan's stewed chicken with great grace, they left satisfied.
From this detail, it can be seen that their attitude towards the villagers will be even worse in the future. Because they firmly believe that Chinese fear the Japanese, there will be no resistance. Ordinary soldiers are like this, and it is not surprising that Captain Sazuka has greater power, and he will certainly be more unscrupulous.
The famous Stanford Prison experiment tells us that when power expands rapidly, once polite college guards will abuse and torture their classmates, insult them in every way, turning a simulated prison into a real hell. The student prisoners, who have been deprived of their powers, are psychologically devastated, think that they are really guilty, and thus endure all inhuman treatment.
In Chinese history, the largest number of deaths was the Battle of Changping, in which the Qin generals buried 400,000 Zhao prisoners alive. Combined with the number of people killed in other battles, he killed 1.45 million people in his lifetime, making him a true murderous demon. But in the history books, he is a fierce general with great achievements.
When a person enjoys absolute power, he becomes a ruthless dictatorship. Hitler, Mussolini, Qin Shi Huang, should all be able to give us such enlightenment.
What constrains power is by no means the morality of the individual, but only the system of checks and balances. Not giving absolute power to a person, a department, or even a country will reduce the frequency of wars.
Are those who wield machetes and rush to innocent people really vicious gangsters? They are also children of human beings, and they once had kindness. But when one day the weapon is picked up and the opportunity to take the lives of others is taken, the pleasure of killing drowns out all conscience.
The last straw that crushes man's moral defense line is often power. The constraint of power can only be the balance of forces of many parties. This is true for individuals, and even more so between countries.
4. [Farce, ending in a laugh]
At the end of the film, Japan announces its unconditional surrender. Sazuka's army also became prisoners of the Nationalist army. Gao Ren, the general of the Nationalist Army, who was awe-inspiring in righteousness, held two public judgment meetings after he was stationed at the Hangjia Platform.
The first time was to kill the interpreter Dong Hanchen in public. As a translator for the Japanese, Dong Hanchen never did anything treacherous or evil. In order to survive in the cracks, he deliberately mistranslated the dialogue between the two sides, and tried to avoid the conflict between the two sides with his own strength.
But the attitude of our people has always been to be gentle on the outside and purged on the inside. As the target of public criticism, his death was inevitable. Although it is a little wronged, it is not very absurd.
The second judgment, the most absurd scene, was the death of Ma Dasan. Ma Dasan, who had survived the Japanese slaughter village, and Ma Dasan, who had never dared to kill anyone, this time picked up an axe and rushed to the prisoner camp. He hacked two Japanese soldiers to death and chased after Captain Kuizuka and shouted for help to the Nationalists.
In the end, Ma Dasan was captured by the Nationalist army and tied up on the execution ground. His charges were heinous — wanton destruction of the peaceful environment, flagrant violation of the Stanford Treaty, disorder, and terror. It is a bad act of pseudo-resistance against Japan. There is no excuse for the sin of wanting to add.
Gao ordered the execution by Japanese soldiers. This glorious task fell on Hanaya Kosaburo. He washed his combat knife, bounced off the fly on Ma Dasan's neck, and carried out the order very carefully and normatively.
Ma Dasan's head was cut off, and he grunted and circled the ground a few times. As far as his eyes went, the film's black-and-white picture turned to color. His head fell to the ground, his face covered with dirt, and he grinned and smiled. This laugh, a very cunning laugh, self-evident, profound meaning. A farce ended there.
For this heavy history, Chinese will always cry out and remember forever. But so far, as a victorious power, the compensation that the country deserves, and the complaints launched by the people have not been supported by public opinion in Japan and the world. Therefore, we also need to add more detailed victim information to leave irrefutable evidence for this history.
Specific people are always more convincing than numbers.
(Image from the Internet, copyright belongs to the original author)