Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Li Li
Identification Object: Stray Cat Bob 2: Bob's Gift
Release date: August 6
Like the ending of many fairy tales, Bob the Stray Cat, which came out in 2016, also ended with one person and one cat "living happily ever after". And then what? The sequel, Stray Cat Bob 2: Bob's Gift, shows a bit of cruelty after a bit of beauty.
Bob the Stray Cat looks at it from a certain angle, like the story of the prince and Cinderella. Poor, lonely, discouraged, street performer James can't get rid of drug addiction, and the road ahead is bleak. One day, Bob, a stray orange cat, came to his basement. James felt love, trust, and dignity in it, and this unexpected glimmer became his initial motivation to change himself.
But can love solve all practical problems? Stray Cat Bob 2: Bob's Gift tells us in the first half: Unfortunately, no. Despite james quitting his addiction and working hard, he often couldn't afford to pay for electricity and canned cats in London. On the street, everyone greeted Bob with a smile on their face, and no one really cared about James. In fact, people don't really love Bob, they just like to see the rare scene of this orange cat obediently accompanying its owner to sell art.
There are two small plots in the film that satirize the developed society in the West. One scene is when a politician casually pulls James on the street with a cat, involuntarily stuffs a note into his hand, and then wraps his shoulder and smiles at the reporter camera. When the politician flew away, James opened the note in his hand and found that he did not know it. He went to the bank to exchange, and the other party told him that this was Albanian Lek, and 1,000 yuan could only be exchanged for a little more than 7 pounds, while the bank stipulated that more than 10 pounds could be exchanged. Another detail is the conversation between James and the social worker who helped him. "I can't imagine that this is one of the richest cities in the world, but the rich people can't seem to see us." "No, they can see it, otherwise why do you think they're putting up fences?"
The first half of the film shows a lot of London's indifference and absurdity. For example, an animal protection agency went so far as to break up James and his cat. However, this is a heartwarming movie related to pets, so the film also uses two fables told by the grocery store owner to reconcile the cruelty of reality.
In the first story, the protagonists are farmers and bosses. Each time, the farmer sold the butter to the boss, who returned the flour, beans and 1 kilogram of sugar. One day, the boss weighed the amount of butter on a whim and found that it was less than 1 kilogram, which was greatly ignited. The farmer replied to him: Because I am poor, I can't afford to buy weights, so I weigh it with your sugar every time... After listening to the story, James came to his own conclusion: "Good deeds are rewarded; bad deeds... There is no butter on the bread. This parable actually corresponds to a lot of the details in the film. For example, James once helped a lady who fell, and in the end this lady also helped him and more poor people. For example, there was an old lady who always knitted sweaters for Bob, and later James learned that she had the courage to take to the streets after the widow because of her love for Bob. And then there's the chicken-ribbed note james received, which he eventually stuffed into the person he hated the most—the animal protection agency worker bent on tearing him apart from Bob.
But I personally prefer the second parable to this didactic story—the story of the three walkers. In the story, everyone has two pockets, one with pain and one with happiness. The first man carried the pain on his chest and happiness on his back, because the pain was so heavy that he was ultimately unable to go on. The second man put happiness on his chest and showed off from time to time, but the pain behind him slowly overwhelmed him. The last man also put happiness in his chest to motivate himself, but he poked a hole in his back pocket, and he lost his pain all the way and finally came to the end. James asked the grocery store owner: Are you the third person? The grocery store owner, who had experienced the loss of his son, smiled softly: These three people are all me.
Stray Bob 2: Bob's Gift is not as well received as the first Bob Stray Cat, in large part because the second half of the film takes a rather sloppy turn—all of a sudden, all the good fortune pours in to James, and people line up to repay the joy he and Bob once brought. This fairy-tale treatment undoubtedly weakens the film's critical nature of social reality to some extent. However, as far as the story of "two pockets" is concerned, this film is still worth watching. A heartbreaking coincidence: the film's story is based on Bob The Cat, who went to cat in a car accident before the film's official release. This tragic ending in reality once again confirms the moral of "two pockets": love always coexists with pain, and we all have to learn to find meaning to continue in our broken lives. (For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)
Source | Yangcheng Evening News
Image | Still
Editor-in-charge | Shao Ziheng