I have always wanted to take an eye-catching, or at least controversial title to those self-media personnel, but after thinking about it for a long time, I denied a lot, and finally I still took my own impressions of watching the whole movie as the title of this film review.
"Dogtown" was born in 2003, its plot is actually not complicated, its storyline is quite simple, the daughter of an underworld boss because of disgust with her father's various behaviors, accidentally escaped into a small village called Dogtown is actually a small village with only 15 people, and the villagers from a beginning of exclusion, doubt, to the subsequent trust and thoughtfulness, and then to the enslavement, abuse. Then the girl finally couldn't bear it anymore and carried out the terrible act of slaughtering the village by "scraping the bones to heal the wounds" and the desire to make the world a better place.
The shooting method is also very simple, just 15 or 6 people, on the ground with chalk to draw a simple dividing line to replace the building or public facilities that should be. A few random pieces of wood indicate a mine cave, and a few stones are piled up to represent the mountain. In the initial experience, the viewer can't help but wonder how short of money this movie was when it was made...
However, such a very simple plot and extremely simple set production, there is a faint, slow rhythm that makes the viewer addicted and deeply immersed in it. What kind of magic is involved in it?
In order for you to better understand this movie, we may as well divide it into three levels.
The first layer, human nature.
The thing of human nature is very complicated, the ancients cloud: the same rice to raise a hundred kinds of people, know the face of the people do not know the heart. Before Grace came to the town, the townspeople lived a peaceful and serene, self-sufficient, self-amusing life, and everyone knew each other's roots. However, Grace's arrival changed this calm, first of all because of the unknown origin and was suspected and excluded by everyone. With her integration, through her efforts slowly mingled with everyone. A life that should have been happily continued was changed by two wanted warrants. The townspeople, feeling the pressure of taking Grace in, began to raise their demands on her, including all aspects, such as the payment of labor, the reduction of income, the physical payment, and so on.
Poor Grace was trapped in this town, unable to escape, and even locked in heavy chains.
In fact, from this period onwards, Grace has been materialized by the inhabitants of the town and lost herself. Of course, in order to stay in the town, Grace put in more patience, more labor, and more flesh. But it is indeed more intense oppression and oppression, which may be what we call "sheng mien, dou mi revenge". Eventually, with the unanimous consent of the townspeople, Tom contacts Grace's father, which eventually leads to the collapse of the town. It's important to note that many people feel that it's because the wanted warrants put too much pressure on the townspeople that they have to eventually drive her away. But on the contrary, the real reason they want to drive Grace away is because of the objectification of Grace, all the dominance is in the hands of the inhabitants, and everyone wants to dominate her for a longer time, or rather, they want her to be possessed by themselves rather than shared. As a result, many cracks have emerged in the originally harmonious town. Only after driving her away can the town return to the "peace and peace" it used to be.
All the people who acted at the last meeting defended themselves, pushing all the sins on Grace for relief, including Tom's betrayal when he couldn't ask for it. All highlight the ugliness of human nature.
Finally, when Grace's father is summoned to the town, and when Grace orders her men to wash the town in blood, will the inhabitants learn that it is precisely because of their own ugliness, or inability to overcome the ugly part of human nature, that they have self-destruction?
The above is to look at this film from the perspective of human nature, but if this film is only viewed from this perspective, it is a bit wasteful, so we move on to the next level
The second layer, religion
In fact, we say that human nature and religion are inseparable, and it is precisely because we understand the weaknesses of human nature that religion will try to restrain these weaknesses and persuade people to be good, which is the source of all religions in the world. Whether it is Christianity, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, etc., its purpose is to regulate human behavior and suppress as much as possible the animalistic part of the human heart.
And because the film itself was made in the Western world, it naturally involves Christian doctrine.
In fact, the kind of peace and tranquility that the town gives people at the beginning of the film is only a kind of appearance, and there are countless undercurrents and contradictions hidden behind its back.
In the prologue of the film, with the camera and tom's every move, as well as the introduction of the voiceover, we know at least a few pieces of information, the first is that the town has several families, second, the townspeople are actually in a state of abandonment, third, the townspeople do not have the habit of devout faith in God, and fourth, the townspeople's respective desires are not actually satisfied and released, only temporary compromises.
Many people think that this is a utopian world, but I don't think so, the so-called utopian world is a world that is extremely rich in materials and needed by people. For example, Brave New World depicts a truly utopian world, while 1984 is a totalitarian society. In a utopian world, people's desires are not so suppressed.
So when Tom began to realize this and was going to solve these problems step by step, Grace appeared, grace, sent by God to redeem the town. It is to bring the town back into God's embrace and to hear His teachings. And we see that Grace's character development is also in line with these needs (this can be reflected in the final chapter, Grace's dialogue with her father).
At the beginning, when she was not under external pressure, Grace became an indispensable part of the town's residents through her virgin-like performance, which was embodied in the fact that she became the eyes of the blind, the limbs of the crippled, the brains of the mentally weak, the doctor's medicine, the psychological comfort of the apple worker, and the consumer of the handicraft shop. And so on and so forth. For the townspeople, everyone received a godsend from Grace. They also chose to accept Grace.
But the good times are not long, and desire is an indispensable part of human nature, the darkest part of human nature. Proper desires motivate us, while inappropriate desires destroy us. This includes the very famous Seven Deadly Sins of Christianity. Arrogance, greed, jealousy, gluttony, anger, lust, laziness. And these original sins correspond to the inhabitants of the town in the film. Let's take a look at them one by one
Lust This point is actually very easy to understand, and all the men's various violations of Grace are the embodiment of lust
It is true that for a town with such poor supplies, there is no real sense of overeating, but Dante's definition of binge eating is expanded - excessive covetousness is binge eating, which is in line with all the residents of the town.
Greed is also aimed at all the residents of the town, for Grace's unlimited demands, as well as the deduction of her salary, and there is also the hope of selling Grace in exchange for profits
Laziness also refers to all the residents of the town, the town does not actually need Grace, before she came, everything was carried out in a step-by-step manner, but when Grace arrived, the townspeople gave her almost all the work. He did nothing.
Rage refers to The Apple's wife, Vera, who, without discernment, blames Grace and even smashes seven dolls that Grace has bought (PS: these seven dolls actually refer to Vera's seven children in themselves).
Jealousy is about Liz, and it is true that before Grace arrived, she was deeply troubled by male harassment in the town, but jealousy arose when all the male eyes were focused on Grace
Arrogance, there is no doubt that it is Tom, who through various words and deeds, tries to control Grace's spirit, various theories, truths, and lofty postures, which fully illustrate this point (PS: In fact, the arrogance in this film refers to others, which is said later)
After the seven original sins were gathered, sure enough, the residents of the town summoned the dragon to appear. This dragon is Grace's father, the boss of the mafia, so everyone was suddenly surprised by the black boss's men in anticipation, and all of them were packed up, leaving only a dog named Moses, and the meaning of this Moses must not need me to introduce. Simply put, he ran into the arms of God with the lost. The symbol here is also to leave hope for mankind.
Writing this, one might suspect that Grace represented Jesus, because after all, she freed Moses, let it lead the lost to the light, and punished all those who committed original sin. I thought the same thing at first, but there were always a few violations that made me puzzled. First, Jesus didn't kill anyone, or killed with his own hands, but Grace killed Tom with her own hands, and secondly, if Grace was referring to Jesus, what did her father say? There are many similar contradictions, so I will not list them all in detail.
These problems, or contradictions, are always in the process of watching the movie, and they bother me. So I had to revisit my views on the film after the film. One of the most classic images triggered another line of thought for me, so I dug deeper along this line of thought and finally found an explanation that was more reasonable for me at present. This is the third level of the film
The third layer is the Antichrist
Maybe the antichrist is a little too shocking, but if I change the wording, it may be easier for everyone to understand and make my argument less extreme.
In this regard, we must start from the film's shooting method. As we said before, this is a prop, set, character, simple to even rudimentary movie. We all call him an avant-garde experimental film, but I'm more concerned about why the director is making it this way, is it really no money? Or is he trying to express something deeper? I looked up the director's work with this question and found that "Female Addict" and "Dancer in the Dark" were actually from him. Although the pictures of these two films are also relatively simple, they are both physically shot. And this movie, in humble terms, is shot by several people in a very simple scene... It is not possible to change the plate yet.
And there was another thought that accompanied me during the movie, especially when the director used a large panorama to shoot, and when the kind of time-lapse shooting after Grace's workload doubled, I could especially think of the perspective we used in old-fashioned RPG games, especially Japanese RPG. I've always struggled with this when watching the film, but when I re-examined my previous thinking, I found that this perspective and this simple model were carefully designed by the director.
A lot of people don't play Japanese RPG anymore, but if you've played this type of game before, you'll learn that this perspective is known in the gaming world as the God Perspective. Looking at the so-called simple pictures and simple architecture of this film according to this idea, we can understand that the director must only adopt this perspective in order to let the audience see at a glance what activities are being carried out by all sentient beings at the same time, in order to feel the smallness of human beings. And this point, when the Apple worker first violated Grace, Tom was hanging around outside, and the townspeople were also engaged in their own affairs, and the coldness, inner conflict, resentment and helpless emotions brought about by this were extremely impactful. And we, as witnesses, have no way to stop it, just like God, who may only watch things happen, but we can't stop it.
After understanding this perspective problem, many questions are solved, for example, since our moviegoer is God, that is, Brother Su, who is Grace? With a heart of grace, she brought people care, help, labor, and pleasure, but in exchange for betrayal, accusation, humiliation and imprisonment, so after Vera broke the seven dolls, the bond in her heart had been broken, and she wanted to leave this town that was not worth saving, helplessly, and finally sealed by iron chains and iron wheels. At the same time, the clothes also returned from the previous bright tie to the big set of black feathers. It's like Lucifer was the archangel who finally folded his wings and fell into darkness. The huge bright moon in the final chapter actually symbolizes the transformation of angels into demons (in the Western world, the moon is a symbol of demons).
If Grace is referring to Lucifer, then her father, the boss of the underworld, has only one person to correspond to, and that is Satan. We all know that Satan is God's nemesis, so Satan in this film never got out of the car and never went to God's territory. The conversation between him and Grace in the car is fully exploiting the confusion caused by the townspeople to guide Grace (Lucifer) into the demon world. And one of the foreshadowings I left behind above, the other person in this film who commits the original sin of arrogance is also Grace. Her arrogance lies in the fact that she thinks she is smarter, wiser, and capable than everyone else, and she sees these people as if they were dogs. And this is why when these people have carried out various insults, violence and other means against her, she can still defend them and excuse them, which is also the same as our arrogance towards kittens and puppies. Arrogance, on the other hand, is precisely the crime that Lucifer was paired with.
And their discussion of power in the car, in my opinion, power is just a tool, the difference is in whose hands. Another point is that power is nothing more than the obedience of others to oneself, and to obtain the absolute obedience of others is nothing more than two means, the first is to rely on faith and loyalty, and the second is fear and pressure. Both of these can wield a great deal of power, and when faith weakens or fades, it is a world of fear and pressure.
Seeing this, I think many friends have been blindfolded. Then I'll re-examine my train of thought.
First of all, I think that this film is borrowed from the background of the Great Depression in the United States, but it is about the origin of the Garden of Eden, the struggle between God and Satan, and how human beings have fallen. Names such as Achilles, Athena, Pandora, Olympus, etc. in this film can foreshadow this.
The angel Lucifer, as the object of God's contention with Satan, mistakenly entered the Garden of Eden (Dogtown) after a fierce confrontation, and in the early days of Dogtown, he saw god's performance of educating the people, and felt happy, but as the plot deepened, her integration, and the sexual assault of the apple orchard, the seven original sins in the hearts of the people began to manifest. Brutal exploitation, repression, and humiliation of Lucifer. In this regard, Lucifer still had faith in God and hoped to impress or guide people through his own actions. But it turns out that things are moving in an unpredictable direction. Two things completely changed Lucifer, one was that Vera smashed the seven dolls symbolizing the child, causing her to doubt her faith in God, and the other tom's betrayal completely caused her to fall into satanic temptation, so that in a raging fire, a new demon Lucifer was born. That's why I say this is an anti-Christian film.
Of course, some people say that Grace's final act of clearing the scene is in line with Christian doctrine, in order to save people from sores, or to scrape bones and heal wounds, and to make the world a better place by eliminating sin. I can't say I'm wrong, but I'll keep my opinion. Because after all, Grace in the last fire is too much like Lucifer when he fell.
Finally, let's add a few small details,
1. Someone in the film once said that at five o'clock in the evening, the shadow left by the sun's rays through the top of the church's bell tower pointed to the opening of the toy store. In its english, it should be exactly pointing to the o in open, but this o is actually the starting letter of over, which I think is a bit interesting.
2. The gods and demons of the Western world cannot directly interfere with human beings. It can only be through one's own spokesperson in the human world, for example, God is generally the master, and there are many kinds of demons. But their path is all demagoguery, that is, God leads people to goodness through words or deeds through spokesmen, and demons inspire evil thoughts in the human heart in the same way. Come and wreak havoc on the world. You can't do things yourself.
3. The names of the seven children are Olympus, Athena, Achilles, Jason, Pandora, Daria and Diana. Among them, Olympus, Athena, Achilles and Pandora all refer to the age of the gods. Presumably, the other three also have their own references, but I am only shallow and cannot be found.
4. Dog town actually has multiple meanings in the film, the first of which refers to the fact that before Grace, the villagers lived like dogs. The second is that the villagers use Grace like a dog. The third is more pronounced, and the villagers directly tied her up. And the last one, in the eyes of God and demons, these people are no different from the sword dogs.
5. Grace opens the curtains in the blind man's house, and a huge sunlight shines in, but the blind man turns a blind eye, indicating that the savior is in front of him, and the villagers do not know anything.
There are many details left, such as the day of the slaughter of the village is the full moon, and the power of the demon is also the strongest at the time of the full moon, and so on. Just waiting for everyone to discover it for themselves.