Iran's 1997 "Little Shoes" can be regarded as a children's film that has been widely disseminated in China.
Children's films, mostly with children as the protagonist of the story, through the children's vision to see the world,
This is not limited to children's vision, but to see the big in the small, through different perspectives to see a different world.
I have to say that "Little Shoes" is definitely the best in this type of work,
The experience of the brothers and sisters looking for shoes runs through the social situation and the lives of ordinary people throughout Iran.
In the decades after "Little Shoes", there are few works at home and abroad that have such a communication power.
Of course, everyone is also doing different experiments,
There are those that cover the background of the war, and there are those that talk about the hearts of teenagers, but at the social and spiritual level, it is difficult to show it from a better perspective.
In recent years, the better children's films are South Korea's "Our World".
Through the changes in the friendship of a pair of friends, it tells the changes in the hearts of teenagers and the game between Korean classes.
Today, the work that Hong YanXiu wants to talk about is very different from the above two,
That is "Innocents" released in 2021,
As soon as it was released, it won a number of grand prix including Venice and Cannes.
"The Innocent" is not a children's film in the strict sense, but it is really based on children.
It even has many scenes that are inappropriate for children, but it is also a serious children's fable.
It is about the relationship between children's growth and family education.
The protagonists of "The Innocent" are a pair of sisters,
Sister Ida is an ordinary 8-year-old girl, and sister Anna is a 14-year-old girl with mental disabilities.
Her sister could not speak, her sense of touch was dull, and she could not live a normal life, which made her the center of the family.
The parents put more attention on Anna, which naturally caused Ida's dissatisfaction.
This is where the film opens, where Ida takes advantage of her parents' inattention and pinches Anna's inner thighs to retaliate for her parents' neglect.
And the guilt of teenagers does not stop here, but gradually,
On the first night of moving to her new home, Ida wanted her mother's company, and her tired mother did not perceive Ida's thoughts, but refused to accompany her.
This triggered Ida's more intense sense of revenge,
Ida puts shards of glass into Anna's shoes, causing Anna to walk in shoes containing fragments, bleeding profusely,
This naturally made the mother furious.
Ada has no place to stand at home,
In desperation, Ida had to wander around to alleviate loneliness, and happened to meet the little boy Ben who was also uncared for.
Originally, the personality was more withdrawn, and there were even signs of cat abuse.
But there is a clear difference in itself,
Ben has a special function, he can move objects, which has become the most important foreshadowing of this film,
While Ida and Ben are messing around, her sister Anna also becomes friends with a girl named Essa.
They are also superpowers, able to sense each other's feelings.
To tell the truth, superpowers for children,
It's just a tool for playing in the mountains and forests, and it doesn't have more effects.
Until certain acts of the adults plant hatred in the hearts of the children.
The first to use superpowers to destroy is Ben,
Originally because of the father's abandonment, the mother's perennial language violence, this personality is cold and cruel,
After experimenting with cat abuse, he completed his own blackening,
He is not limited to just bullying small animals, but shifts his target to those who hurt him.
He first moved the hot pot and burned his mother, so that her mother could not be rescued in time, and died,
Then he used his superpowers to control his neighbors and killed the teenager who bullied him.
As hatred accumulates, so do local superpowers.
As a result, Ben was not limited to just revenge, and he even wanted to control the people and things around him through superpowers.
This evil nature makes the first people involved often around them,
Aware of Ben's evil powers, Essa desperately tries to stop it, but is met with intensified revenge.
After the original evil Ada experienced cat abuse time and competed with superpowers in the jungle,
Her goodness begins to awaken, and she realizes the difference between mischief and great harm,
The formation of this evil corresponds to the awakening of Adashan.
The film does not dwell too much on the different growth environments of Ada and the locals.
The local mother also appeared only two or three times.
However, from different family layouts, light intensity, and parents' attitudes towards children, the inevitability of family character shaping for children is shown.
Although Ida has been neglected, she still grew up in a loving environment.
She learned good and evil, right and wrong, from the way her parents treated them.
Ben lives in an environment where there is no right or wrong, his mother will scold him if he is in a bad mood, and his superpowers, his mother is also extremely disgusted and avoidant.
In stark contrast to the original, Essa, who also grew up in a single-parent family,
Essa's mother raised her daughter alone, with a hard job and a meager income,
But because of her mother's careful upbringing, Essa still has good intentions and can even perceive Anna's inner world and help her better adapt to social life.
In this film, superpowers are not a point of view,
On the contrary, superpowers are a breakthrough for creators to highlight the different behaviors of children.
Children's complex and sensitive hearts, the changing emotions between children and their parents, and the ups and downs of children's relationships are all perfected through the use of superpowers.
I have to say that such a setting can be described as a wonderful pen and flowers,
Let the seemingly bland feature film suddenly become vivid,
The meaning and reflection behind the superpower are not obscure, as long as the character is brought in, the meaning of the superpower can be easily obtained.
It can even be said that "The Innocent" is an excellent educational film that tells the audience:
Children seem small, but once bad habits are formed, society does not give them the right guidance, and their destructive power is amazing.
Just like Ben in this film, he can only move small stones from the beginning to the time he can control people to kill people, and it is only a few months in between.
The more hatred, the more lethal Ben becomes,
When he cannot control this desire, he naturally has to alleviate his inner desire through external giving.
The film vividly shows Ben's various behaviors through metaphors:
How Ben abused the cat, how Ben hurt his mother, how Ben controlled his neighbors to hurt the teenager,
The whole process of display is to get rid of the cultivation of a perverted murderer.
When the skill is big, what he can do and what kind of impact it will have on society is self-evident.
What is more ingenious is that the film does not exert too much adult power from beginning to end, and the strength of the police, parents, and community is as diluted as possible.
Instead, the influence of Ada, Anna, and Essa children is amplified.
After Essa is hurt by Ben, Anna and Ida undergo a metamorphosis from child to adult.
On the one hand, they are afraid of Ben's lethality, on the other hand, they are aware of their own responsibilities, and they take on the responsibility of protecting the community and protecting their families.
In the end, the union of Ida and Anna became a return to the battle of good and evil.
And the children's personal will is also given the greatest display in this film.