"One, two, three" When Joe finished counting down and pressed the shutter, the photo was not frozen, and the family of three sitting in front of the camera looked as ordinary as all families, and if we looked closely, we would find that in front of the camera was an expressionless father with tears in his eyes, a child who tried to raise the corners of his mouth, and a mother who tried to make herself smile but suddenly became sad. The movie "Wild Life" ended in such a wordless situation.
"Marriage is like a besieged city, people outside the city want to come in, people in the city want to go out" Is a phrase we are all familiar with. But in real life, it is easy to "go into the city" but it is difficult to "go out of the city", because there is still a product in the siege of marriage, that is, children. The film "Wild Life" is from the perspective of a child, to show a story of a siege collapsing in silence.
At the beginning of the movie, we see a typical American family, the father works actively and hard, the son studies seriously, and the mother is full-time at home to teach her husband and son, which is very happy and happy. Then the father lost his job, but even so, the mother did not feel the slightest irritation, but encouraged the father to find a job. However, the picture of happiness stops there, and the next thing we see is how the family breaks down step by step in peace, and finally falls apart in silence.
The movie "Wild Life" is not "wild" at all, and the whole movie is particularly calm against the background of the beauty of Montana, but this is also a metaphor for the family in the film, which seems to be calm and beautiful, but there is a crazy fire burning.
When I was in elementary school, I would sing Ren Xianqi's "Heart Is Too Soft", but at that time, it was only because the melody was simple and I didn't know much about the lyrics. However, as I got older, my awareness of the lyrics in the song also improved. "Love is always simple, it is too difficult to get along", this sentence is simply the truth of the universe, a man and a woman two people fell in love is very simple, as long as there is a common language, plus the right opportunity, the biological instinct will let the two people together, but when the passion passes, especially after the two people form a family, when they start to face each other every day, they will find more and more problems, although these problems are basically not a big deal, but every time they appear, it is like taking a brick from under the siege, When the bricks under the accumulated walls are swept away, the walls will collapse in an instant.
The family in this movie is like this, Jerry as a husband and Janet as a mother seem to be affectionate and loving, but in fact, from Janet's conversation with the school teacher, we can vaguely hear the potential contradictions of this family. Husbands continue to move from state to state in order to live comfortably, and wives can only choose to obey and follow their husbands again and again. We all know that running a family is actually the same as doing business, which requires constant mutual tolerance and compromise between two people, but when this situation becomes a person in the family who blindly compromises with the other person, then the foundation that supports the family will be shaken, and in most cases, the family will eventually break down.
When the film shows the breakdown of Jerry's family, it is not shown through the perspective of the water and fire between Jerry and Janet, but through the perspective of the third party in the family, the child Joe. In ordinary movies, the children of this kind of family will generally be either hysterical or depressed, but Joe is a very normal child, as a 14-year-old boy, from his point of view to see things between his parents, it is always a confused attitude, he does not understand why his father insists on being a firefighter, does not understand why his mother is so close to the old man, does not know why his father did not call back, does not understand why his mother is crying alone, he will only ask over and over again: "Do you still love daddy?" In fact, this confusion in the eyes of children reflects the confusion in the hearts of parents.
Did Jerry really want to be a firefighter, to put out a terrible wildfire? No, not at all, he just didn't know how to deal with the family, the family that had become increasingly poor because of his willfulness, so he chose to escape, it seemed that after a period of escape and then came back, the family would return to its original form. But when he got home, he found that everything had just gotten worse.
Does Janet really want to cheat and marry someone rich? No, not at all, she was just tired of the mask of her good wife who always blindly flattered her husband, the family she had been giving, always compromising, but not getting the slightest response. It seems that cheating allows you to find yourself young, attractive, and free woman. But when she actually cheated, she found that this stimulation was not the life she wanted.
"One person can live on a shoestring, but two people will have a grudge." This sentence can be said to be very appropriate in this movie. If Jerry hadn't lost his job, the family might have followed the same route as the model. But as soon as the economic resources are lost, the contradictions that are carefully hidden by everyone in ordinary days are highlighted. It's like a mountain fire in Montana in the film, everyone knows it, but no one will actively touch it, and when it burns around you, you will realize how terrible the bursting fire is.
And in this film, there is another detail, that is, the president's speech that often floats on the radio and on television, and the distant voice keeps repeating "This is a dangerous, difficult and grim moment, but I believe that we will be strong again". In fact, these words are like the mountain fires in Montana, which sounds out of reach, but when Jerry can't find a job, he finds that he is actually in this difficult era.
In fact, unemployment, wildfires and the decline of the environment in the film are all similar things, repeatedly and not intensely burning this fragile family, and finally burning cracks in the calm. Together with Joe, we witnessed the breakdown of a family, and in the end, knowing that everything was irreparable, Joe still pulled his parents together and took a family portrait. From the expressions of the three people in the final family portrait, we can see that the parents have actually abandoned the family in their hearts, and only the children are still trying to protect this "home" with an illusion, which can't help but make people's eyes wet.
In the past two years, the environment has obviously been bad, and the actual situation actually has a lot of similarities with the United States in 1960 in the film, so I think this movie also has some reference significance for us. In the difficult situation of the world, we should guard the last line of defense of the family, since we have come together, we must tolerate and understand each other, and jointly resist the "mountain fire" outside, rather than under the "mountain fire" and first chisel a slit in the wall.