I have always admired films and directors with social injustice as the theme, such as "The Lamentations of Richard Jewell", "Blackwater", "Mrs. Wilson", "Suyuan" and other real-life film and television adaptations, not only let the audience pay attention to the margins of society that we may usually ignore through the film, but also these people who confront or expose the dark side behind the truth.
Their willingness to come forward also deserves the support and encouragement of all of us, and Silent is one such film.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" is based > true events</h1>
This is based on the collective sexual assault on the campus of Tainan Kai Cong School that broke out in Taiwan in 2011.
The number of cases is more than 300, the age group is distributed from the second grade of primary school to the third grade of high school, and the proportion of male sexual assault accounts for more than 65%. There are more than 70 students who have been sexually assaulted, and the locations of the crime are distributed in classrooms, corridors, dormitories, toilets, libraries, playgrounds, teachers, classmates, trains, school buses, etc., and the cases on school buses account for more than 28%, and the time is as long as 5 to 6 years.
But the most outrageous thing is that in the more than a year after the trial, the school has reported more than 30 sexual assault cases, and the number of cases that have not been notified may be as many as hundreds.
Of course, the characters and some plots in "Silent" must have made up elements, but when you have seen relevant reports and interviews, you will realize that in fact, director Ke Zhennian moved the entire incident to "Silent", like Bei Bei, who started with her as the event, is the first female student to be exposed, and she has also said that she does not want her grandparents to worry and feels ashamed to say this matter.
Even she wrote things down in the contact book but was not taken seriously by the teacher, planned to go to the hospital for surgery so that she would not get pregnant even if she was bullied, etc. became part of her script.
Looking at "Silent", those things that happened in that school, obviously it is several years ago, seem to be staged again in reality, perhaps it is cruel to uncover the wounds of the victims and the victims' families at that time, but the impact of this matter after being exposed is believed to have a positive impact on the educational environment and sexual education.
So "Silent" focuses the camera and story on a School of Qi Cong, which is specially set up for hearing-impaired teenagers so that they can have a good learning environment.
As the line from the movie goes: This is the best of times, and it's also the worst of times.
Compared with the closure of other formal academic systems, there are restrictions that students can only communicate and express in sign language, so that the movie "Silent" cuts from the external perspective of Zhang Cheng, a transfer student, a deaf teenager, and takes the audience to see the shocking truth hidden in the campus that originally had a good intention and helped special students adapt to society, arousing complex contradictions in the heart and triggering follow-up reflections on the social system.
When filming the process of sexual assault, "Silent" has actually been filmed very cryptically, deliberately using shaky lenses or in-focus close-ups to quickly take it, but it still makes people feel full of goosebumps.
Coupled with the fact that there is no obvious soundtrack and sound effects in the whole film, only the sound of collisions and clothes rubbing when the flesh struggles, the whole process of sexual assault appears more realistic and realistic.
I believe that the Korean movie "Melting Pot", which tells the story of deaf-mute students being sexually abused by the principal, you must be impressed, not only after the release of the film has triggered fierce discussions and attention to the case, but also made it a representative work of Korean films in the minds of many netizens, but we do not know that the same incident was also really staged in Taiwan.
This is known as the Taiwanese version of "The Melting Pot", which may not be the best film made this year, but "Silent" definitely went its own way. Beyond the strong themes of deafness and sexual assault, it has become an exploration of the various silent desires and fears of youth.
Full of insight into human nature, sharp and gentle at the same time, it is a stunning and good work.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > start with a "game that can't be said."</h1>
The school is quiet, but full of eerie atmosphere.
"Silent" runs through the film with a "game that can't be said", from the words deliberately edited out of the trailer to the actor's mouth that has been erased on the poster, creating an atmosphere of suspense and tension for the upcoming movie.
Innocent students are playing a game together, but this game is a secret that cannot be said, but why can't it be said that in this game, what is victory?
When Zhang Cheng saw that the students around him were wearing hearing aids, and everyone communicated in proficient sign language, he felt an unprecedented sense of belonging, but when he witnessed the so-called unspeakable game of the school bus, it turned out to be his favorite girl, Bei Bei, who was sexually assaulted by the senior, and what shocked Zhang Cheng the most was that Bei Bei told him: "They are just playing." ”
Among them, the victim tried to write a note to the teacher for help, but no one was willing to lend a helping hand, it turned out that the school authorities had not been unaware, but ignored and hidden, resulting in the victims, whether mental or physical, were seriously hurt, which was angry and painful.
The game that everyone can't say is just a helpless distress signal, in a lonely and silent world, inaudible, does not mean invisible. What the film does is to "soundly" point out the dark side of society and human nature, so that the audience can face up to this heavy social issue and hope that onlookers can speak up.
It should be fun to say to oneself to oneself, "Let's play together," but when "play together" has a different meaning, it seems frightening.
Just like the real incident, the last row of the school bus that Zhang Cheng bumped into began as early as several years ago, no one knows who started these "games" in the first place, whether it is the teacher or the student does not seem to matter, they only know that such a game is handed down by the predecessors, the elder sister is like this to himself, they are like this to the younger sister, the younger sister and then to the younger sister, the victim has become the perpetrator, the perpetrator has also been the victim, and the power to give orders to play the game is controlled in turn.
Power is like status, the higher the grade, the higher the power, the only way to ensure that you will not be the object of play again.
Xiao Guang, who leads the crowd to play the game in the movie, is like Zhang Cheng and Wang Dajun, we only see the results in front of us, and believe that Xiao Guang is the source of evil, but with the investigation, we realized that Xiao Guang was also a victim of sexual assault in the past, and the cause and effect of the past has become a visible cause and effect cycle, and no one has a way to break this cycle.
Or maybe it should be said that some people try to expose and stop them, but they are all selectively ignored, unable to send out a distress signal like normal people, and they are locked up in the isolated Qi Cong school without a way to ask for help.
So over time, they simply closed the door and let this cycle continue, and as a member of the reincarnation, they thought of reasons to convince themselves that what they had encountered with them was just a game as special as they were.
Just from the plot setting, how to think is easy to be sensational and clichéd, but "Silent" gives the part that is usually used as the climax from the beginning, and then runs the whole story through the perception of people, especially the psychological state of teenagers.
Director Ke Zhennian once said in a media interview:
In the process of staring at the pain of others, what I look forward to is more dialogue, behind the hustle and bustle of silence, is loneliness, is the uneasiness of not knowing what to do, we must be more attentive to experience, in order to let go of discrimination, let the world full of love.
We may think that we know that our children just don't want to talk, are afraid of being isolated, and can't join their peers, but it's hard to imagine that the fear is bottomless, and it's difficult to know how fragile their self-identity is. Regarding the evil of bullying and sexual assault, some people think that the hateful person must have pity, but it is rare to find the endless entanglement between suffering and evil deeds that is almost desperate.
Although "Silent" seems direct and intense, it can lift these topics out of various levels and aspects, which is infuriating.
I watched an interview with a victim of a school for the deaf and mute, and a reporter once asked a female student why she didn't tell her parents or grandparents, and the female student had to say helplessly, "Because I feel very humiliated, and I don't know what it is?" How does sign language compare? ”
Thinking that she is already "different" from other children, not wanting to make herself "more different", and taking care of a special child like her has already caused a burden on the family, and there is really no extra money, time and effort to sue people.
In addition, another teacher was retaliated by the school for only intervening in the investigation and serving as a student in court, deliberately giving him an ultra-low score in the annual teacher evaluation score, and the school's senior management once told him "don't check your head to damage the school's reputation, but know how to figure out the intentions."
The implication is that he should shut up, because for the school they care more about their careers than about their students.
Helplessly, although this matter has received great attention, public opinion has never been less tarted, and some of these people who have been impeached have been given light punishments, and some have not even been punished, making this matter more controversial.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > "Silent" is deeply dissected from another perspective</h1>
In such a social context. The new director Ke Zhennian's first feature film "Silent" boldly grasped this controversial and sensitive subject, and while making a bloody presentation and criticism of the ugly side behind the system, it also directly threw a series of reflections to the audience.
In the lonely and silent world, inaudible, does not mean invisible, Babe's sentence "They are just playing", seemingly understated, but behind it is terrifying.
When we see something illegal or unethical happening in front of our eyes, if it is not directly related to ourselves, will we choose to turn a blind eye? Or do you stop them from continuing this behavior?
I believe that everyone has their own answer in their hearts.
However, if the prisoner is a close person or has an interest in himself, will the choice just now change?
Why is it so difficult to choose to do the right thing so that mistakes can be resolved now? The title "Silent" not only represents the innate obstacle that the hearing impaired cannot hear the voice, but also the secondary harm caused to the victim by their lack of voice in society, their cries when they are killed and cannot be heard by others, and the "choice of silence" when we see injustice.
In addition, I think the director has an innovation - erasing subtitles and stimulating thinking.
The trailer uses erased words and silences to create a sense of mystery, and also makes the suspenseful soundtrack and the background rain sound more prominent, pushing the film's eerie atmosphere to the highest point.
For example, "can play, can not __", "education is a ______
The composition of a sentence depends on each person's values differently, and there is no exactly right standard answer.
Personally, Silent has taught me to look at these hearing-impaired people from another perspective, no longer just thinking that they can understand everything we say, but to spend more patience and empathy trying to convey ideas and hearts, and vice versa, to enter their inner world.
Just as we can't understand why we face the cruel treatment of the senior, Babe chooses to continue to tolerate it and treat it as if it is a game, but the situation behind the hearing impaired has no other choice, and the limited path from opening the Satoshi school must bear more discriminatory vision is not also one of the causes of the tragedy.
In the end, as the events involved hundreds of people in total, "Silent" does not focus on a single case, but explores the root causes of these results from a general direction for the shortcomings of the entire environment and system.
Just like in the film, zhang cheng, in order to protect Bei Bei, accepts the instructions of the senior Xiaoguang to bully another boy, is Zhang Cheng a victim or a perpetrator at this time? Is his choice right or wrong? And is it possible that the current perpetrator Xiao Guang was also a victim? The crimes of today were committed for the complex reasons of the past.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > another "Melting Pot" with a strong background</h1>
Combining elements such as love, suspense, and social realism, from the campus system, bullying, family education, deaf people and social connections, to growth, love, the film story is in-depth and simple, so that the audience has more empathy, and the characters in the film do not have absolute good and evil, and the characters are not monotonous at all. Silent explores the vicious circle behind these events through the villain Xiaoguang, and the director's bold choice reminds me of the recent game "The Last of Us 2", which has caused many players to rebound.
The so-called incident must have a cause, people will become what they are now are based on the accumulation of past experience and experience, although we are angry and uncompromising to Xiao Guang's behavior, but as a child who grew up in Qi Cong School since childhood, lacking sex education and correct sexual knowledge, if in addition to transferring his childhood pain to others, there is really a small part of his heart that thinks that such behavior is "playing"?
Therefore, the first paragraph of the "Silent" movie chose to start from the campus love story, so that Zhang Cheng and the girl Bei Bei's good feelings for each other paved the way for the follow-up story, not only to give him a reasonable motivation to stand up and protect the girl he liked, but also through Zhang Cheng to tell the game in the last row of the school bus to the dajun teacher played by Liu Guanting, he ignited the fire and became the object of bullying by the senior Xiaoguang.
Extending the originally relatively simple sexual assault and bullying incident of "Silent" to the more complex and difficult multiple aspects such as the victim and the blurring between the perpetrators in addition to the dilemma of being silent or brave enough to speak out.
There is no doubt that it is another "Melting Pot".
Although the hospital rooftop scene in "Silent" is somewhat abrupt, it is undeniable that it does clearly explain the internal and self-identity problems of Xiaoguang's chaos, and use the helplessness behind the duality of good and evil to give us the opportunity to understand.
Since the value of laws and social norms lies in promoting social progress and stability, I have always believed that rather than severely punishing criminals, it is more important to protect victims and find ways to avoid the recurrence of similar incidents.
From the perspectives of principals, students, counselors, and families, "Silent" accurately portrays the complex emotions of each character's inner entanglement and spends a lot of time exploring why the campus has become a criminal hotbed that may cause permanent harm and pain to students. I believe that it will bring a lot of space for the audience to reflect.
It's like the director arranging a shocking ending in the light after the seemingly end of the whole incident - the deleted version is a close-up of the coat, while the original version is that he covers the coat on the face of his classmates.
It's only been 9 years since 2011, how many people remember this incident? And who can guarantee that similar incidents will not be repeated in this school, or in other corners of society?
In the end, the fundamental problems that exist in the social system will not be simply solved because the people involved are punished, the concepts of the perpetrators are corrected, or the victims' pain is smoothed out, but each of us needs to take action to change.
Just as the repercussions of the release of "The Melting Pot" prompted the South Korean government to launch a series of judicial reforms, after watching "Silent", in addition to feeling angry, sad and helpless about the unbelievable situation in the film, can we further think about what we can do with society and many potential victims? And focus on issues that we might normally overlook but have an impact on our lives?
Instead of simply using the phrase "children are playing, don't be so nervous", I think this is the main reason why Ke Zhennian chose such a subject matter to shoot "Silent".
The most helpless and heartbreaking thing about watching "Silent" is the reason why Babe insisted on returning to school.
Obviously she has been violated many times over the years, it is not easy for her to try to convey the pain was received, with the help of Zhang Cheng and Wang Dajun's teacher, she finally bravely told the story, and more successfully let the school be investigated, in order to protect her not only her grandparents do not let her go to school, even Zhang Cheng and Wang Dajun do not want her to come back to the school to avoid retaliation.
But Babe still wanted to go back to school, she knew that Xiaoguang would still regard themselves as game objects, but as she told Zhang Cheng, most of the time outside of doing this, they were very good to her and would play with her, just like normal friends, no matter how much she had to bear.
But at least she had them, and with them she wouldn't be alone, and no matter how much she hated school, it was a place to take in such a special child as her.
Xiao Guang and this school have become her dependence and belonging, rather than going outside and becoming an outlier, she would rather choose to stay here where there are many children like her.
"Do you like Teacher Weng?"
"I don't like him, I want to hate him!"
Another scene in "Silent" that deserves your and my thoughts is that Wang Dajun and Xiao Guang talk on the roof, watching Xiao Guang express his thoughts on Teacher Weng who has violated him for many years in sign language, to be honest, he is a little surprised to be unable to speak.
He has been violated by Teacher Weng since elementary school, until now Teacher Weng retired or did not let him go, he should hate him, but I don't know why he would expect to see Teacher Weng, the feeling of being violated also from the initial pain and tears, to the later can face the monitor screen and laugh out.
"What kind of emotions do you have for Teacher Weng?"
Such a love-hate contradiction made him feel painful, he didn't know what to do, he shouted that he seemed to be a pervert, and his appearance was painful.
Xiao Guang was traumatized to Teacher Weng, but how could Xiao Guang know? Most of his understanding of the world comes from home and school, let alone the situation at home, since he came to this school, what he has come into contact with and experienced, in addition to the knowledge in the classroom is these "games", the wrong growth experience makes him unable to judge, and he feels confused about this emotional contradiction, and then doubts and denials about himself, so that the result is different from the other kind of sadness that can be seen on the table, the victim is unknown.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > reflects continuously after reading</h1>
I always feel that the world of silence is more wonderful than the world of sound. Because the ears can't hear and the mouth can't shout, they must express themselves harder, regardless of joy or sorrow.
And those of us who do not understand their feelings can only understand their world with the same or greater strength as them.
From the 2014 Ukrainian director Miloslav Shraposvizć's film "Deaf and Dumb Tribe" to "Silent", it is about the sadness and helplessness that we have never cared about, but it has really happened.
At the end of the movie, it seems to give the audience a happy ending, but when looking at Bao Di sitting in the last row of the laughing car, he looks fiercely at Zhang Cheng, who is mixed with the others, when he stands up and picks up his coat and walks to the sleeping classmate.
At the end of the movie, I found that director Ke Zhennian used her way to tell everyone that what happened in this school, and even every school that had similar events, would never really end, the end was just the beginning of a new cycle, all she could do was to tell this fact, if she wanted to achieve a real end, I was afraid that I would have to work hard for a long time, and what made people more nervous was that maybe the day of the end would never come.
South Korea's "The Melting Pot" is over, but the events of "Silent" are still repeating themselves.
In addition to thanking everyone for their support, Qu Youning, executive producer of "Silent", also said that the film is "a life issue that you can't not pay attention to", and many Taiwanese stars pushed it on Weibo after watching it.
Lin Baihong said: Some silent stories are constantly happening, and only when they are seen can they really speak out, and I hope that what happens in the movie can take another step in the direction of justice, one step or another.
Zeng Peici said: I hope that you will personally enter the theater to see this film, I believe that no matter who finds the space and position for reflection, we may be able to change the desperate people, even if it is only a little.
Yang Youning wrote: Through the movie, we always have a sense of justice, back to reality, do we also choose silence?
Voice guide Guo Liqi said:
"Eighty-five percent of the sounds are redone, because wearing a hearing aid, all you hear is a sound, there is no direction. I want to use the feeling of realism to set off the tension. ”
And the soundtrack director Lu Luming said:
"The first instinct when I saw the story was that there shouldn't be too much music, and the place where the music came out had to be like a knife that stabbed the key point, and I wanted to use the vocals as a musical instrument to make the play more comprehensive."
In the film, every detail of the film is delicately interpreted through sound effects and soundtracks, and the superb performances of the actors really make the audience praise.
We fight all the way, not to change the world, but to prevent the world from changing us.
This is a gripping monologue from "The Melting Pot", and it can also be thrown in "Silent".
"Silent" shows the high production level of Taiwanese drama films, not only using sound and light to present the oppressive atmosphere of the whole story, but also several poetic bright scenes seem to represent people's blindness to the darkness of society, perfectly grasping the balance between gentleness and cruelty, and successfully bringing strong feelings and resonance to the audience.
I have not seen this type of work that has only appeared in South Korea in the past for a long time, and the reality is really far more terrifying than the movie, and "Silent" can awaken our attention to related issues through the film, which alone is quite worthy of our affirmation.
What else can I say, a thousand words, or I hope that everyone will seriously watch this movie.