Author: Little Grandpa
In the 19th century, the fleets of the Empire spread all over the world, India became a colony, and the Qing Dynasty was bombarded by artillery. Britain seemed so indomitable, but few people mentioned that Ireland under British rule suffered a famine rarely seen in human history. Between 1845 and 1852, a total of 1 million people were killed and 2 million were left homeless on Irish soil. This is the historical background of the movie "Black 1847".
The story tells the story of the protagonist, Feni, who flees back to his hometown after fighting for The British, but is saddened to find that his family has long since died, but it is not only the famine that has taken their lives, but also the landlord who owns the land and the institutions and laws that support the landlord's survival. Natural disasters, institutional oppression, and the distortion of human nature all contributed to The Path of Revenge for Finney.
Under the famine, not only bones were buried, but also the sins of the living.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > this is a purgatory on earth, and he becomes a ghost between life and death</h1>
Although there are no video materials from that time, the film "Black 1847" still finds relevant historical materials at that time in the illustrations of past newspapers. The cold, gloomy tones, skinny peasants, and endless wasteland make up most of the film's images, and the director tries to reconstruct the real situation at that time according to the descriptions of his predecessors. I think one of the most shocking scenes is when a dog eats a bone on the road, not knowing whether it came from a human or an animal. It had become a purgatory on earth, and after Finney returned to the land and witnessed the tragedy, he could not tell whether he was alive or dead, and in anger, he became a ghost between life and death.
Judging from the main story line, this is indeed a film about revenge, but the director still maintains a certain restraint in the cathartic killing. Because simple revenge and taking the lives of others is not the theme that the director or this historical background wants to express.
Finney has always been a tragic figure, a soldier born and died in the Empire, but still unable to protect his family, and part of the destruction of this family comes from natural disasters, and the other part should be blamed on the man-made disasters that originate from the state system. When disaster strikes, the local landlords, in order to avoid the burden of the poverty tax, choose to evict the poor people living there. There is no land, no food for relief, no shelter from the wind and snow, they can only wait in hunger for death to come, and fairness, justice, and God's mercy have nothing to do with them.
This is a history that has lost its humanity, and in order to awaken people's memories of this history, the director has created Finney, an avenger with anger and compassion. Along the way, he killed mercenary farmers, he killed judges who were full of laws without reflecting on whether the law was reasonable, and finally he killed land managers who supported the demolition of poor people's homes. And the identities behind these people who died at the hands of Fernie were completely combined into a system that squeezed the interests and lives of the poor. Fini was a victim, and Black 1847 provides an unreserved reckoning of such a history by reconstructing the process of his sacrifice. I think that the ghosts we can see are not only Fini, because those who cry in silence are far more than Fini.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the arrogance of the nobility and the sorrow of the bottom</h1>
While the local poor wait to be rescued, the landowners who cannot continue to grab profits in this land are thinking about how to evacuate quickly, and they are accompanied by the only remaining food reserves in the land. In the eyes of landowners, even if the food was derived from their labor, even if it might have been their last straw, these displaced people who had been abandoned had no legal opportunity to receive the slightest compensation and relief. Black 1847 is a stark illustration of the relationship between domination and domination, behind which there is a national divide between the Irish and the British.
When the English landowner claimed that the English woman was more beautiful than any Irish woman working on the estate, an Irish man retorted: If the English woman were allowed to live in an Irish hut for three months, eating only potatoes and wearing worn-out clothes, and let her trek through the mountains and rivers and cross the swamp every day, and then take away any hope from her, would you still think she was a beautiful English girl?
The arrogant English rightly despised the poor Irish who worked for them every day and night, restrained their behavior with an unjust system, and appropriated their interests in a legitimate way. Who cares about their joys and sorrows? Who can respect their lives? As God's servants sing hymns and preach morality, do they notice that the poor who suffered in the famine are concerned only with a sip of life-saving hot soup, and whether they will go to hell is what they should care about after death.
Will Feiny go to hell? Maybe, but if God really existed, then why would He abandon the Irish who were suffering in this land? If Fini's revenge is the main line of the play, then what drives this tragedy to the climax is the lament of despair from the bottom.
< h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > which is his defection, but also the self-salvation of the national consciousness</h1>
Finney is a soldier who has fled the battlefield, which is not a pleasing setting. But combined with the story itself, his defection confirms Ireland's fragile sense of belonging to Britain. He was An Irishman, recruited by the British army, and then traveled to a battlefield in a foreign land. And when he returns home, he sees not the glory of an empire, but the ruthlessness of a country for the region it rules.
Black 1847 indicts the historical harm that Britain has done to Ireland by portraying Finney, an individual with a sense of vengeance. Feeney is a man who cannot get justice and justice, and how many Irish people have suffered the same injustices with Feeney in history? Reality can't give an answer, but that's not a reason this history should be forgotten. The significance of Finney's existence is not in how heroic an act of revenge he has accomplished, nor in how many guilty people he has stabbed, but that as an Irish warrior, he used his tragedy to ring the bell of retrospection to awaken the sleeping national consciousness.
In the process of resistance, Feeney eventually fell, and on his deathbed, he told his only companion and comrade-in-arms: Don't fight with them, go to the United States. At that time, America was a place of freedom of faith, and Feeney placed the flame of hope in this tragedy in another country. In his eyes, Ireland under British rule would lose the will and freedom that a nation should have.
But I think that the consciousness of the nation and the land of the nation are always linked, and no matter how they are migrated, this will eventually be some kind of continuation of the tragedy. And the director responds to this suggestion at the end – silence, which is much heavier than any definite answer.
The most successful thing about "Black 1847" is that it uses a clichéd theme of revenge, but strips the focus of the whole story from the appearance of revenge, it is not satisfied with an emotional catharsis of killing and violence, but a panoramic restoration of a cruel and tragic history.
To some extent, we can regard this film as a historical science and education film, and we can also regard it as a complaint against the parties to that period of history, even if no one sits in the dock, but as long as everyone can provide an opportunity to understand that period of history, I think this film has completed a national mission.