In 2017, the film "Under the Peony Flower", directed by Sophia, was released in the United States, and in the same year, the film won the nomination for the 70th Cannes International Film Festival, The Best Director Award and the Palme d'Or - Best Picture.
Female director Sophia has made drastic changes to the original content, deleted unnecessary side sections, from the perspective of women, the political background in the film is hollowed out, focusing on the game and thinking of the relationship between the sexes, and the kindness, jealousy, love, hatred in human nature that permeate the process are presented one by one with calm and restrained shooting techniques.
Sophia uses delicate emotions and shooting techniques to show the audience a beautiful oil painting-like film, the whole film uses natural light photography, rare soundtrack, exquisite art and composition to better interpret this powerful female film.
In the restrained and restrained shot, depicting 7 women of different ages, in the face of the original desire to start different performances, Sophia is well versed in female psychology, the 7 women of different ages in the women's boarding school, in the face of the man John, from the beginning of the jealousy to the final female self-awakening.
The title of the film was originally translated as "Deceived" After being introduced, it was translated into "Under the Peony Flower", which is just in line with the Chinese Ming Dynasty drama master Tang Xianzu's "Peony Pavilion": the peony flower dies, and the ghost is also flowing, which is the core of the film and the foreshadowing of the ending.
The ending feels a little scary, but when you think about it, in the complexity and change of human nature, any ending has a rationality, just unexpected.
The appearance of John activates the primitive desires of women
The story takes place during the American Civil War, John is a soldier in the South, on the way because of a leg injury, hidden in the forest, the girl Amy went to the forest to collect mushrooms, met him.
At the first meeting, John took the initiative to ask Amy for help, in an extremely gentle gentleman's tone, John hoped that Amy could save himself, and out of kindness, Amy decided to take the southern soldier back to the school.
Amy helps John back to school, where she is seen by the headmaster, Martha, who uses Christian teachings to impress Martha, who says she will take John in for the time being and help him heal his foot injuries.
And John's words: "I am glad to be your captive." This sentence hints at John's subordinate status, indicating that the group of women, dominated by Martha, is the leader.
The 7 people in the girls' school rarely have contact with men, whether it is underage students, gentle teachers, or the dignified and introverted principal Martha, they all have a great interest in men.
The appearance of men awakens the primitive desire of their psychology, and they are willing to take in men and have close contact with him. The headmaster, Martha, was the head of the family, and she calmly commanded all the girls, keeping them away from men and keeping them ladylike.
And she herself helped John stitch and scrub her body, even if she pretended to be calm on the surface, but when she scrubbed john's body, after feeling the hormones on John's body, she couldn't help but throbb.
Because of the war, she lost her lover, and under the long loneliness, because of John's appearance, her desire began to show. As can be seen from the details in the movie, when she scrubs John's body, she always has to stop and rest and calm her restless emotions.
Other girls of different ages also showed curiosity about John, disobeying Martha's orders and sneaking up on John.
Under the meticulous care of John, his leg wound gradually healed, and soon, he found himself very popular here.
In addition to his pride, he began to meet left and right, spreading sweet words to every woman, and when facing different women, he expressed his praise.
All this, John felt very proud, which made him feel that the status of men was higher than that of women, and he respected it.
He felt like a fish here, the girl would rush to greet him, would dress herself up to please him, and his casual words of appreciation would make the girl happy.
Martha gently reminds him that it's time to leave. But he wanted to stay, where he could be the master and get the greatest respect in front of women.
There is a detail in the movie that is described as follows, John is lying in bed, trying his best to please Martha, but martha directly points out that you are just a most unpopular visitor, you are not a guest, and all this is done to make you happy, but to make you comfortable.
Martha's words represent her authority and status, and here John is not the ruler, not even a guest, but the master of the place.
John's relationship with Martha has been a weak man and a strong woman from the beginning, and Martha knows this very well, even if she is stirred up, she has not forgotten that in this relationship, she is the controller.
When desire dissipates, women's self-awareness awakens
After John's leg injury, each of them carefully dressed up and invited John to dinner and performed a show at dinner. Each girl smiled and revealed her liking for John without hesitation, all of which made the mature and stable Martha look down and reminded them to remain ladylike.
John sees through everyone's thoughts, panders to every woman with all kinds of praise, and sweet words make everyone feel that he is the most special one.
But John's goal was far from it, and he planned to stay here for a long time, far from war, not only accompanied by beautiful women, but also to eat and drink.
So he decided to take the initiative to provoke Martha, and his initiative made Martha, who had always been steady and self-sustaining, overwhelmed.
After dinner, their if nothing kiss was interrupted, John went to pluck the gentle female teacher, he saw that the female teacher was slightly unconfident under martha's leadership, so he found the female teacher, and showed love to the female teacher, offering to elope with the female teacher, saying that he fell in love with her at first sight.
The female teacher could not resist the temptation and offered to help John, which surprised John, so he secretly said in the female teacher's ear: Go to her house at night.
Late at night, the teacher waited for John in the house, but did not expect that John was cut off by the female student on the way, the teacher rushed out to look for John, but saw John on the female student's bed.
John pulled the female teacher to explain, but was pushed down the stairs by the female teacher, the leg injury recurred, and the loud noise made everyone rush out.
Martha naturally knew everything, and seeing that John had fainted, she calmly made a decision to saw off the bleeding leg for John.
The female teacher couldn't bear it, but Martha forcefully announced the result on the grounds that "if he didn't saw it off, he would die". Everyone was terrified, except for Martha, who was calm, and she opened the anatomy book and amputated John's leg.
Martha, who had done everything, remembered the gun her father had left her, but there were no bullets, and she had a premonition that things would change, and that the soldiers patrolling outside could not help themselves, and only they could save themselves.
If John's affairs were discovered by the soldiers, she was afraid that it would be bad for everyone, so she asked the soldiers for bullets, loaded them in pistols, and locked the pistol in a drawer.
Here, her sense of self awakens, and after seeing John's flower heart, after the collision of desire and the consciousness of self-survival, she is quickly withdrawn from desire and returns to protecting herself.
Sure enough, John woke up to find himself amputated and was very angry. He roared and shouted that he was going to make everyone pay the price. The gentle and affectionate John of the past was gone, and the girls were momentarily awake.
In their survival instincts, they unite, and unlike before, when they were jealous of John, they realized that John was dangerous and had to be made to leave quickly.
So, 7 women asked John to leave, but John did not agree, he shouted that when he wanted to leave, it was up to him to be happy. The situation in the house was about to change, and he took the gun and fired a shot at the lamp in the living room, declaring sovereignty.
He is the authority here, all women have to obey him, and he thinks that women have "castrated" him because they can't get him.
In his view, a disabled him means a lack of male authority, driven by male self-esteem, he wants to reverse this situation.
Whether it is the United States or China, under the influence of thousands of years of patriarchy, men want women to submit to themselves and have the right to control women's destiny.
But here, Martha, as the authoritative representative of women, is in stark contrast to him, and at the critical moment, other women will not obey him for love.
He was here, not only without freedom, but also without male satisfaction. So he saw amputation as a physiological "castration" of his male authority.
The pistol, as a symbol of power and status, briefly frightened all the girls. The girls, who have experienced intimidation, have begun to fight back, they are not willing to succumb to violence and threats, and after the desire disappears, they find that only by uniting against John can they win.
They discussed how to get John to leave, and even thought of handing him over to the southern soldiers, because they were worried about their own safety, and they felt that this plan was not feasible.
Under the communication of everyone, it was decided to poison John with a poisonous mushroom, and this mushroom was picked by Amy, who saved John in the first place.
Martha also instructs Amy to go to the gate and tie a blue scarf, in an act of telling the patrol that there are northern soldiers, but this is all seen by John.
Unable to turn to the soldiers, Martha felt that everything had to be done on her own. So they quietly planned everything, united, calm, and even calmly saw John who died of poison, and no one left a tear.
Even the female teachers who had always liked John, after taking the initiative to have a relationship with John, silently joined their actions after witnessing John's death.
At the end of the film, everyone sews a white body bag for John at Martha's behest and carries him to the door.
summary:
The story told in this film is not complicated, and despite the political background of the time, the whole story only takes place in school.
The female director portrays women's emotions, the transmutation of human nature, the germination and disillusionment of lust, and portrays them in every detail.
The film uses contrasts women's initial flattery and humility toward John to the awakening of self-awareness, all of which are slowly and quietly transformed.
Under the delicate and delicate shooting of female directors, women's thoughts and emotional changes are slowly presented in the eyes of the audience. Men's muscles and guns, as symbols of authority, do not scare off women, but rather stimulate the instinct to protect themselves.
When lust fades, reason triumphs over emotion, and in the face of John, who is everywhere, their awakening is nothing more than a prisoner who hopes not to be a prisoner of desire, losing sovereignty and leaving it to men to manipulate.
This film with female self-awareness and awakening, women rely on their egos to overcome power, and the mercurial John is punished.
His greed cost him and lost a leg, but he did not realize that it was his own fault, but pointed out that it was the feud and jealousy of women that made him "castrated".
In his heart, he lost not only a leg, but authority as a man. That's why he's going to fight alone, unwilling to leave, just wanting to regain his dignity and authority.
In the movie, the female teacher, the principal, and the female students represent 3 women of different ages, under the wrapping of desire, set off ripples, triggering an internal dark tide, and finally burying all this, as if this primitive desire has never been born.
The final body bag is also asked by Martha to be flattened, as if silently declaring that in the female world, the leadership is still vested in the female, and the male is only the participant.
This detail better supports the awakening of women's self-awareness, in the female world, winning over men in violence is not the ultimate goal of women, but finding the true self in the game between the sexes is the ultimate ideal of women.
The ending quietly declares to the world that women are naturally eager to be loved, but men often think that they can be completely conquered with sweet words and sex.
Like John, he says he won't hurt them, but he goes around and caters to all women and toysses women into applause.
But don't be wrong, once women are rational, they are far more rational and intelligent than you think. Maybe that's what the director wants to convey to us.
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