On the surface, the movie "Four Hundred Years of Horror" seems to be a spooky vampire legend, but it is also a poignant and sentimental love story. It tells that in 1462 AD, the Turks invaded Constantinople and threatened the whole of Christianity. The Romanian general Count Dracula (Gary Oldman) was on a peril, and just as he was about to win, rumors in the city were that he had been killed in battle. His wife, Elizabeth (Winona Ryder), commits suicide by throwing herself into the river in grief, and dracula, who has triumphantly returned to the dynasty, sees only his wife's body. As a result, he became angry with God, thus incarnating as a demon and throwing himself into the evil forces, sucking blood to prolong his life, becoming an immortal blood-sucking zombie.
Four hundred years later, the story travels to London in 1897, with the young lawyer John Nasson (Keanu Reeves
He was ordered to the Dracula family castle in transylvania, Romania, to handle the estate of the nobleman's descendant in London. To do so, he is separated from his fiancée, the beautiful Meina (Winona Ryder).
The owner of Dracula's castle is none other than Count Dracula, who has turned into a vampire, and he finds Thata strikingly similar to Elizabeth, believing that Mena is Lisa's reincarnation. He decided to find Mina and retrieve the true love that had been lost for four hundred years. He imprisoned Jannerson in a castle, took fifty boxes of native dirt, the source of his strength, and sailed all the way to London. His arrival revived the dark forces of London. London is in the midst of a mysterious horror. But Mina always hears a mysterious call of the heart in the darkness, and in the fear there is a strong yearning.
Subsequently, the sleeping memory in Mina's blood awakened, and under the bitter pleading of her lover, Dracula finally made up her mind to take a bite on her lover's neck, sucking on the sweet and bitter blood, but struggling inside. Dracula cut a long wound in his chest, blood flowing out, lover greedily sucking the red blood containing love, pain, immortality, sin, while Dracula's pain was intertwined with desire. The two cried bitterly and entangled, Dracula pushed away the lover on his chest, no, I can't hurt you, I love you too much, but how can I bear to drag you into a hell of eternal doom? Red erotic colors are all over the screen, but it looks like a tragic love song!
After Dracula is severely injured by Van Helsing and others, the final shot: a beam of light shines down, Dracula's terrifying face gradually appears bloody, the heroic face of four hundred years ago reappears, Mina tearfully pushes the dagger that was already stabbed in Dracula's chest hard and pierces his heart; in the last moment of death, Dracula finally realizes what truly eternal love is, and re-trusts God's teachings; the historical picture on the dome of the church is that he died as the symbol of the heroic Count Dracula as the guardian of God.
Finally able to rest in peace. From the romance of sadness and affection to hatred, horror, reincarnation in heroes and bad people, love and death and rebirth, eternal life and return to peaceful death, these ordinary and extreme unknown mysteries make people want to stop. The film as a whole feels like a bloody love legend.
However, from a deep point of view to think about the film has some details to show, can subtly appreciate the contradictions and complex connotations of an era culture, let the mind follow the film back to 1462 AD, the famous Vlad III, that is, the Romanian princess Transwania Count Dracula Prince, first of all, according to the war image to convey the chaotic regime change and the turmoil brought about by the war, and it was during that period when christianity spread.
Four hundred years later, in 1897, with the advent of the second industrial revolution in history, London, as an economic center, was also prosperous and chaotic under the influence of the colonial era, the great development of science and technology and new discoveries in various fields broke people's previous firm religious beliefs, and the religious edifice began to collapse.
But the power of faith is often incredibly powerful. Digression stop here, haha~
I'm just going to explore some of the cultures involved in this film today in terms of personal understanding:
1. About religion: The cross is the symbol of Christianity, which appears repeatedly in this film, and the cross is the spiritual power of devout believers, symbolizing the brilliance, omnipotence and power of God. At the beginning of the film, Dracula is shown after winning the battle, holding a cross in his hand and praying sincerely, the power of faith inspires him to fight for the church, fight in blood, and after his triumphant return, in the face of Elizabeth's death, heartbroken, hoping that the beautiful Elizabeth can go to heaven, but the priest said that because Elizabeth committed suicide, he could not enter heaven. Dracula instantly felt that God had abandoned and betrayed him, stabbed his sword at Jesus on the cross, and in the shot of the mysterious blood flowing in the river, Dracula swore that he would become an evil vampire to take revenge, and the faith seemed to collapse completely at this moment.
In the end, Dracula returns to the church because of Mina's love, and dies as the guardian of God, showing the power and brilliance of faith, alluding to the powerful change and support of faith on the spirit. In the other film, when Van Helsing is holding a cross to Face Dracula, Dracula will become weak, but will not die. It shows that wherever God's radiance shines, the power of evil cannot be exerted, but the Almighty God is at the same time merciful, and it is his own glory to forgive the faults of others. Therefore, the cross simply weakens the vampires' power so that they do not attack other life forms. Vampires, humans and van Helsing-like characters, this triangle relationship, follows the biblical story, the power of the devil, the believer and God, human beings are in the devil and God, the convergence of contradictions, the film according to the characteristics of each party shows a free switching space, but in the end it is good and evil as a watershed.
2. Understanding of disease and plague and medical development: Vampires originated in the period of human agricultural society, and were fantasies derived from tuberculosis, plague, influenza and other infectious diseases that could not be solved at that time and were infected by unknown viruses, and the horror of vampires was a ghost legend that people were caught off guard by the plague. In terms of medicine, Van Helsing gave a speech to students, calling syphilis a venereal disease "disease of eros", which also implied the contagiousness of Dracula's blood, and the speech also involved the concept of ethics and sexuality in Christian civilization. The unremitting exploration of unexplained diseases by the doctors of the psychiatric hospital and the learning spirit of Fan Helsing also showed the gradual development of medical science and technology at that time.
3, the persistence of the nobility and ethnic ancestry in that era: In the film, Dracula crossed the ocean to London with a lot of soil from his hometown, calling the soil "experimental use", including the end of the film where Dracula was injured and traveled to his homeland in spite of hard work and rain, which represents Dracula's connection with Romania, which seems to be a strong nostalgia complex, which is to some extent an attachment to blood. As aristocrats, the Count Dracula family used to continue their family history, using soil to emphasize regional differences and highlight a sense of superiority. At the same time, it is also in line with the deep-rooted thinking of human beings for thousands of years about the return of fallen leaves to the roots.
4, human fantasy of life immortality: whether in the West or the East, death as a human being has been a tangled problem for eternity, is a difficult to penetrate pseudo-philosophy, full of thickness and vicissitudes, people always fantasize about transcending death, but obviously so difficult, rationally realize that it can not be surpassed, but spiritually always through the vampire and other movie magic world to meet the psychological desire for immortality, as well as to appease human fear of death.
Although the image is a fictional world, it integrates all the fantasies and colorful understandings of death and eternal life, love and sex, reward and punishment into it, and it is also a simulated reflection of an artistic image.
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