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"Mousetrap": The millionaire can't fight a small mouse! Year of the Rat recommends a good movie
The Year of the Rat should talk about some topics related to rats, and today we will recommend a movie related to rats, which is also a very funny comedy movie, its name is: "MouseTrap".
Released in 1997 and starring famed comedians Nathan Lane and Lee Evans and directed by Gore Wimpinski, the American comedy film was once overlooked, but years later, when American "pet movies" became popular, they were popular.
After giggling and laughing, people always fall into a long meditation: what kind of relationship should humans and animals have? Can it only be "eliminated and destroyed"?
In "The MouseTrap", the rat eventually becomes the right-hand man
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >, highlights: the hilarious "man-mouse war"</h1>
In the film "The Mousetrap", the rats have fought three major battles: the first is the struggle with the Brothers Ernie and Lars, the second is the "Overlord Cat" struggle, and the third is the struggle with the professional mousetrap Mr. Caesar. And the result of the struggle ended in the victory of the rats.
1. Man: Always want to destroy rats.
The brothers, one named "Ernie" and the other "Lars", left the brothers a "special possession" when they died. The two brothers inherited all of their father's property, a wool factory and an old villa, but when they found the wool factory in tatters, they had no intention of running it, resulting in bankruptcy. The younger brother did not want to sell the wool factory, but was driven out of the house by the powerful wife as "too poor", and the brother's other restaurant was closed due to the appearance of a cockroach.
The brothers thought of the old house when they were desperate. So, on a dark and windy night in the middle of the month, the brothers drove to the old house, and after investigation, they were surprised to find that the shabby-looking house turned out to be the work of a master, simply put, an "antique villa", which was extremely valuable.
The brothers were ready to simply renovate the old house and sell it, but in the process of renovation they found a rat, which often came out in the middle of the night to steal food, and disturbed the brothers from sleeping, and in anger, the brothers decided to eliminate the rat first, and then decorate the house with peace of mind.
Unexpectedly, this mouse is not a simple mouse, it can always destroy the brothers' rat extermination plan in time, safely and smoothly escape from various traps, for this reason, the brothers exhausted all the ways they could think of, including buying a "bully cat" and inviting professional, heavily armed "rat catchers" to come and catch rats, and the result was that all of them ended in failure.
The brothers always tried everything they could to get rid of the rats
2. Cat: "Rat" with arrogance.
In order to be able to catch the "hateful mouse", the brothers went to the animal market and bought an "extremely fierce" "overlord cat": it was gray-haired, burly, and its eyes emitted a "vicious" look, even if people saw it, they would feel afraid. Therefore, it was locked inside a wooden box with nails nailed.
When they got home, the brothers put the box in the house. Then they went on the renovations, thinking that the cat would definitely be able to catch the mouse because "it was so scary."
This cat is indeed very special, as soon as it comes home it sleeps in a wooden box, without making any sound. When everything was quiet, the rat came out of the hole and found a huge wooden box in front of him, and he didn't know what it was. Out of curiosity, the rat reached up and sniffed and looked.
Unexpectedly, when it cast its eyes through a gap, it saw a very frightening eye with blue light and also looked out the most, and when the two eyes looked at each other, it was a scream. Saying that it was late and fast, this "Overlord Cat" burst through the wooden box with a bang, and the rat was so frightened that it crawled away with a rolling belt.
Wherever the rat fled, the cat chased after it, without giving the rat a chance to kick the gas. But the mouse was very clever, running around to the door of the rat hole full of "mousetraps", and the cat caught several legs instead of the mousetraps. However, the cat was also not a vegetarian either, and it quickly got rid of the mousetrap clamped on its legs.
The Overlord Cat, which has the "Breath of the Overlord", eventually picks up the mouse into a very small hole. It stood in front of the cave entrance waiting for the rat to come out, and the rat bit a wooden rope inside, causing a heavy box to fall down and eventually brutally throw the Overlord cat to death.
In order to eliminate the rats, the brothers bought a "bully cat" with a hideous appearance
3. Rat: Whoever invades my territory, I will let no one live.
Inside this dilapidated old villa, there lives a very clever mouse. The rat had a home to live in, a bed to sleep in, going out to forage during the day and going home at night to sleep, living a comfortable and peaceful life.
Unexpectedly, one day the owner of the house suddenly came to this villa. This brings inconvenience to the mouse that sleeps during the day and at night, and in desperation, the mouse has changed its previous activity habits and changed to sleeping during the day and going out to forage for food at night.
For the rat, it was the owner of the house, and it had lived here for a long time, and no one had come to disturb it. And this time, the brothers came to disturb its life, and even wanted to put it to death, which was unacceptable in any way.
So the rat rose up and destroyed the brothers' rat-killing behavior again and again.
After the "Overlord Cat" was killed by the rat, the brothers found a professional rat exterminator named "Caesar" and resolved to "arrest" the rat. Mr. Caesar came in a professional rat exterminatory cart and came fully armed and confident to exterminate rats.
As a result, in the course of the game with the rat, Mr. Caesar not only failed to arrest the "evil rat", but was almost killed by the rat. The whole process is both comical and thrilling.
Of course, the audience also sees the power of rats: rats are no less intelligent than many human fools. The rats fought back again and again, sending a signal to the brothers to "swear to defend their homeland to the death".
The clever mouse quietly observes the brothers' "plot" in the house
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > second, the expression method: there is always a tragic figure behind the comedy</h1>
"The Mousetrap" is a comedy, but behind the comedy there is a tragic figure. In terms of expression, the film mainly uses two techniques of "satire" and "suggestion", which is the main form of making the film content "humorous and funny" and the theme "thought-provoking".
1. Irony: Humans always overestimate themselves.
Lu Xun said: "Comedy is to tear apart that worthless thing to show people. ”
The so-called "worthless" means "not much meaning". However, these seemingly meaningful but but worthless things are passionately pursued until they are ruthlessly exposed.
In "The Catcher", the most exciting plot is "man-mouse fight". Every time the Ernie brothers tried to eliminate the rats, their methods became more and more fierce, but it was funny and ironic that every "man-mouse fight" ended with "rats winning and losing".
The so-called "cleverness" and "fierceness" of human beings are fully revealed in this movie, they always self-righteously regard themselves as masters, always look down on this lonely mouse, and always overestimate themselves. In this process, while showing "cleverness" and "fierceness", its "stupidity" and "ridiculousness" are also exposed.
The "self-righteousness" of the brothers is exactly what Lu Xun called "worthless things", and people always look very "amiable" in ordinary times, but in fact they despise others everywhere in their hearts and be self-righteous. When this "inferior quality" is exposed, the meaning of tragedy becomes stronger and stronger!
The brothers tried to catch the rat with hundreds of mousetraps, but the rat escaped, but he himself was caught in the middle of nowhere
2. Implication: To put an animal to death is actually to put man himself to death.
The dilapidated villa has been forgotten for a long time, and only rats live here and use it as a "home". So, in a sense, the rat is the owner of the house, and it is he who tries his best to guard this "home".
However, when the brothers came to the house, they found the rat, not to kill it. This is a "life-and-death struggle", and the rat naturally has to do its best.
The brothers used rat poison, a mousetrap, a bully cat, a professional mousetrap, etc., for the sole purpose of eliminating rats.
But the end result was: rat poison did not produce any effect; the mousetrap did not clamp the mouse, but instead clipped ernie and the Lars brothers beyond recognition; the overlord cat looked fierce, but was finally killed by the rat design; the professional rat catcher Master Caesar walked into the villa with great dignity and confidence, but was injured and expelled from the villa.
The director's purpose in arranging the plot in this way is obviously not only for the sake of "humor and funny" and "hilarious", but to reflect and suggest: in the struggle with rats, human beings will not eventually win, and if they want to kill rats and all animals, they are actually putting humans to death!
Such a theme reflection makes people have to think of the recent "new coronavirus" on the citizens, experts have basically figured out: this mutated "new coronavirus" comes from "wild animals", or "wild meat".
People are always "self-righteous" to defeat all animals, to eat all wild meat, and when various viruses invade humans, this may be a terrible way for the animal kingdom to retaliate against humans!
Mr. Caesar, a "heavily armed" rat catcher, was finally almost killed by rats
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > third, thematic thinking: humans should rethink the relationship between "man and mouse" and "man and animal"</h1>
Natural laws such as "the law of the jungle" and "survival of the fittest" reflect the cruelty and reality of the animal world in a sense. However, after all, human beings are not ordinary animals, human beings are "advanced animals" with advanced intelligence and long civilization, and are destined to face all animals, including rats, with more advanced thinking and attitudes.
1. The brothers' fatal mistake was to "make the rat an enemy in the first place"
In the face of all animals, the greatest stupidity of human beings is "self-righteousness" and "superiority.". When the brothers encountered setbacks in their lives, they thought of the dilapidated villa, where they stood and found the "clever mouse".
The brothers tried their best to eliminate the rats, and in the end, the rats were not eliminated, but the valuable old villa was inundated and destroyed by the rats. Not a single penny was sold.
The theme of the film is to lead people to reflect: if the Brothers Ernie and Lars did not regard the rat as an enemy, and did not try their best to eliminate it, the final result may not be more than that.
The brothers' fatal mistake was to "treat the rat as an enemy from the beginning" and put it in opposition to humans, and the result could only be that both sides were defeated and the jade was burned.
The priceless old villa was destroyed by rats
2. Humans and mice should perhaps "live in harmony"
At the end of the film, the priceless villa is destroyed, and the brothers are plunged into great pain and infinite despair. When they were dejected, they found that the "hateful rat" was able to "thread and thread" in the wool factory, and it made a "thread ball" out of cheese, which made the brothers "eyes light up".
In the end, the brothers used the inspiration brought by the rats to successfully open a "cheese thread factory", they hired the rat as a "senior inspector" to test the quality of the product, relying on this "senior inspector", the brothers finally made the cheese thread factory prosperous, making a lot of money.
The implication of this ending arrangement is too obvious: only by "living in harmony" with mice can humans finally achieve a "win-win situation". However, it is regrettable that many people understand this "truth" but do not have such "wisdom".
The brothers eventually hired rats as "senior inspectors" to test the quality of the products
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > concluding remarks</h1>
"MouseTrap" is an American comedy film, the image of the mouse in the film from "bad" to "good", in fact, "the rat is still the rat", the change is people's concepts and mentality.
However, rats have always been a kind of "villain" role in china's cultural system, such as in idioms such as "rat eyes are light", "rat heads and rat brains", "rat snakes a nest", "rats steal dogs", etc., rats are basically "hateful objects".
In China, people have experienced the years of "eliminating the four evils", and countless people have participated in the eradication of rats, but today, rats have been eradicated? No.
The old saying "Rats cross the street, everyone shouts and fights" vividly illustrates the status of rats in the minds of Chinese. The American comedy film "The Mousetrap" once again made a solemn declaration to people:
Only by living in harmony with animals can human beings obtain a happy and beautiful life!
In 2020, "Golden Rats Make Spring"
[Finally, I wish all the friends of the headlines: the Year of the Rat is auspicious and all the best!] 】