<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="1" > the back of the poem is scarred – three films on the theme of domestic violence are recommended</h1>
Han Haoyue
"The Gulf of Hope"
"Hope Gap" begins with a little boy's seaside life, a little boy of about seven or eight years old playing in a shallow reef and seeing creatures such as crabs surviving in the water, not knowing when the waves are coming and where they will take them.
Not far away, the young mother did not keep an eye on her son for safety reasons, she held her cheeks in her hands, lost her mind and smiled at the sky, and the well-timed poetry narration created an uneasy and poetic atmosphere for the film.
After entering the official story, the little boy grows into an older young man living alone in a city apartment, and his mother becomes an old man, but her face is still soft when she is happy, reminiscent of a beautiful embryo when she was young.
But in the face of her husband, the man who appeared older, her facial muscles would tense with excitement, and she would verbally command and control him, hoping that he would obey her like a dog (after her husband ran away from home, she did have a dog with the same name as her husband), constantly adjusting to her ideal appearance.
And he, although he did not change, silently accepted it and handled it calmly with a plain and calm attitude. Finally, she flipped over the table—her son, who rarely came home as an adult, came downstairs to witness all this, but not surprisingly, he had turned a blind eye to it.
"The Gulf of Hope" is really a creepy movie, it tears apart the most unbearable side of marriage, although the audience does not know where the "wound" is, but still through the looming details of the story, see the depth and coldness of the marriage "black hole".
It is reminiscent of "Revolutionary Road", the performance of Leonardo and Kate in this marriage film, so that the audience can see the "vicious" face of marriage, when the two of them quarrel, like a volcano bursting, like a flood breaking a dike, like the end of the world.
The marital strife in "The Gulf of Hope" is similar, although the husband played by Bill Nye seems to be a little cowardly and will not resist, but it is precisely this kind of escape and escape that angers the wife played by Annette Bening.
Who is wrong? The film does not have any obvious judgment on this, the film simply explains the opportunity of the old couple's young acquaintance: Bill, who has lost his relatives, is sad on the train and cannot control himself, and the neighbor girl Annette who is riding on the same train comforts him in the right way, and the poems read for him not only make him feel that the girl is incomparably beautiful, but also instantly has the idea of marrying her home...
This detail tells the beauty of love, but also implicitly tells the origin of marriage tragedy - when people want to turn the momentary heartbeat into a lifetime of togetherness, they of course face huge and unknown risks.
How have people extinguished the flame of this risk hundreds and thousands of times over the course of long decades and pretended to live idly by? Because of the beauty of love? Commitment when getting married? Responsibility to children? Maybe all of this, maybe there are other, more secretive reasons.
In "The Gully of Hope", the reason I see is that Bill's pain is too deep, he is too melancholy, this melancholy may come from his father's inheritance, or from long-term repression, in the long run, and even he will think that this is the norm in life, so he is accustomed to the "bullying" of his wife.
It wasn't until he met Angela, a woman who just stroked his arm, that he knew that such a marriage and life were not normal, so the only time the "old boy" fought back in his life, he made a big move.
When Annette came to the door, Angela said a sentence, "Before it was three people who were unhappy, now there is only one left", which is the heaviest weight in the whole film, the facts told in this sentence are indisputable, but there are too many hidden values behind it.
As an audience, you will choose to take sides in front of this line in an instant, and the audience's instinctive tendency is actually their true views on men and women, emotions, and marriage. At this point in the story, "The Gulf of Hope" still does not give a position, but only gives a choice, allowing the audience to comment on right and wrong.
Annette was too literary, living in poetry all her life, living in the imagination of romance, but she was not "Madame Bovary", And Annette's literature did not weaken her sense of power, but made her strong and strong.
In contrast, Bill is too rational and too calm, he feels that life is like "Wikipedia", it can't happen forever, there is no need to demand perfection in everything... Two people with very different personalities and great contrasts can bury the "volcano" for decades, which is also a kind of torture in itself.
As the result and successor of the tragedy of marriage, the son played by Josh O'Connor treats his parents fairly, and the son accepts the double pain from his parents and no longer believes in the meaning of marriage and family. Although sad, it seems to enjoy the loneliness of a person.
The scene where the son and the mother discuss "suicide" on the cliff by the sea, the mother is not impressed, and the son is extremely sad, which is a stark contrast. The mother eventually relied on the strength of her inner instinct to get out of the shadow of marriage, and the son was afraid that he would survive under the rift and shadow for the rest of his life.
The three actors, with impressive performances, convey the complexity and coldness of human nature in a meticulous manner.
The word gap can also be understood as gaps, narrowness, gaps, differences, gaps, barriers, etc., almost every interpretation, can be applied to marriage, so in the title of "Hope Gully", "Hope" and "Gap" are opposing relationships, not "with hope can cross the gully", nor "fill the gully can still continue hope".
"Hope" and "Gap" are parallel and competitive, it seems to illustrate a pessimistic truth, as Luo Yonghao expressed in an interview some time ago, almost 2% of marriages will be close to perfect, impeccable, the reason is nothing, pure luck, two particularly suitable people bumped into each other.
So, what about the remaining 98%?
Clean blue skies, quiet coasts, beautiful houses, poems that appear from time to time with narration... Everything seems so xenoble, how good it would be if there was no "war".
But no matter how good the environment, there is no way to stop the war of human nature, this kind of war regardless of the times and occasions, when encountering the fuse, it will surge, roar, and erupt. The sea is so beautiful, there are cliffs and reefs to accompany it, but also to withstand the typhoon and the beating of huge waves.
That's what "The Gulf of Hope" is about, and the 72-year-old director William Nicholson brings the audience a smooth surface and a sharp inside story.
"Let Him Go"
In the first half of "Let Him Go", there are about ten details of the character turning on and off the faucet, unscrewed, the water "rushes" down, closes, turns around to face the trivial life, the faucet seems to have a symbolism in the film, it becomes a tool to relieve tension.
A great director has a magical ability to make a slow-paced film full of tension, firmly controlling the audience's nerves from the first shot.
Deliberately checked the information of Thomas Bozucha, the director of "Let Him Go", the 56-year-old only has four directorial works, but without exception, he is also a screenwriter, a choreographer, and a body and mind are accommodating, which will show the strong control of the film.
In the story, "Let Him Go" is flawed in logic, the son died inexplicably, lacking the necessary explanation, the daughter-in-law married someone else and flew away, there was no foreshadowing, as for the climax of the film - grandparents came to the door to rob the grandson who was abused by the new family, in the face of unprecedented danger, the two people's approach is also quite immature. But these are not important, as a thriller, crime movie, these plots, just a task of the director, need to be completed, his performance focus is not on this, but elsewhere.
The film focuses on portraying the "disabled" side of family emotions. The mother-in-law has a superior posture to the daughter-in-law, the action is soft, the language is soft, but it is irresistible, she takes the grandson who is still a baby from the arms of the daughter-in-law, puts it in the basin of water at the right temperature to bathe, she likes to lie in her arms after the bath, at this time, she has a mother-like expression, this is a kind of transgression, from the psychological level, it is jealous of the existence of the daughter-in-law, replacing her position in the son's mind. The melancholy-faced son, who fell off his horse and died shortly after the opening of the story, seems to have some indication.
Of course, the "disability" of the grandparents' family, and a layer of thick and creamy happiness wrapped around it, looks normal.
The daughter-in-law's newly married family, the villain family in the film, is a room full of manic. The right to speak in the villain family is also controlled by the grandmother, who has a serious separation anxiety disorder, not only arrested the escaped son, but also controlled everyone around him, and for the grandson of other people's families, he is never allowed to leave half a step... The film becomes a war between two grandmothers, although the desire for control is not on the same level, but they meet, such as Mars hitting the earth, do not produce a fight.
It is worth noting that the film also has a young Indian living in the wilderness, as he complains, he is also "disabled", he has lost all his relatives, and more painfully, he has lost his native language and can only speak simple English...
Thinking of the story of "Let Him Go" took place in the United States in the 1950s, you may be able to understand the director's intentions. The United States in the 1920s and 1930s experienced the Great Depression and World War II, the United States in the 1960s and 1970s experienced the Vietnam War, the anti-war, and the civil rights movement, and the 1950s were very calm, as calm as the family life of grandparents in the film.
But under the calm, revolution and division are taking place, and the beautiful life that Americans of that era tried to maintain was extremely fragile inside.
Released in 2020, "Let Him Go" brings the audience's attention back to that era, or it is easy for people to breed some feelings about history. The baby who was forcibly taken away and snatched up was a symbol of the insecurity of that generation, which needed a harmless, peaceful baby to fill and comfort.
The grandparents arrive at the villain family and have a tense and suffocating confrontation at the dinner table; the grandfather, whose fingers have been cut off, drives back to the villain family to steal the baby and is found, causing a series of killings and counter-killings - these two plots are typical of thriller and crime movie routines.
Stripped of these two plots, Let Him Go is closer to a picturesque Western family life film. Snowy mountains, pastures, forests, roads, the melodious melody of the film, reminiscent of the heart-warming western scenery filmed by Ang Lee in "Brokeback Mountain".
Such a scenery, suitable for love, "Let Him Go" spends more space on the emotional life of grandparents who are still tied up after entering old age, making it closer to a movie about love in their later years.
Kevin Costner, the director and star of "Dances with Wolves", played Grandpa in "Let Him Go", 65-year-old Kevin is no longer agile, domineering, and has lost his combat effectiveness, but has a wisdom and calmness that sees through the years.
Diane Lynn, who represents "Sunset Bridge", plays her grandmother in the film, and at the age of 55, she deliberately plays an older role, but this does not affect the indescribable beauty she shows in the film. This kind of beauty, mixed with the elegance of mature women, the willfulness and impulsiveness of a little girl, the restraint of fierce emotions, and the laissez-faire of the free side of the heart, are superimposed to make this grandmother often exude a touching temperament.
It is indeed rare for a woman, at grandma's age, to put her hand in her boyfriend's pocket and snuggle up to him and walk like she did when she was in love.
In the movie, those women who still have a strong literary and artistic temperament after getting old are always prone to bloom a sense of light, which is a sign of success in resisting the erosion of time.
After Kevin shoots the battered horse, Diane says something in the horse's ear, and the horse dies peacefully. When Kevin was about to die after a few shots from the villain family, Diane said something in his ear.
What did Diane say to Ma and Kevin? The film does not explain, the audience has no way of knowing, but it can be guessed that it will be a language that can pour out pain, give up nostalgia, and be sweet, and women with this language ability can be weak, can be strong, and have a strong ability to create and resist risks, because they have eternal curiosity and expectation for the world, and have a "witch" approach to dealing with problems, so they usually do not really grow old.
If it weren't for the family affair, Kevin and Diane's life in the Western Ranch would have gone on gracefully. Bring simple meals to the table, turn on the radio to listen to music at breakfast, say a few love words when your children and grandchildren are not there, pursue a sense of ceremony even if you go out for a walk...
Even if there are deep and shallow cracks in the family, this beautiful life scene will make it patiently repair. "Let Him Go" is simply an excellent teaching film in terms of telling elegance, and the director is really a master in dealing with atmosphere, expression, subtle expression, etc., and the strength of this aspect completely makes up for the lack of storytelling and logic of the film.
Wang Xiaoshuai said when sharing his filming experience: "A hundred directors can shoot out the air and shoot the taste, just like Yasujiro Ozu, like Hou Xiaoxian." ”
This statement is also very appropriate for Thomas, the director of "Let Him Go". Thomas not only photographed the air and smell, but also the mood and rhythm.
"No One Checks"
Rosamand Pike, who played the Bang girl into the entertainment industry, left a good impression in the 2005 version of "Pride and Prejudice", with the 2014 "Disappearing Lover" to win the award to get soft, deeply liked by the Chinese audience, came to China once to give herself a Chinese name Pei Chunhua, this name has since been called, the major domestic rating websites have changed her name to Pei Chunhua.
Then call her Pei Chunhua, although she has interpreted the origin of these three words with a little pride, but I have to say that this name is still a bit earthy. However, Pei Chunhua's acting skills are amazing, she is the person who personally broke her "vase" image in the shortest possible time, and she has become an old drama bone at a young age, she has a "beautiful appearance and extremely perverted control personality", and the audience who has seen "Disappearing Lover" will agree with this comment.
"No One Checks" is Pei Chunhua's work filmed the following year after the release of "The Disappeared Lover", in which her image and personality, the same beauty is equally extremely perverted, and even the nurse miranda Wells she starred in has surpassed the crazy housewife Amy she played in "The Vanishing Lover" in terms of deceptiveness.
Also talking about the terrifying waves under the "iceberg" of life, "No One To Check" integrates a variety of elements such as domestic violence, childhood injury, and perverted personality, making it not lose to "Disappearing Lover" in the degree of horror.
Pei Chunhua was very beautiful when she appeared in "No One Checks", and the role of the nurse itself injected a kind and warm background into her beautiful appearance, which could not help but make the audience full of protection for her at the beginning, afraid that she would be hurt in the next plot.
Sure enough, while happily staying at home waiting for a blind date, she was raped by the youth who delivered the courier. The film gives a very restrained performance to this picture, and several close-ups of expressions like dead ash allow people to see the process of a flower withering.
After the rapist is sentenced to prison, Miranda seems to be repairing herself, and she gradually regains her former glory in the hospital, but the plot has a big twist here, she gets the consent of the other party after insisting on writing to the rapist, and visits him in prison, from the embarrassment of the first meeting to the excitement of the meeting before he is released from prison, the plot is frankly telling the audience that this is a Stockholm syndrome story of a victim falling in love with the abuser.
Just when the audience is puzzled or heartbroken by this, the real reversal of the plot comes: Miranda "seduces" the rapist only to let him let down his guard and approach her without hesitation after he is released from prison, while she feeds him psychedelics at the right time and cuts off his limbs.
Pei Chunhua's performance in the film is breathtaking, she reminds people of Leonardo DiCaprio after middle age, Xiao Lizi in "The Wilderness Hunter", "Revolutionary Road", have a "face-changing" performance, the inner emotions collide with the facial expression to control muscles and nerves, showing shocking anger and fear, the audience can clearly see how a person's potential personality escapes the cage of self-control, revealing a cold side.
Pei Chunhua in "No One Checks", at least three times such a "face-changing" performance, such a beautiful actor, can actually make his face become old, ugly, chilling in an instant, let people admire the charm of the performance.
"No One Checks" has a little problem in the setting of the story background, such as Miranda's childhood growth, and her relationship with the death of her mother, etc. are not clearly explained, that is, the formation of Miranda's perverted personality is only roughly outlined with a latent pen, which leads to the foundation of the play is not solid.
But the film's point of view in terms of dramatic conflict, rhythm control and performance is still very sufficient, its horror, with a spicy taste, suitable for a warmed room in winter, making people break out in a cold sweat.
With the movie "Disappearing Lover", Pei Chunhua has completely entered another performance system, which requires life experience, recognition of the multi-faceted nature of life, and the ability to gaze into the abyss.
I believe that Pei Chunhua in the future will no longer be willing to play a movie that only shows beauty, and the magic after entering the role will in turn give back to the actor.