Once upon a time, there was a rumor in the fan circle that "A24 must be a boutique".
The films produced by this company are often flamboyant and unique, in stark contrast to Hollywood assembly line movies.
For example, "Instant Universe", "Genetic Doom", "Witch".
have received unanimous praise from fans, and the box office has soared.
In March this year, director Tie West released the horror film "X" with violence and gore as its selling point.
The film sets the era in the 80s of the last century, telling the story of a film crew shooting pornographic small movies, accidentally breaking into a small farm, and being tortured and killed by an elderly couple.
The film combines classic movie elements such as "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Spit on My Grave", and "Dawn of the Living Dead".
The image is deliberately worn to recreate the texture of a mill in the 80s, which is refreshing.
The post-90s British actress Mia Goss plays the roles of the heroine Maxine and the old woman Pearl (meaning "pearl"), which is even more impressive.
In particular, the image of an old woman created by her fake makeup skills and superb acting skills is both ruthless and cruel, and she kills all directions with a steel fork, which has long become a classic in the hearts of fans.
Mia Goss is of mixed Brazilian and Canadian descent, debuted in the movie "Female Addict" in 2013, acted in many movies and TV series, but did not emerge until "X".
Why? Because she has a wide forehead, small eyes, and thick lips, she is the kind of earthy public face, and her appearance is not outstanding, of course, it is difficult to get out of the circle.
However, Mia's acting potential is bottomless, and director Ti West also discovered this, so he discovered Mia to star in "X" and created a trilogy around her.
The recently released "Pearl" is a prequel to "X".
The film pulls the timeline back to 1918 during World War I, telling the story of Pearl, the old woman in "X", when she was young.
This time, Mia Goss not only starred, but also personally participated in the creation of the movie script, trying to give full play to her acting skills and strive to interpret the "past and present life" of the old woman Pearl.
Speaking of this, someone is about to bar: "It's useless to pull so much, it's a mule or a horse, and it depends on the reputation of movie fans." ”
Of course, Pige is also very concerned about the quality of this prequel, so he is familiar with the road and goes on the three major film review websites:
IMDb score 7.4; Rotten Tomatoes freshness of 90%, popcorn index 82%;
Douban, which has always been very harsh on horror films, even had more than 5,000 people score 7.3 points, ranking 2nd on the hit list, the best horror film of the year, basically certain, word of mouth is stable!
Sequel movies have always been difficult to escape the curse of declining word of mouth, and the 7.3 points of "Pearl" on Douban are much higher than the 5.9 points of the previous work "X".
Obviously, Douban netizens also like this movie, which is very rare.
What's so good about Pearl?
With this question, Pige also can't wait, the first time to watch the movie, the following will be an in-depth analysis of this new work, and talk in detail about the reasons why this low-cost good film has successfully come out of the circle.
One
In 1843, Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen created the classic fairy tale "The Ugly Duckling", telling the story of an ugly swan who was treated as a duck, experienced various tribulations, and finally grew into a beautiful white swan.
In the past 179 years, "The Ugly Duckling" has become a well-known classic for people all over the world, and the story mode of "the ugly duckling turns into a swan" has also been repeatedly applied by the world.
Recent ones such as Jackie Chan's "Drunken Fist", a bastard who loves to fight learns drunken boxing and eventually becomes a martial arts master;
Far away such as "Carrie the Witch", Carrie White, who is ordinary in appearance and introverted, finally went to the campus after being bullied by her classmates;
Even the Oscar calling cards "Forrest Gump" and "The Shawshank Redemption" are actually the application of this model.
"Pearl" is also in this model, and the film is set in 1918, when Pearl was still a young girl under 20 years old.
During World War I, Pearl's husband Howard went to the front, life and death were uncertain, and the town was threatened by a deadly flu, and Pearl and his mother Ruth lived a self-sufficient life guarding the farm and their paralyzed father.
Day after day of caring for her bedridden father had exhausted Pearl, and she was even more annoyed by her mother's harsh discipline and restrictions.
Every time he went to town to buy medicine for his father, it was the only time Pearl had at his disposal.
She can make time to watch a movie, and it is Pearl's dream to become a tap dancer like in the movie.
Because of watching a movie, Pearl met the projectionist of the movie theater.
The handsome projectionist brother made Pearl Chun's heart secretly moved, and the handsome guy promised to take her to Europe to chase her dream of acting, which also made her firmly want to leave home, go out to the world, and live the life she likes.
Heaven seemed to understand what Pearl wanted, and Misty brought her good news.
A Christmas dance company will hold a dancer audition in the church on Saturday, and the actors selected to join the company will follow the company on a tour of seven different cities before the end of the year.
This is undoubtedly a rare opportunity for Pearl, in order to be able to get out of the current life, she is actively prepared and fully prepared.
But mother Ruth obviously did not support her to participate in the selection, and on Friday night the mother and daughter argued fiercely, and then fought fiercely, pulling Ruth's pants and sticking to the fire of the fireplace, causing a fire all over her body and being seriously injured.
But instead of rescuing his mother, Pearl dragged her to the basement and locked her up.
When it came to Saturday's casting audition, Pearl was determined to win and completed a dance almost perfectly on stage, but he was ultimately defeated because he was not a blonde, and could only return to the farm with regret and loss.
When he learns that his sister-in-law Misty has been chosen for having blonde hair, jealousy and anger wells up in Pearl's heart.
She finally burst out completely, brutally hacking Misty to death with an axe.
In the end, Pearl seems to have relented, disposing of Misty's body and guarding her farm while waiting for her husband Howard to return.
Two
The ending of the film echoes the story of "X", and Howard finally returns with victory and stays with Pearl until he is old.
The photo of Pearl with Howard in "X" and the photo of Pearl dancing on the farm are portrayals of their daily lives.
This "Tyrant Pearl Cultivation" story, seriously considered, has many similarities with "Joker" starring Uncle Joaquin Phoenix.
The main story line is to tell about a small person who was originally submissive, and after experiencing many tribulations, he grew up to be an incomparable "big devil", that is, the "ugly duckling turned into a swan" mode mentioned by Pige above.
But Pearl's upbringing is also very different from "Joker" Arthur Frank.
Arthur remembered his mother's teachings deeply, and although he was "severely beaten" by society, he always smiled and faced it until he finally fell into madness;
The blow to Pearl came more from his mother's ruthlessness and the sad life of isolation and no way out.
The film uses a lot of pen and ink to portray Ruth, the sick mother figure.
Tied to her own farm by her paralyzed husband, she lives a life of darkness, conceited and cowardly, unwilling to accept handouts from others, preferring to vent her resentment of losing her freedom on her own daughter.
Ruth's discipline of her daughter is both harsh and perverted, not only in the daily restrictions on her personal freedom, but also in the ruthless blow to her spirit.
Instead of supporting Pearl's desire to escape the status quo and his ideal of freedom, Ruth did everything she could to insult, belittle, and stop it.
In the face of his mother's domineering, Pearl initially showed that he was obedient and hardworking, but "there is a tiger in his heart, sniffing the roses", Pearl, like Arthur, has a fierce beast living in his heart.
When desperate, the beast will be released, and everything around it will be destroyed by anger.
Of course, the character of Pearl itself has mental problems, and her long-term life of little contact with the outside world leads to her introversion and lack of confidence.
She is extremely emotionally unstable and has an antisocial personality, which is psychologically a paranoid personality disorder, which can be seen from her abuse of the white goose and feeding the white goose to the crocodile.
Because of this paranoid personality, Pearl can't bear the blows of life, and a little setback can make her emotionally break down and do crazy things.
When he was convinced that the little handsome guy was going to leave her alone, Pearl pierced the little handsome guy's chest with one fork;
When she learned that her sister-in-law Misty had robbed her of her place as a dancer, she hacked her to death with another axe.
The formation of this extreme antisocial personality is inseparable from the family education Pearl received.
And this closed family does not only exist in movies, the famous American serial killer Edward Gaine (the prototype of the movie "Texas Chainsaw Massacre") was born in the 1900s and grew up in a similar single-parent family.
Three
So some viewers think that this is the female version of "Texas Chainsaw Massacre".
The difference is that director Ti West intentionally reduced the sadistic scenes in the film, replacing it with a more delicate narrative, making the film present the texture of a literary film.
The beginning of the film deliberately uses a cheerful song to bring out the camera, and the high-saturation beautiful colors deliberately imitate Disney's family movies, which fits the theme of girls pursuing their dreams.
This is different from the lens performance of the deliberately old imitation of the 80s mill movie in "X", the same house, because it is in a different era, is naturally presented in the lens is different.
Unlike the film crew team group drama in "X", the main story line of "Pearl" completely revolves around the character of Pearl, which gives the heroine Mia Gauss more roles and space to play.
She also seized the opportunity to contribute her best performance, which not only showed the process of Pearl's personality transformation in an all-round way, but also perfectly presented the entanglements and contradictions in the characters' hearts.
At 75 minutes of the film, Pearl confronts his sister-in-law Misty, who treats her husband Howard and confides out the secrets buried in her heart.
In this 8-minute monologue, Mia not only expresses the character's inner thoughts with lines, but also uses her eyes and body language to express the character's pain and despair, which moves the audience.
And what is even more shocking is that after such a depressed confession to the bottom, when she learned that her dancer place was snatched by Misty, a murderous intent suddenly appeared in Pearl's eyes, as if a blood-eating devil suddenly possessed her.
There are still tear stains on his face, but his face changes as he says, and Mia's extraordinary acting skills are shown here with ease.
Not only that, but the final shot of the movie is frozen on Pearl's face, and Mia needs to make a stiff grin and hold it for up to 2 minutes.
This shot is also an almost perverted test for the actor's performance, but Mia still completes the shot excellently, which makes people deeply admire her acting skills.
Four
To sum up, "Pearl" is a solo performance belonging to Mia Gauss.
Even if the story of the movie is insufficient compared to "Joker", Mia Gauss's acting skills are remarkable, fully worthy of a little golden man.
The film's scores on the three major film review websites are not low, which shows that her acting skills have been unanimously recognized by fans.
Whether or not "Pearl" wins film awards in Europe and the United States, it is a good film worth watching.
According to the trilogy plan directed by Ti West, there will be a third episode "Maxine" in the future, telling the story of Maxin, the sister who killed the old woman Pearl, of course, starring Mia Gauss, which is worth looking forward to.
Text / Pippi Film Editorial Department: Blood Danxin
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