The movie "Seven Pounds" is a touching and thought-provoking masterpiece by the famous black film star Will Smith and director Gabriel after the successful collaboration of "When Happiness Knocks".
Due to the lengthy plot of the first half of the film, the audience will have some doubts, but because of the wonderful performance of the actors, the delicate emotions of the characters in the play are vividly expressed, and the warm feelings it contains and the profound themes it touches make the audience deeply attracted by it.
The plot of the story is very simple, but it secretly surges with a kind of moving ups and downs and twists. The hero Tim dies seven people due to his own mistakes, and then helps seven people through his surprising behavior to express repentance and redeem the soul of self-blame.
"Seven Pounds" is not as inspirational as "When Happiness Knocks", and the story does not seem to carry enough weight, but this film wins in real human nature. A story that seems inconceivable in modern society, but through Will Smith's gripping and delicate interpretation of the characters, it tells us the simplest truth: "Give people roses, have a lingering fragrance in your hands". While excavating the deepest beauty of human nature, the film begins a journey of redemption.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >, desperate repentance and self-redemption</h1>
The film uses flashbacks in structure, starting with the suspense caused by the male protagonist Tim's suicide, slowly leading the audience to explore the original appearance of the matter, revealing in a slow foreshadowing how Tim helps those who deserve help step by step.
Tim, a successful and happy engineer, once collided with an oncoming bus while driving because he looked down at his mobile phone message, resulting in the death of seven people in a car accident, including his beloved wife.
After the accident, Tim is full of remorse for his mistakes, grief-stricken, extremely depressed, and gloomy and depressed moods make him hover around death. He wants to end his life, but before committing suicide he decides to help seven good people who need help but are ignored by society to make up for his sins.
In real life, we may all do something immeasurable wrong that will lead us into a phase of fear, guilt, and self-doubt. There is no doubt that this transition from happiness to suffering in this life is like two sides of the same coin. However, neither escape nor repentance can turn back the clock, and practical action can be more effective in making up for mistakes.
As the saying goes, saving a life is better than creating a seventh-level floating massacre, but for Tim, a key question that comes with it is: Who to choose to save? On this criterion, Tim's bottom line is – good people. So, Tim began to collect information as an official of his brother, selected people, and used his status as a tax officer to approach and test.
Kindness and warmth can touch the softest parts of a person's heart, but sometimes it takes skill and patience to give kindness. This is epitomized in Tim's process of helping Connie. Connie is a Hispanic mother who has suffered from domestic violence, struggling to pull a pair of children, and out of self-esteem and pride, she initially bluntly refuses Tim's help.
For such a person who is unwilling to pray to others, the way to help her is not to despise her self-improvement confidence, nor to discourage her futile efforts, but to listen to her sincerely and patiently, and put herself in her shoes. That's how Tim came to Connie's aid, protecting her self-esteem and getting her out of her predicament once and for all.
Tim gave his seaview villa to Connie and her children, who had nowhere to go, his lungs to his sick brother, half his liver to a black woman, Holly, his kidney to a hockey coach, his cornea to a blind pianist, his bone marrow to a child with leukemia, and finally his heart to emily.
After giving everything clearly to his friends, Tim donated his property and body to the seven people he designated as planned, saving the lives of seven people with his own life.
It can be said that Tim is carrying out a kind of self-redemption, he did not fall into the mood of regret for a long time, but made up for the mistakes he committed with practical actions, and used his life to repay the life lost in the car accident.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > second, to call love with love, to set off the preciousness of life</h1>
"Seven pounds" is derived from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, when a bet has been placed or borrowed, but it is unable to repay, it must be cut off a pound of meat to repay. The name Seven Pounds comes from this meaning.
In the film, the hero Tim owes seven lives, so he has to pay it back with "seven pounds", which is why Tim has been looking for help for seven people to redeem himself.
Tim, who is busy saving people, may initially be immersed in the grief of losing his beloved wife limited to the narrow thinking of life, but in the process of helping others, he gradually and naturally sublimates to a state of loving and arousing love. In the process, it is necessary to mention the object of salvation that has a special meaning for Tim - Emily.
While gathering people in the IRS system, Tim notices that Emily's income and expenditure records show that she seems to have been without income for a long time, so he lists her as a candidate for help. When I went to visit, I learned that Emily had been admitted to the hospital for a heart attack, but she was still on the list of transplant surgeries.
Looking at the pale Emily outside the ward, Tim felt a sense of pity. In order to help Emily, Tim took the initiative to enter her life, and Emily began to open her heart to Tim after experiencing the initial vigilance and rejection.
Tim's care and help made Emily, who had been hovering on the brink of death, see the hope of life again; and Emily's strength, enthusiasm and the growing love for Tim in her eyes also made Tim's originally dead heart feel the warmth of the world and the heat of love again.
I think that knowing Emily is a turning point in Tim's path to atonement, if the previous Tim was holding a decadent philosophy of life atonement to "sacrifice himself to become a benevolent", then now Tim is slowly opened by the power of love, rekindling the hope of life. It is not only out of the touch of the scene, but also from the true desire of the heart for life and life.
But unbeknownst to Emily, Tim has found his new lover, is this the glimmer of dawn or the shadow of darkness? Tim faces the most difficult and important choice: love or life.
When Tim learned from the doctor that Emily had zero chances of getting a heart donation from someone else, his heart was broken again. Tim knows that his love no longer belongs to the world, so he chooses to fulfill Emily's life. He decided to implement his last plan, to exchange his beating heart for Emily's health and hope.
At the end of the film, Tim's fresh heart is exchanged for Emily's new life, and his cornea continues to survive in the eyes of a kind man. When Emily came to the blind man who had regained her sight, she stared into his eyes for a long time, and the black eyes that had once been full of melancholy were now calm.
Tim fulfilled his promise of love with his life and the salvation of his own soul. When his heart beat in Emily's chest, the resonance of the rhyme sounded the music of life, and the beauty of living redefined the preciousness of life.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > third, from the sublimation of the original self to the superego, shines the light of humanity</h1>
In the movie "Seven Pounds", Tim's humanity shines the brightest light at the last moment of life, in order to save and continue Emily's life, Tim chooses to give up his life, which is a great light of human nature, but also a great love, can't help but let the audience begin to re-examine their own life and life.
Such a film with the theme of life, hope and atonement, similar to the theme of Will Smith's previous film "When Happiness Knocks", is to give people hope and make people believe in the beauty of life, but in a very different way of expression.
In Tim, we can see Freud's theory of the triple structure of personality, namely the identity of the self, the ego, and the superego:
Tim's "Who I Am"
There are many scenes in the film that show Tim's dreams, in which he is confident and successful, has a happy and happy life, followed by the scene of his wife collapsing in a pool of blood, these fragmentary dreams show the audience the mistakes he has made before, and it is the dreams that constantly remind him that he should atone for his sins.
According to Freud, dreams are manifestations of instinctive desires and emotional thoughts that people suppress or exist in the human unconscious. The multiple dreams in the film reinforce Tim's guilt and indebtedness for past crimes, giving the story a logical connection. On the other hand, the recurrence of dreams also means that Tim's original self has caused him to escape from the tragic reality.
Tim's "Self"
Under the beating of the superego consciousness, Tim donated his lungs and liver, and then used his brother's work certificate to look for other people in need, which is an escapist unconscious act.
If it is only Tim who quietly leaves the world after donating his various organs, it is also an act of escape in another way, and it cannot show the superego consciousness of man.
Fortunately, the screenwriter cleverly avoided this drawback, allowing Tim to encounter a new relationship while escaping from reality, awakening Tim's self. But when he thought he had found a new life and began to smile and couldn't help but walk into the territory of love, the dream still surrounded him, making him have to hover between past sins and new hopes.
Tim's "Superego"
Tim wants to start a happy new life with Emily, they eat dinner, sing, and dance, but the facts in front of him pull him back to the cold reality.
For Tim, marrying Emily and having children is his luxury for the future. This phase is Tim's self-return, where the ie-superego begins to interact with each other to influence the ego's choices.
Tim wants to re-choose his life, so his sense of self once again drives him to the hospital again, and after getting a reply from the doctor, he realizes that if he chooses to satisfy his original desire to live, Emily will face death. At this time, Tim's superego consciousness was fully released, and he made the choice to sacrifice himself to complete Emily.
The protagonist of this film, Tim, is very successfully interpreted by Will Smith, who completely and delicately interprets all of Tim's emotions, the desire for life, the need for love, the guilt confession of the sins he has committed, and brings an extraordinary spiritual shock to the audience with a unique performance of fringe themes.
The contrast between the protagonist Tim ending his life to achieve the hope of seven people and the beauty of life with death is cruel, and this cruelty is full of hope, so in this strong contrast, the film shows the audience a noble personality.
I think that Tim's rescue of others in the film is not only atonement, but more like a kind of grace, a true embodiment of human nature. It is not only cold interests between people, not only indifferent classes, but also warmth and love between people.
We have been talking about family, love, and friendship in real life, but have we ever reflected on our attitude toward strangers? When we see strangers in society who are living in the depths of the water, can we give them the care they can, even if it is just a kind look?
This film tells us to remember to give, to be grateful, to love others. How many people in modern society will help those who do not know but need help, and how many people will remember to be grateful after receiving help, and these beautiful qualities are even more touching and thought-provoking in today's view.
This is where the film succeeds, capturing the psychology of people who are eager to need this warm and beautiful character in an increasingly indifferent and utilitarian society between people.
epilogue
The misery of life needs to be borne, or forbeared, or released, and always find an outlet for the soul. "Seven Pounds" reshapes the individual's love and responsibility for others, society and the world through the hero's martyrdom of sacrificing himself to save others. In the protagonist's touching and profound responsibility and dedication, there is the warmth of the world and the eternal humanistic spirit.
Revisiting this film has undoubtedly become a warm medicine for this special period, bringing us encouragement and excitement, love and confidence. Give people roses, the hand has a lingering fragrance, because there is love, there is a future.