"At the beginning of the movie, I thought it was a criminal investigation film, but after watching it for twenty minutes, I found that it was a zombie movie, and I felt like a horror movie in the middle, and finally I realized that it was a religious movie." A "Cry" moviegoer commented.
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Without a doubt, blending the qualities of traditional Korean crime films — dark tones, insidious, oppressive aesthetics of violence — the film called "Crying" became a "god film" at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.
The film begins with a reference to a conversation between Jesus and his disciples in the Gospel of Luke. The disciples were skeptical about the physical presence of the resurrected Jesus—"but they were terrified and frightened, thinking that what they saw was the soul," and Jesus said, "Look at my hands, my feet, and you will know that it is really me. It is the emergence of this dialogue that raises the film to the height of religion. Whether it is the wizard who danced the big god in the film, or the assistant priest of the priest, there is no doubt that this drama has a strong layer of religious color.
It is said that the director is also a believer in a certain sect, so some people also say that this is a movie that only believers can understand, but I think this statement is too much, but for the audience who listened to the introduction to see this drama for the first time, it is best to accept the first time they did not understand it, after all, the editor has only watched it 5 times.
Six years of grinding a sword, presumably the director is also painstakingly lonely, adding a strong cultural background to this film that follows "Yellow Sea" and "The Pursuer", and the film amplifies the trust and suspicion between people to the maximum. It can be said that this film, which lasts nearly three hours, explores these two topics throughout the film, the suspicion between father and daughter, Zhong Jiu's suspicion of the woman in white, and the police's suspicion of the villagers, which pushes the drama to a climax step by step. At the end of the film, it is not directly pointed out whether this suspicion is good or bad, and such an ending is more like the director is talking to the audience - have you ever trusted? Have you ever doubted it again?
Director Luo Hongzhen said: "The most terrifying feeling of human beings is that when a person does not know who to rely on, it is difficult to distinguish, I think it is the most terrible. And this sentence has become a true portrayal of the protagonist Zhong Jiu. Faced with the death of a series of strange people in the village due to strange diseases, almost all the villagers attributed it to the mysterious Japanese. The policeman Zhong Jiu, who holds high the banner of no ghost theology, scorns the suspicion of the villagers, and in the middle of this investigation, he also involves himself in a nightmare of life.
From not believing in ghosts and gods to personally inviting wizards to her home for her daughter who has fallen into the devil, the dramatic back-and-forth contrast exposes Zhong Jiu's sense of vulnerability as a human being. "When you are on the battlefield, your life is threatened at any time, you can't predict that what is coming from you is bullets, artillery fire or grenades, and your life is tied to a single thought, you will always involuntarily pray to some "god" in the hope that there is an external force to help you, even in the eyes of others, even before and after you feel absurd. But man's faith is always fragile, and when he is trapped in a painful desperate situation where there is no way out, he will look for possible salvation in such a panicked way. ”
This point is mentioned in several places in the film.
When the police can no longer find the real culprit and abandon themselves, they take the cross they distrusted, hoping that it can drive away evil spirits, but the result is the opposite; when the will of the people who have been unable to recover his daughter, Zhong Jiu is still desperate to face the terrible Japanese. We can even experience Zhong Jiu's pain and entanglement in the first place, because he is everyone we have enlarged.
Near the end of the film, when faced with the complete departure of the woman in white from the wizard's statement, Zhong Jiu's collapse and the strong desire in his heart for the safety and security of his family are like a heavy hammer, which makes him breathless. Walter Lippmann once said, "In most cases we don't understand and then define, but define and then understand." "So believe it or not, who do you believe?" It became a fateful choice for Zhong Jiu.
In the end, however, the film still fails to escape the tragic ending of traditional Korean films - Jong-kyu rushes home at the second chicken chirping despite the persuasion of the woman in white. The home he had desperately tried to maintain had long since been left alive, and he himself had not been able to escape the curse of death in the end.
Luo Hongzhen, with her good directorial approach of the gloomy and damp "dirty mess" aesthetic, tore the fragility and unbearability of human nature straight to show us. The tragic open ending makes the film's subject matter even more confusing for those who watch the film for the first time. "What was said" and "who is good and who is evil" can only be found in the details of the film again.
And this tragic ending method also makes the image of the small town policeman represented by Zhong Jiu's ineffective handling and inaction deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and the cowardice and incompetence he shows are also vivid, perhaps causing us to think and reflect more. For example, the case of sexual assault of girls in the ending of "The Melting Pot" was not resolved, and Jiang Renhao, who represented civilians, failed to win even a little apology for the girls in the end. This reflective wolf-master phenomenon is everywhere in modern society, and we do not hear the distressed people crying for help, because they do not even have anyone who can do justice for them. Also exposing the darkness of socio-political corruption is a South Korean film called "Horror Live", in which Park Chan-woo, who installed the bomb because of his father's death, did not hear the president's apology at the end, and the last bomb detonated on the Mapo Bridge on the Han River in Seoul was more like a sigh and a roar. Who will protect our rights and interests, and in which one-way mirror will the people who protect them look at their protected.
There is no doubt that South Korea is a country that can make crime films textured and deep, create pain in different ways, and trigger our deep thinking with the most extreme plot. Toward the end of "Crying", the assistant priest finds the Japanese Kokumura Hayabusa, who is still dead after the car accident, but the Japanese, who is regarded as an "evil spirit" by the whole village, sits with compassion, "I am here to save you," he said. In the face of the suspicion of the auxiliary priest, he says what Jesus said to his disciples at the beginning of the film, and the image of the demon also appears.
This can't help but make people's backs chill, and the echoes of the front and back make the words in the beginning of Luke get the same confirmation. Can you touch a visible soul? What is goodness? What is evil? In the face of fate, can you make the right judgment? People at the center of the event vortex may never be able to think clearly.
What is even more painful is that at the end, Zhong Jiu recalled a series of pictures of the past and his daughter's beautiful past, he said: "Our family is filial piety, know that Dad is a policeman, Dad, will handle it well, Dad will." ”
But does he really still have a chance? As the eldest child who does not listen to his mother, who has done nothing in his career and has no policeman whose faith is easily shaken, even if he is alive, what can he do except cry in his ears? What can be changed by a delusion?
Zhong Jiu in the film is a boring person, an ordinary person, a cowardly person, and he is each and every one of us. We are constantly struggling in front of us, until we habitually sink into the mud of life, we have nothing to do, nothing to achieve, the original curiosity about the world was cut into the rough tea and rice by the knife of life, swallowed into the stomach quietly, we know that we are not good-looking, but there is no way to change.
It is worth noting that Zhong Jiu repeatedly questioned after his daughter was killed that why this happened to me. This is the first reaction of every victim after being killed. It is worth noting that whoever is harmed or who is harmed is a flying disaster for the perpetrator, but for the perpetrator, it is only a question of "random violence". Luo Hongzhen also said: "What I want to know is not that the victim is victimized, but because the perpetrator did something in a certain psychological state and for some reason caused the victim to suffer, but why is it this victim?" ”
In interviews with the director, the director is also ambiguous about what the film wants to convey, so most people's evaluations of the film are also mixed, just as the so-called "a thousand people have a thousand Hamlets", which also applies to "Crying".
What I understand as Cry conveys an open-ended fear. He told me a bizarre story with the most extreme plot and made me understand the most simple life. As I watched the film, I continued to substitute myself for The Role of Zhong Jiu, and I found that Zhong Jiu's reaction coincided with what I would have done if I had been put into that situation. I look at Zhong Jiu like I see another self. This kind of thing called "resonance" is that my relationship with this drama has suddenly shortened a lot, and I feel the pain of Zhong Jiu's heart and the pain of finally being powerless to return to heaven.
It's a film that throws bait at the audience, with no obvious themes, even the ending is confusing, both in breadth and width, infinitely magnified, and what you see may be what you want to see.
However, this film is not the kind of impeccable that it says, and the director spends nearly 3 hours constantly disrupting and rebuilding the story just to say one sentence: "In unpredictable events, people have no ability to distinguish between good and evil." "This seems really unnecessary, and maybe this is also a regret that will be more or less left after the comeback."
But as I said earlier, everyone who watches this movie can find themselves in the film, and it has a universality. This is still a movie worth watching repeatedly, and I sincerely hope that listeners can be bold and try it, and maybe discover a new version of themselves.
It is probably this movie, which is praised by many film critics as a "god film", that makes the general public look confused after watching it for the first time, and it is known that there are many analyses of "Crying". We may not be able to reach the height of the gods' frame-by-frame analysis, but we can have our own most real feelings and the most unique views to inject fresh blood into this movie, which may be the meaning of the movie.