Friday Words: Recently, many friends want to talk about the movie "Persian Language Class" on Friday Literature and Art, because it is very popular on Douban and has a high rating rate. But the problem is that the anti-Nazi genre film about World War II has been very high in Douban since ancient times, and the heat is very large, which is really nothing to talk about. As for the standard of the movie itself, it is even more difficult to talk about, and it will be criticized as "taking the wrong position". But it is undeniable that these films have hitched a ride on an anti-war, anti-Nazi train.
Compared with "Persian Lessons", another World War II movie "Doctor Jianghu", which was released at the same time in the same year, appeared colder, and Douban showed that only about 600 people had watched it. Its ratings are also somewhat different from "Persian Lessons", not to mention its obscure film structure and smooth rhythm.
However, if we put the two movies together, there is a chat. As the saying goes, it doesn't hurt to compare! After comparison, you will find that the online ratings really don't say anything, and its high scores sometimes only prove that these movies meet the tastes, morals and entertainment needs of the public. As for the gap in film art, technology, and depth of thought, the viewer has his own decision.
Text: Savage Five
Edit: Mr. Friday
Images: Web, video screenshots
<h1>First, let's see the plot of the two movies:</h1>
(Note: Both films take place in theater countries before and after World War II)
"Persian Lessons" tells the story of a Jew who taught Nazi officials To Persian by posing as Persians and eventually saved his life;
"Doctor Jianghu" tells a lot of things, including the story of a jianghu doctor who treats people; a love story; the story of a person who is politically persecuted in court; the story of a young man studying medicine with a teacher... It's just that these things happen to a person. So we can say: this is a biographical film.
From the above summary, it is not difficult to see that "Persian Lesson" is a simple and single escape story, its genre framework can not be more obvious, and everything is designed around the difficulty and thrill of escape.
Stills from "Persian Lessons", 2020
"Doctor Jianghu" is obviously anti-story, and it has a potential logical line, that is, the analysis of the character of "Doctor Jianghu" from the outside in, from shallow to deep. All event selections are centered around this character profile line. Therefore, when we look at those storylines alone, we will feel that the movie is a bit dull and messy, like prose.
▲ Stills of "Doctor Jianghu", 2020
Comparing the story of the two films, it is natural that the former is more pleasing to the public than the latter, which is an indisputable fact.
<h1>Second, look at the framework of the two movies:</h1>
Leaving aside the beginning and the end, "Persian Lessons" is a straight line to the end. This straight line is nothing but escape. Those nodes in the straight line are the "roadblocks" set up by the screenwriters for escape, such as two German soldiers secretly exposing fake Persians, such as the superiors sending people to question the Nazi officials to learn Persian, such as the German headquarters demanding the transfer of war criminals, and so on.
The film framework of "Doctor Jianghu" is divided into two lines, one is the past and the other is the present. In the past, it included the road of jianghu doctors to join the army, the road of learning medicine from teachers, the road of love... Now it includes the experience of doctors in the jianghu, such as medical treatment, arrest, and trial. All cinematic tension arises from the mutual interpretation, implication and complementarity of these two lines.
From the above framework, it is not difficult to see the difference in the structural complexity of the two films (obviously the former is simple and the latter is complex).
Of course, we do not evaluate the quality of a movie by looking at its structural complexity, let alone for the sake of complexity. The question is whether it can explain people and things clearly, credibly, and thoroughly.
Based on this, the gap between the two films has also widened, and we will look at it again.
<h1>Iii. Plot processing of two films</h1>
As mentioned earlier, The Persian Language Lesson tells the story of a Jew who escaped from the nazi clutches. His way of escaping was to impersonate a Persian, teach Nazi officers Persian, and deceive the other side's trust.
The problem was that he himself didn't know anything about Persian, how could he teach it, how could he fool a Nazi officer whose IQ was not low?
This is where the film catches the audience's attention, and it is also the burden of telling the story. At the same time, the key to the success or failure of the film and the level of the film are also how the director deals with those plots of impersonation and deception.
So, how did the director solve this difficult knot after hanging everyone's taste?
Unfortunately, he chose tricks to create coincidences and avoid professional details, and to fool around and get things done. In other words, the creators did not convince the audience of logic and credibility at all, let's take an example:
1. Coincidence
Before the protagonist gives a lesson to a Nazi officer for the first time, he is assigned to work in the back kitchen. So he began to make up Persian words out of thin air with the kitchen supplies and food on his hands. Coincidentally, in the first Persian class, the officer told the other party that he wanted to open a restaurant in the future, and asked the other party to start by learning kitchen words.
Note that this coincidence is a coincidence created by the play, not a coincidence in life, and is specially designed by the screenwriter and director for the audience.
Well, this trick is used once, and the terrible thing is that the whole movie uses this "coincidence" trick, for example, when the protagonist can't make up words, a list of Nazis just appears on the table; for example, a real Persian came from the concentration camp, and when the protagonist is about to be exposed, just an Italian can stand up, kill the real Persian, and break the siege for the protagonist...
In contrast, "Doctor Jianghu" does not have any coincidences in the storyline, it is realistic, all the characters act passively in the social and political context, and all the plot events are also natural products of the harmony of the characters and the historical background. The difference in styles between the two films speaks for themselves.
2. Avoid professional details
We all know that the only way for the police to let the suspect show their feet is to keep interrogating, constantly asking questions, and making the logic of the other party collapse. The only way for a suspect to escape the suspicion of the police is to use logic and professional details to round up his lies.
But in "Persian Lessons", the Nazi officers not only did not continue to learn the language from the protagonist, but even the basic questions that ordinary people would ask when learning a foreign language, the film also avoided, such as how the letters that make up a word are pronounced, such as the part of speech of the word, and how the Persian grammar is (Germany and France are both European languages, and it is impossible not to involve the problem of parts of speech, roots, and tenses).
I would like to ask, if the impostor does not solve these language details, how can he get through the confusion!
So there are only two reasons why the director avoids these professional details: either the Nazi official is stupid, or the matter is not credible. Obviously The Nazi officers are not stupid (liars deceive fools, who love to watch such tensionless dramas!). The director repeatedly used the officer's lines to emphasize this.
But the Nazis are not stupid, where is the protagonist's intelligence? (Obviously, the protagonist is not a language expert, which is not reflected in the play)
In short, throughout the film, when the two positive and negative protagonists are confronted, the director and screenwriter will always let some peripheral trivia dominate the plot scene, and avoid the professional details that can really lead to conflicts between the two sides. In the end, the protagonist did not show his feet, but the director was full of loopholes and grandeur.
Of course, the public does not necessarily buy this, for the simple reason that they stand on the position of sympathy for the protagonist, they forget that they are watching the play, they hope that the protagonist will quickly break the siege, so they ignore the credibility of the matter.
Looking back at how "Doctor Jianghu" does in terms of professional details:
Not counting the scene at the beginning of the president's death, the scene in which the film begins to diagnose a patient is bombarded with professional details; after that, the young doctor learns from the teacher, which is also a round of professional details display; of course, it also includes the professional details involved in the doctor's trial stage...
This is what we call film "realism". Regardless of whether the film is based on real events, at least these details make us feel that the film events and characters are reasonable and realistic. You know, this kind of cognition depends entirely on the professional skills and skills of the director and screenwriter, rather than the amount of materials and historical materials.
So, aside from the ability and skill of making movies, what is the difference between the two films in terms of film themes and ideas?
<h1>Fourth, the differences in themes between the two films</h1>
Let's try to extract keywords from the themes of two movies:
The Persian Lesson should cover: wisdom, good and evil, sacrifice, salvation, survival...
"Doctor Jianghu" should cover: human nature, instinct, internal and external contradictions...
Can you see that the former explores the external issues of good and evil, right and wrong, and the internal analysis of the characters is very small in the film. In other words, it is looking at things from a moral point of view, and in this perspective man is a secondary product after the moral view. This is why the director in the play prefers to design a large number of scenes such as Nazis beating Jews and German soldiers framing war criminals, but rarely wastes time on the psychology and background of the characters.
"Doctor Jianghu" focuses on the person himself, and all external social identities and contradictions and conflicts are set up for the analysis of the psychology of the characters. Man occupies an absolute dominance in this film.
We can see that the director and screenwriter did not hesitate to list two story lines at the same time in order to explain the character of the jianghu doctor.
<h1>5. Summary</h1>
In order to explain the characters' hearts thoroughly, "Doctor Jianghu" abandoned the routine of commercial genre films, which probably greatly reduced the audience base of the film, and the facts also proved the niche orientation of this movie.
The director even did not take into account the public's perception in terms of tone and composition, blindly obeying the purpose of creating the heart of the character and respecting the artistic purpose of the film, resulting in an obscure effect of puns everywhere. It can be said that this film is a typical European art film style.
On the other hand, "Persian Lessons" is naturally a successful commercial film and a morally correct film, but from the perspective of film art itself, it does not explain things clearly, nor does it tell things convincingly, let alone thoroughly! Its only advantage is that it is simply directly stimulated, and it does not require the audience to think hard to get a story of great understanding of right and wrong, and it does not have to be a moral hazard.
The differences and gaps between the two films can be seen from this!
(The above statements are personal views, only for reference and exchange)
Welcome to pay attention to 【Friday Literature】