The second brush "Disappearing Her", it turns out that there are so many hidden details
Entering the Dragon Boat Festival, imported blockbusters before domestic films officially took over the baton, and began to show a double blowout trend in export monuments and box office.
Among these domestic new films, one with its attractive theme, luxurious cast and stable early reputation has gained the highest degree of discussion and box office among films in the same period, and continues to hold the throne of box office crown and attendance first.
This is the movie starring Zhu Yilong, Ni Ni, Wen Yongshan and Du Jiang - "Disappearing Her".
As we all know, watching a suspense film is like solving a mystery in a detective story, and like peeling back a cocoon in a script killing game, and the most important thing is to grasp it at the level of details.
As Chen Sicheng's most invested crime suspense film after the "Manslaughter" series, "Disappearing Her" also sets up surprising details behind seemingly insignificant shots and plots.
If you pay attention to these details, you will not only find that the story of "Gone Her" is not as simple as it seems, each main character has deeper motivations, but you can also appreciate the amazing truth and love-hate entanglement hidden behind this suffocating event.
(The following contains mild spoilers for the movie "Disappearing Her")
Humans are colder-blooded than animals
From the first shot of the opening, "Disappearing Her" shows the audience many different kinds of cold-blooded animals. These rare cold-blooded animals are not only visual cues of the story taking place in a foreign country, but also reflect the true side of the characters in the film.
For example, the spider that appears in the opening scene has a special color and is obviously poisonous - which means that under the colorful dream-like good life, there is a deadly malice lurking quietly; And the spider that weaves the web often symbolizes the mastermind of the conspiracy scam, which spreads out the shocking web and traps the prey in its eyes.
Its metaphorical and suggestive implications are self-evident here.
In the film, hints at this cold-blooded animal abound: in the subsequent plot, the male protagonist stepped on a scorpion on the floor of the corridor while running, and the scorpion was trampled on all fours, suggesting that the abdomen has a poisonous plan and a bad heart will have nothing.
As well as the poisonous snake outside of Hefei's residence, it also implies that someone is secretly plotting a shocking conspiracy.
And, in the artificial pond outside the bar, there is a shot of a frog lying quietly on a leaf, as if waiting for a rabbit, as if waiting for an opportunity, suggesting that on top of an elaborate plot, there is an unfolding plan waiting for the arrival of the prey, the real criminal.
It is not difficult to see that the ubiquitous cold-blooded animals in "Disappearing Her" are a spicy metaphor for those who have bad intentions in the film.
However, the physiological mechanism of cold-blooded animals is only to protect their own way of survival, and once people release their malice, even the closest people around them may do it - in this way, people are actually more cold-blooded than animals.
Van Gogh's number one fan
As an important image of the film, many of Van Gogh's paintings appear throughout "Disappearing Her", of which "Starry Sky" has become the basis for the male and female protagonists to know each other.
However, it is said that during the creation of this painting, Van Gogh was in a state of madness throughout the whole process, mentally suffering from despair, distress and other emotions, and finally completed the painting under abnormal mental conditions.
This not only points to the mental problems of the male protagonist from time to time, but also reveals that the male and female protagonists who meet and know each other because of this painting, and even will watch this painting at the bottom of the sea as an anniversary surprise, the relationship between the two has dark corners beyond the beauty and brilliance.
In this film, several paintings such as "Starry Sky", "Sunflower", "Self-Portrait" and "Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles" appear. In addition to "Starry Sky", other paintings also implicitly point to the relationship between the characters in the film.
For example, Van Gogh devoted himself to "Sunflowers" for Gauguin, but soon became insane after Gauguin died one step before him. This story perfectly reflects He Fei's state of mental disorder after the disappearance of his wife Li Muzi, and his almost obsessive demand for his wife.
This painting appears in the bookstore scene in the film, which is where He Fei's emotions for finding Li Muzi are strongest.
Facing the camera and staring straight at the "Self-Portrait" in the center of the picture, it is a pair of eyes that have insight into all conspiracies and truths, but silently, a bit like the perspective of the audience, and a little like some kind of providence.
As for "Van Gogh's Bedroom in Arles", it is the room where Van Gogh cut off his left ear, and he was admitted to a mental hospital shortly after cutting his ear in this bedroom - this can be understood as the plot of the film where He Fei was put in a "mental hospital" and his hair was shaved.
However, ironically, He Fei, who is reflected everywhere in Van Gogh's paintings, does not really like Van Gogh - originally just casually wearing a dress with a "Starry Sky" print, but did not expect to accidentally attract Li Muzi's attention, and then he took the initiative to go to bookstores and art galleries and other places to "do homework", but the purpose was not to follow Van Gogh's artistic footsteps.
Girls Help Girls
Obviously, "Disappearing Her" is a film that pays great attention to women in terms of play and theme, it takes the heroine Li Muzi who disappeared in the story as the title, gradually deepens the pattern of the story to the position of women in marriage relationships, and even love and friendship relationships, and finally slowly leads to the care of women's perspectives, truly from finding the "disappeared her" in the story, and gradually becoming concerned about the disappearing "her" in life.
In order to express such a female theme, the film uses three main female characters to construct three female images in different positions in life.
The heroine Li Muzi suddenly entered He Fei's life, and her ultimate goal was to "take away all of him";
And when the audience began to hate her as much as He Fei, she uncovered the scald scars on her legs and the cut marks on her wrists that made her "think of a person", and then we found out that her love and hate were all from the previous injuries.
Chen Mai, the gold medal lawyer who assisted He Fei, desperately investigated the case, and in addition to performing his duties, there was also a trace of concern about the missing Li Muzi. Li Muzi's friend Shen Man also has the same emotions, including the bits and pieces where she and Li Muzi used to paint together and drink lemon slices to make coffee together, which became her motivation to desperately search for Li Muzi's whereabouts.
And a mysterious woman hidden behind the scenes strung together the plot of the entire movie - the repeatedly entangled past between her and He Fei, and even the play "Romeo and Juliet" she choreographed with her friends in her early years, has become the root of her own tragedy.
Originally, she had friends by her side who could save her from the fire, but it was a step too late. And she herself disappeared into the gorgeous ocean starry sky with hatred.
It can be seen that the symbols and metaphors in "Gone Her" also assume the function of narrative and sublimation of the film - there are some very dark examples, such as the lighthouse that is about to sink once represented hope, but some people go away in order to follow hope.
These metaphors in the film not only increase its watchability, but also deepen the tragedy of each character in the film, making the audience's viewing experience more memorable.
Since its emergence as a closing film at the Hainan Island Film Festival, "Disappearing Her" has attracted certain attention and expectations in the industry. Now that it has finally met the audience in theaters, the details behind it and its meaning are worth pondering.