A story that many people hear at first glance and are estimated to clench their fists:
What will parents do when a 7-year-old child disappears in the forest, and there are still wild animals in the forest?
The mother calmly "strolled" by the forest.
Lying to the police with misinformation, "He just got out of the car to pee", lying on the phone with his grandmother, "He was next to me", and even expressionless, thinking that the child was just trying to "retaliate" against her.
Even more outrageous.
In the end, she finally confessed to her husband:
"I admit that there is a part of my heart that does not want to find him. ”
What kind of "vicious mother" story is this? It's no wonder that in the Douban discussion area of the movie, someone directly opened "Chrysostom":
Is it only me who thinks this woman is sick?
However.
waited until Sir finished watching the movie to find that the so-called "indifference and selfishness" was just an appearance.
The movie says.
But it's a distorted reality:
punish
The Punishment
A small-budget film from Chile.
85 minutes of one shot to the end, a single scene, continuous time and space, almost all rely on lines to drive the plot.
However, it won the Best Film and Best Actress at the Beijing International Film Festival where Zhang Yimou was the chairman of the jury last year, which caused wide resonance in China.
The reason is simple:
The marital and family dilemmas experienced by modern women.
It's not just abroad.
01
Let's start with the story.
As mentioned above, the whole movie is about a 7-year-old boy who goes missing, and through the quarrel between his parents during the search process, the story of the parents' living conditions is outlined.
At the beginning of the film, the attitudes of the two are diametrically opposed.
Father Matteo was in a hurry.
Broke into the forest and shouted loudly, even if his arm was cut by a branch, he didn't pay attention.
He kept pleading with Lucas to appear, and was so sad that he cried.
And what about the mother Anna?
Insist that this is a little prank of the naughty son to take revenge on her.
She impatiently yelled at her son to stop making trouble, turned on the tablet game, and promised that as long as her son came out immediately, she could play all afternoon.
And when the father insisted on calling the police.
The mother first refused, and then lied to the police that her son got out of the car because he wanted to urinate, trying to hide her quarrel with her son and his punishment.
Mateo seems to be a gentle, responsible, caring father.
Anna, on the other hand, is a selfish, cold, and overly strict "bad mother".
But.
Please note two details.
One is that the father was looking for his son, and after receiving the call, he returned to the side of the road to meet the police.
He didn't follow the road.
Instead, he walked into a bush full of branches and accidentally scratched his arm.
Why?
If you dig a little deeper, you will find that Matteo is a person who cares a lot about his image as a "good father", and his concern for this image is especially obvious in the context of "his son is missing".
It is even externalized as a "spirit of sacrifice".
For example, deliberately taking a difficult path, such as refusing to put on a coat even though he is very cold, he needs to prove to "others" that his love for his children is more than his concern for himself.
And that's exactly what happened.
You'll find that he's always thinking about the impact on himself and hardly about his wife's feelings.
Often subconsciously hinted:
It's you who screwed up.
Another detail comes from the mother, and there is a scene where she says that she found her son and brought the book she gave him.
So a rare smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.
Why are you laughing?
In fact, I feel the comfort of being recognized.
Through the couple's conversations, we learned that their son was a special one who had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder by a school psychologist.
Very intelligent, active, and contemptuous of authority.
And the reason for this disappearance was also because his son wanted to get out of the car to take pictures, but his parents didn't allow it, so he made a lot of noise and almost caused a car accident, and finally his mother had no choice but to "scare" him and leave him behind.
It's not that she doesn't love this child.
It's just that the long-term negative feedback has exhausted her, and she can only survive by making herself hard.
So when Matteo confesses to the officer, the camera keeps closing on Anna's face.
Her expression, which had been calm until now, gradually collapsed, and finally shed a tear.
That's right.
On the surface, this is the story of a "mad mother".
But in fact, it has clearly demonstrated the contradictions in the family power structure that are common today.
02
The book "They're Not Nagging, Just Enough" mentions that socio-cultural discipline leads women to associate family with personal success or failure, while men's success and failure are mostly related only to work.
This seems a bit extreme.
But it is the general status quo of marriage and family.
The husband and wife in the film are trying to maintain this status quo, and for this, they have to work hard.
For example, the father.
He is not a stereotypical "bad husband", and even listens quite to Anna's opinion, in which Anna is in the dominant position.
He can quit smoking because his wife is pregnant, and he will also spend all his time with the children.
Rational and temperate.
Even if you are very upset, you will comfort your wife and say it's not your fault.
So to speak.
He is the image of a "good husband" and "good father" by this social standard, earning money to support the family and taking care of the family at the same time, do you say that you are not tired of living like this?
Also tired.
But for the sake of the "ideal family" in the secular sense, he also went all out.
And what about the mother?
After having a child, she quit her job at the magazine she liked and focused all her energy on her son.
Not only to take care of his life and study.
And deal with all his relationships.
But.
Sometimes, even if you try to maintain it, there will be a day of collapse.
The world is not a game.
Every father and mother is not a simple labor machine.
And in this society.
Compared to the father's visible achievements (work), the mother's invisible domestic efforts are more likely to be overlooked.
This creates a vicious circle.
Just like in this story, Anna, as a mother, seems to be in the dominant position in the family, but the part of her personal self is gradually extinguished and consumed.
We can see this vein very clearly:
First.
She became a "mother" to abide by this socio-cultural habit.
For example, in 2008, Israeli sociologist Ona Donat launched a survey on whether she regretted becoming a mother and wrote the book "The Choice of Motherhood", in which she interviewed 23 women who regretted becoming mothers.
A lot of times, being a mother is just a compromise and going with the flow.
They didn't really think it through.
Now.
In the daily negative feedback, Anna has become no longer herself, nor is she Mateo's wife.
Her only identity is only the mother of the child.
Mother slowly evolved from a title, to a concept, and finally to a system.
And Anna.
Just mechanically playing a "good mother" under this system.
What to do?
Unfortunately, there is little you can do if you want to conform to the mainstream values of this society.
An example.
As a father, Mateo has been saying the same thing to Anna, and that is not to be too strict with the child.
The implication is to ask her to give her children a little more maternal love.
This is the mainstream value of society.
But doesn't Anna love children? Of course not, she has already given everything she has to her children.
It's just that love is always mutual.
Even if it is maternal love, just like Huang Ali once complained, we should not be too demanding, thinking that this must be a unilateral unconditional payment.
If there is no proper feedback.
They don't feel joy in it, either.
Yes.
The so-called "ideal family" is actually a very delicate and difficult order to control.
As long as there is a little imbalance in this, even if both husband and wife are "good fathers" and "good wives" in the standard sense, it will collapse, I am afraid it will be a matter of time.
There's a part of me that doesn't want to find him
Never
This is the first time I have dared to admit it
03
Speaking of which, Sir remembered that last month, the well-known scholar Xu Xiaohong died of illness, and the eulogy published by his wife Chen Lang caused a large-scale retweet and empathy.
Xu Xiaohong is a gifted scholar, while Chen Lang is also a professor with outstanding academic achievements and aspirations.
Available after marriage.
When Xu Xiaohong was scolding Fang Xuan and talking about feminism on the Internet, Chen Lang was taking care of children, filing taxes, managing money, and cooking.
When the partner is triumphant, the woman trapped in the family screams in silence.
So much so that she said so frankly:
This is a man who wants to be a feminist within a patriarchal structure – and that's an awkward position. This position is too demanding of him, unrealistically high. The patriarchal structure wants him to be - I'm afraid I want him subconsciously - to have a successful career, to support his family, to scold Fang Xuan, to make friends with heroes, to care about national affairs and world affairs, and it even tells him not to go to the doctor when his body is in pain. But at the same time, he also felt and borne my pain, but he couldn't do anything about it. He may not have thought about it well, but most of the academic masters in history may have either a solid family background behind them, or women who are willing to serve them and dedicate their lives to them.
The whole eulogy is calm and plain, with deep sadness.
Chen Lang is not complaining or accusing her husband, her pain is that she will never lose her love, and she candidly reveals her inner love and hate in remembrance and remembrance.
In a statement that followed, Chen Lang stated that what she wanted to express was always "resentment against the structure or the system."
From ancient times to the present, the system that regulates how men are and women are may point to the efficiency and stability of society, but it does not point to the happiness of individual people.
Under this, husbands and wives are divided and separated, unable to understand each other, and there are huge communication barriers.
Yes.
This is not an indictment of an individual or a group.
It points to the system.
Just like "Kim Ji-young born in 82" has caused huge controversy throughout South Korea.
It seems to tell the history of Kim Ji-young's growth, but in fact it shows an impenetrable giant net that envelops the entire society.
Under this huge net, no matter gender or age, everyone is a powerless blind follower.
Or the French film "Full Time".
Julie, a single mother raising two children on her own, works hard, cross-city and desperately strives for better career opportunities.
But in the eyes of the people around them, it is a better choice to find a nearby supermarket as a cashier to take care of the children.
The real pressure comes from the outside.
The gossip of relatives, the invisible rules of the workplace, and even the cool words of passers-by all reinforce the existing power differentiation and firmly lock the identity of "mother".
And these.
As we mentioned at the beginning, there is no difference between Chinese and foreign remarks that some people think that Anna is "sick".
It's a pity.
As a film that explores such a topic, "Punishment" actually does not go deeper, although its one-shot shooting technique increases the sense of presence, but also limits the performance space of the film.
Most of the time, you can only rely on lines.
But.
Interestingly, such a superficial taste makes the film have more commonality.
It does not create any bad person (bad husband, bad mother-in-law, etc.), nor does it create a special identity, even if it is a child, who has been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder by the school doctor, but has not been to a formal hospital, which makes such "attention deficit" more common.
It seems to be the current situation faced by every parent who has a headache for their children.
So at this time, let's look back at the title: "Punishment".
Who is punishing?
On the surface, it can be said that the parents punish the child, or it can be said that the child uses the disappearance to punish the parents.
But the real one is punished.
In fact, it is the identity of a mother.
It's like the end credits.
When the child was found, Mateo immediately ran to his son to ask for warmth.
And Anna, standing where she was, stared wordlessly.
She is blurred into a dark red foreground, once again ignored and forgotten.
Facing the recovered son, I don't know whether she is happy or sad, but what you can know is:
This punishment for motherhood cannot end.
The picture in this article comes from the Internet
Editor's Assistant: Good Blueberry Bad Blueberry
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