In 1951, the Kuomintang soldiers fled to Taiwan in defeat, and in this special historical background, hundreds of thousands of "foreign soldiers" were also brought to Taiwan.
In order to meet the physiological needs of the soldiers in the army, the military set up a military brothel called "831", also known as the "military tea room", the prostitutes are "waiters", the soldiers look at the photos on the wall and buy tickets according to the number, each person is 15 minutes, overtime to make up the ticket.
The girls were unable to choose their own customers and were asked to have 10 tickets a day.
At that time, the cultural and propaganda department put forward many slogans such as "everyone has joy, the military and the people are one family" and "wipe the medicine beforehand, urinate afterwards" to cover up the absurdity under this absurd desire.
The girls who can come to the "tea room" are mainly voluntarily recruited from the island, and they need to be young and innocent, of course, a small number of them are sold to pay off debts or commit crimes to reduce their sentences.
In 2014, the film "Paradise in the Army" set in the background of "military prostitutes" came into being, and because of its complex background, it was also a work that was judged to be difficult to release when the trailer was released.
The director focused the story on Kinmen Island, which is across the water from Xiamen, which was also the "border line" where the "Taiwan Army" was stationed every day, and it was also the "natural cage" where the 100,000 Nationalist troops were stationed.
Of course, after the Kuomintang occupied Taiwan, it was required that local young men in Taiwan must perform military service, of which the service period of the army was two years, and the service period of the navy and air force was three years.
In this way, we bring out all the protagonists portrayed in the movie, the provincial non-commissioned officer Elder Zhang, who speaks a hometown accent, and the prostitute Ajiao who loves money as much as life, the male protagonist Xiaobao and Nini, who only receives one guest every day and renews the ticket at her own expense, and finally the recruit Hua Xing and Sasha who is powerless to do anything about her own destiny.
The three groups of character lines also represent three themes, and they are also the evil quagmire that attracts people's imagination under the shackles of powerlessness to their own fate.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line">1.</h1>
According to records, the arrangement of military service in Taiwan is determined by the lottery of recruits, and the hardships of the outer islands in Kinmen, Mazu, are also called "the place where the nightmare begins" by many people.
The male protagonist Xiao Bao had bad luck and was assigned to the Golden Gate, on the first day of the camp, a non-commissioned officer elder Zhang Lai, who was dressed in a rough old man's temperament, was selected to become a "sea dragon", similar to the elite special forces in the army today, which needs to strengthen training.
Xiao Bao was born in a scholarly mendi, Xi Wen did not practice martial arts, within a few days he was trained to live or die, and later because he always dragged his feet in swimming training, he was finally removed.
He has an honest personality, and compared to other people's, he has promised his girlfriend who is waiting at home that he will keep his innocence and marry her after he is discharged from the army.
It is precisely because of his "bad color", so he successfully passed the examination and was transferred to the "Military Paradise 831" service.
Here, he met all kinds of men and women who indulged in eroticism, and gradually saw through how a person could go to destruction behind the tragedy of powerlessness in his own fate.
It can be said that for these natives of Taiwan, they have never left this place, let alone the historical relationship with the mainland.
They are more passively undertaking the "so-called mission" that they simply cannot understand, and the only luxury of those "provincial soldiers" who have been coerced into coming to Taiwan is to hope that they will have a moment to return home in their lifetime.
So the contradiction erupts in this difference that they do not understand each other, and finally follows the most primitive desires of human beings and converges in the same place.
After the male protagonist Xiaobao entered the tea room, the senior senior told him about the main work content, the consuming soldiers bought tickets according to the pieces to pick good people, lined up to enter the girl's room, the red light was lit up to do things, fifteen minutes overtime They had to go to "catch people" or ask for "supplementary tickets".
The girls are chosen like commodities, and if they are lucky, they may have the opportunity to meet a solid-eyed benefactor, smashing pots and selling iron in exchange for some jewelry and jewelry, such as Jiao Jiao and non-commissioned officer Elder Zhang, this stunned veteran does not mind her identity, but wants to give her the best things.
Of course, there are also bad luck, encounter rude requests of guests, because of resistance to endure violent beatings, can not escape and can not escape... For example, Xiao Bao's compatriot Hua Xing, he and Sasha in the "tea room" are both in love, but because he is only a recruit, he can only watch her being bullied in the end.
Everyone here seems to be indulging in the same illusory dream, and everyone knows that they will not stay here, so they are free and enjoy the short pleasures that absurdity brings them
They know that the day they leave the army, the day they leave the brothel, they will say goodbye to all that they have now.
Is it so easy to just leave? Everyone has their own desire for a distant place, and there are two people who are more sober than the others, and their desire is finally completely destroyed in one change after another.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line">2.</h1>
Gillian is pregnant, which is a very serious thing for the people in the tea room, they require the soldiers to take good safety measures, because the girls have a special job, and they must not affect the reputation of the troops because of such entanglements as who the father of the child is.
So the non-commissioned officer Elder Zhang stood up, he had a deep affection for Ah Jiao, and thought that this girl also treated herself in this way.
He put a ring on her and borrowed money to prepare the dowry, wanting to marry her in a furious manner.
Originally a freshman, because he could not care about other people's thoughts, but unfortunately, Gillian could not.
It can be said that this relationship between them is destined to be a tragic story.
A man who was taken to the army as a teenager, his longing for his hometown was tormented every minute and every second, but when he met someone he liked, or because of an unexpected child, he suddenly wanted to settle down.
So he made a meal of dumplings for the girls in the "tea room", imagining that one day in the future, he would retire from the army and open a dumpling restaurant and live an ordinary but warm life.
But all this was always a luxury for the prostitute Gillian, from the moment she was violated by her father and brother, from the moment she was sold to this place, she had only one idea from beginning to end, leaving this place, and having a new beginning.
And when she chose to be with Lao Zhang and live the kind of life he expected, she could never forget that she was once a prostitute.
The whole character is very clearly shaped, Ajiao is greedy for money, because she has to save enough capital to start over, she can use her means to please countless men, even if she has a soft heart for a moment, but when she wakes up, she will only be indifferent and will only deceive herself.
So the moment she and Lao Zhang tore their faces, everything became an ultimate outburst, and finally it was the relief of this bitter girl, she had no idea how much money it would take to really start over, just as in the shackles of the soul, she had already unconsciously become a corpse.
Her fate had actually been written long ago, just like the other girls in this tea room, who thought they could start again, were actually deep in the abyss of hell.
So she said to Lao Zhang, "You foreigners, you can't go back in your lifetime", she broke Lao Zhang's dream, told him the cruelty of reality, and also told herself that her dream was also extravagant.
She continued to pick up guests, continued to indulge in the small favors given to her by other men, she did not believe in love, nor did she believe that she could have happiness.
But in the end, it was also this sentence that made Lao Zhang choose to hurt the woman who once made him soft in the most despicable way, and also ruined the rest of his life.
Their ending allows us to see how small and humble the hope for the good is in the tragedy of powerless struggle, and they have always had only two choices, one is to indulge in dreams and deceive themselves, and the other is to go to extinction in the moment of waking.
As in another storyline, Hua Xing and Sasha have another choice, the boy shaves the girl's hair, secretly puts on the clothes of the army, and then falls into the sea to escape.
It's just that the final outcome, whether it can really swim to the mainland or be swallowed up, can't bring them new life in the sense.
This is the truth that belongs to the "paradise in the army".
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line">3.</h1>
The story is very cruel, and Nini, who is especially different in the "tea room", may have been the most sober one from beginning to end.
In the eyes of others, she came here after killing her husband in a vain attempt to reduce her sentence, but for herself, compared to the so-called restart, she did not shy away from everything that happened, but she just hoped that she could go home before the child had forgotten herself.
She picks up a guest every day and then pays herself to make up nine tickets for the guests, and she has been working hard to get out of this place, with a clear purpose, and has given her a little more chance than the others.
There is a scene in the movie that has a very deep meaning, between Xiaobao and Nini, because of their common language, they began to be close, and then Xiaobao was "broken up" and cried to her, "What is the use of my vows that I have insisted on for so long?"
Nini told him that "vows are not for others, but for oneself"
Later, Nini was pardoned, the day before leaving, they said goodbye to each other, and when the love went deeper, they couldn't help but have closer contact, but at the last moment, Xiaobao flinched, he still remembered the sentence "I want to leave the innocence to my future wife", and also knew that between him and Nini, like two parallel lines that no longer intersected, they would not meet again.
The affection of this moment makes people forget that this is the place where desire is at its peak, but what makes people sad is that the most cruel part of the story is that he just wants to tear the beauty to us a little bit.
Time takes away not only those memories and those people, but also the sadness that an originally innocent person can only be assimilated in the end.
Xiao Bao has gradually changed from a simple recruit to someone else's senior, he is still in the "tea room", but now his identity is no longer able to see the original youth and overwhelmed.
Like an old fritter, he can flirt with girls on the street, play cards with his teammates, and even the innocence he once insisted on, and he didn't know which time he broke the rules.
He was with the girl in the "tea room", and he remembered everything in the past, only to find that unconsciously, he had long been assimilated by this "cannibalistic" society.
Born in accordance with the times, but also in line with the times to die, just like the fat big sister who knitted sweaters while running errands, and finally gave birth to a child in the "tea room", no one knows who the father is, but everything is no longer important.
The women in the "brothel" are like these soldiers and soldiers in the barracks, but they are all in a cage and can't help themselves, but they each have their own minds to numb their hearts and convince themselves to get by.
Their numbness made them gradually accept all this, and gradually extinguished the expectations in their hearts, Xiao Bao learned to put on a mask, and let us understand that he was just the most normal part of that era.
Everyone has become like this, and the sober person has become an outlier, so his transformation has torn the last fig leaf of truth for us.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line">4.</h1>
This is a work that makes me feel very "special", compared to other "military prostitutes" or "comfort women" themes, the director did not shoot everything gray, but in those fragrant underwear and colorful sheets and bedding, with a variety of gadgets to highlight everyone's inner dreams of the future.
No one wants to believe that they will be trapped here for a lifetime, and everyone's vivid and three-dimensional vitality, even if the resistance is powerless, has never stopped in the change of generations.
At the end of the movie, xiao bao left the barracks, and he still retained the most innocent fantasy in his heart.
In that dream, he met Nini and her child, the non-commissioned officer elder Zhang also opened a dumpling shop as he wished, and gave birth to a lovely child with Ah Jiao, and Hua Xing and Sasha also came to Beijing Tiananmen Square as they wished, and in a far distance full of fantasy, the shadow of the military paradise disappeared, as if everything had never existed.
This is the end that we will never see in the real world, the sorrow of a group of women, the sorrow of an era, under the haze of history, which is finally covered up.
Thanks for reading, the picture is from the movie "Paradise in the Army"
Written by/Stars in the Deep