"Human Voices" is supported by Anna McLanie, Ingrid Bergman and Rosa Montpak (Pei Chunhua), and this film is the first attempt of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar to step out of his comfort zone and challenge English pronunciation.
Finding the help of Tilda Swinton, a versatile actress who has crisscrossed art and commercial films, and choosing to adapt a number of classic Cocteau plays that have been erected in the front, it is even more expected that Almodóvar will change the old wine into a new taste.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > the balance between classic texts and author styles</h1>
Compared with other film and television versions of the director, Almodóvar does have the strongest authorial style, even if he does not look at the plot at all, he can recognize his films at a glance from visual colors, interior design, and clothing and jewelry selection.
In Human Voice, Swindon is like living in a room in Broken Embrace or Pain and Glory, full of brightly saturated furniture and modern artwork, feeling that Penello Pruquez or Antonio Banderas will push the door from the next room at any time.
"Dressing yourself up" is an important part of "Human Voice", the woman who wakes up after swallowing the drug coma, through the process of grooming and dressing, in addition to sweeping away the haze and bad looks, is also empowering herself, and then she can break the cycle of passive waiting for the old lover to change her mind, and find the courage to communicate with them again.
Compared to The Sleepy Eyes wrapped in nightgowns by Mailanie and Bergman, the "home wear" in almodóvar standards is still a well-designed, perfectly hot and bright sweater, robe, and even a jacket and leather coat; and the lover's photos scattered in Pei Chunhua's version are well stored in Chanel's handbag.
The decontamination of suicide has become the mainstream voice in very recent times, until the 20th century, suicide people, especially women, are still easy to be linked to mental illness or suffer from public opinion, such as Terence Rattigan's self-projected play "The Deep Blue Sea" in the 50s, through the trapped, suicide attempts but failed heroine Hester has profoundly depicted the colored vision of others, and has become one of the best classics in the history of theater. Play a difficult actress.
And the heroine of "Human Voice", who is twenty years earlier than "The Deep Blue Sea", can be said to be the predecessor of "love to the extreme", with the social atmosphere, you can see the early MaiLanie, Bergman, although the actors themselves have a strong aura, when encountering "The Voice", they still adopt a more emotionally unstable and fragile interpretation method.
The 2020 version of Swindon retains her original heroic and cold characteristics, the arrangement of emotional transitions is more rational and organized, and when talking to her lover, she not only maintains a strong desire for each other, but also does not become completely controlled by the other party, along with the capable and strong impression brought by the upright clothing, the words and mentality also add arms to themselves.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="24" > the stay and retreat of the theater to the film perspective conversion</h1>
When adapting a theatrical work into a film and television work, there are several things that must be considered - what can the image do and what the theater cannot do? Why choose to adapt the play script instead of directly following the logic of the image? The reason why theatrical works are established and fascinating, how to use the film vocabulary to recreate?
In particular, "Human Voice" is a one-act play composed of monologues, which is a very traditional theater form, which relies heavily on the accumulation of performance energy in one go.
The previous version mostly followed the original classic of Cockdo, limited the heroine to a single indoor space, only through the mirror design to add the variability of the long monologue, in fact, it is a bit like the NT Live recorded in the studio without an audience, without a breath to complete the performance, on the film and television audience habits of the fast pace to judge, it is inevitable that it is a bit boring.
However, Almodóvar generously embraced the original theater of "The Voice", opening with the heroine standing in the studio in a red costume, and then constantly pointing out that this room is only a studio built in the studio with a high angle of mirror position, coupled with the heroine's setting as an actor, blurring the boundary between drama and reality.
We don't know if this is the monologue practice that the actress is trying to star? Or are actresses handling private affairs in the theater scene? Or has acting and true feelings long been mixed into an undefinable energy that flows in the blood of actresses?
At the end of the film, the raging fire spreads to the wooden scene, and the real fire brigade breaks through the bright street, as if burning the magic of the theater, and also implies that the virtual or real life experience of the actress who forcibly distinguishes "life is like a drama, drama is like life" is a futile effort.
(This ending echoes Swindon and his daughter Honor Swinton Byrne's "The Souvenir," which we co-starred in.) ）
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="28">Why now？ Why this？ The modernity of the new outfit of the old wine</h1>
When acting out a classic script, it is important to grasp the modernity in the text, not just shooting in a modern house, placing Airpods, Blu-ray Discs and other technologies are "modern", but we must think about why we are acting this work now. How can its motif be in dialogue with today's society?
Written in 1930, after ninety years, the modern view of women must be very different, Woolf once said: "If a woman wants to write, she must have money and have her own room." Almodóvar, on the other hand, takes the heroine out of her room further, and we see her go to the local hardware store to buy an axe before returning to the studio's "home", and then use it to slash her suit to vent the empty anger of endless waiting, which is completely absent and newly added in the original book.
The version of McLanie and Bergman ends with the phone being hung up, the woman begging for her lover and shouting "I love you"; Pei Chunhua's version gives the woman a little initiative, allowing her to re-dial to try to clarify the relationship with the lover; to the Swindon version, it directly makes the woman abandon her attachment to the lover, and even forces him to watch the love nest of the two burn out from a distance.
From the axe-wielding and dominance between conversations to the arson at the end of the film, it can be said that this cooperation between Almodóvar X Tida Swindon almost has the intention of rehabilitating, or even liberating the inferiority of the heroine of "The Voice" controlled by her lover and baked dry by desire.
So, what should modern women look like? Compared to the original woman who is very rude to the dog and hopes that the lover will take it away, at the end of Almodóvar's "Human Voice", Swindon leisurely leads the dog Dash and a group of firefighters who rushed into the room, and says to it: "From now on, I am your master, you have to get used to this."
Can love vigorously, impulsively and indulgently, but also in time to wake up, withdraw from the sea of fire, not be defeated by the cold violence of words, proudly be the master of their own lives, perhaps the ideal appearance of modern women.
Thank you for watching, paying attention to me, and learning more about it.