After Harvey Weinstein's sexual harassment scandal came to light, a New York community organizer serving disadvantaged women came up with the #metoo — "I am also (the victim)" slogan.
Actress Alyssa Milano retweeted it on Twitter with the text: "If you have ever been sexually assaulted or harassed, please respond to this tweet with 'MeToo'." ”
The tweet resonated strongly with women, and in just one day, the hashtag "#MeToo" was used more than 500,000 times. On Facebook, 4.7 million people used 12 million posts in the first 24 hours.
And the 2019 "Burning Secret" that I want to talk about today is based on the theme of "metoo". The protagonist Nina (Wu Kexi) is a network anchor from the countryside, dreaming of becoming an actress, coming to Taipei for eight years, never once filmed a movie, this day, she finally ushered in an opportunity that cannot be missed.
Agent Mark told Nina that there was a good script in the casting stages, and if it did, it would definitely become famous overnight, but it would require the actors to be completely naked.
Mark advised her: "Which actors you often mention, either for good roles or for a lot of money, this time, is a good role." ”
Nina hesitated, but agreed to audition. The director draws a big X on Nina's profile, but as soon as the picture turns, Nina has become the lead actor.
Although he became a leading actor, he was not treated as a leading actor. No one took care of her, she was constantly criticized by the director, and everyone was cold when acting.
When shooting a long shot, it was to shoot the line that corresponded to reality, "I can't stand it anymore."
The director felt that the final line lacked explosive power, slapped and insulted Nina, and the enraged Nina completed the performance in a crash.
After the end, no one still came to care, but the housekeeper handed her a dumpling and did not ask what had just happened.
Coming to the nude scene mentioned earlier, the director asked the actors to try a few moves, and Nina thought that for the sake of film art, these are not the focus.
In the final scene, according to the script, Nina has to jump into the cold sea on the boat and end her life. And she can't water, she can only finish the last scene with a hard scalp.
When the film was finished, the producers, directors, and agents all came to congratulate her, and everything seemed so smooth.
After the film was released, reporters focused only on the topic of "nudity", as if the previous question was just a stepping stone for this explosive topic.
Due to her mother's sudden serious illness, Nina returns to her hometown to take care of her mother, and thus meets her former lover Kiki (Song Yunhua). The two once acted in "The Little Prince" together, watching Kiki and her current boyfriend on stage, I can't help but think of the pure time when the two were once together.
But the reality still has to be faced, dealing with her mother's illness and feelings, Nina once again put into work and returned to Taipei.
Before walking the red carpet, Nina went to a beauty salon that Mark introduced to do maintenance, and a beautician who had auditioned with her was revealing how she had been selected as the heroine.
The screen turned to the casting of the producer, a total of six people, numbered them one by one, the producer selected the number 2 and 5 in the way of rolling the dice, let them perform a hot love kiss, and let one person try the line "I really can't stand it".
The producer slowly walked up to NINA and said to her, "You're a dog," and directly ignored her, and under the desire to become an actor and the obscenity of the producer, Nina imitated a dog.
The other, the aforementioned beautician, was also named, and she was happier and more active in imitating dogs.
The producer made even more excessive demands, two people ripping each other's clothes, whoever could rip off the first was the heroine, and the two tore at each other like mad dogs.
The executive producer still did something to the two people, and the beautician secretly filmed a video of the two people meta, wanting to put it online to retaliate against Nina for stealing her heroine, Nina begged bitterly, or let her run away.
In the end, the film reveals the real truth. It was still that audition, but the same as before learning dog barking with her had just come out of the audition room, just passing by her.
The producer opened the door himself, there were no assistants or other auditions, only Nina.
The producer is polite and friendly, and not arrogant.
The dice are listed next to each other, alongside there is red wine that has obviously been drunk.
Nina begins to try out the "I can't stand it" line and then asks her to imitate any animal, so she starts a proud dog, exactly like the groomer's imitation of the bark and movements.
The producer gave her a glass of red wine, saying it was to stimulate her inner emotions, after which Nina woke up from her semi-coma and became the object of the producer Meta.
Whether it is the large-scale shooting content or the "personality insult" in the audition, it has constituted a ruthless destruction of the heroine's heart. After such content, "Burning Secret" is at the end, releasing a bigger truth, and the heroine has to face the producer's metoo in order to play.
Screenwriter and lead actor Wu Kexi began writing a script about extra actors pursuing their dreams in 2015, and in 2017, inspired by the Me Too incident, he integrated his own trauma after the crew bullying incident, and spent two weeks rewriting it into the prototype of today's "Burning Secret".
This "Burning Secret" should belong to the category of R-rated movies. But the so-called "inappropriate for children" can not be regarded as a gimmick, the main thing to express is the heroine's self-redemption after facing metoo, not so much a story, but rather a story about how the heroine became crazy in this insult and damage.
If the meta story is the surface of "Burning Secret", then the "insulted and damaged" sentient beings are the second layer of the film. Obviously, the third layer of the film is a bit like Cheng Dieyi in "Farewell to the Overlord", "not crazy and not alive", which is the "magical" relationship between art and the creator of art.
Art and the creator itself also present a relationship of "insulted and damaged", and in this wonderful relationship, the content it expresses sublimates and echoes.
What "Burning Secret" finally presents to fans is a kind of powerless pain, the pain of survival itself, and the pain of artistic expression.
Douban @Lizard made an in-depth evaluation of the film:
"She has to be another person, subordinate to the despicable people, she strives to grasp all the opposite things, leading to self-division, and self-division produces self-confrontation, self-confrontation leads to the disintegration of reality, and its narrative becomes strange, at first glance the time that continues to recount is actually frozen in one point, that point, is the moment of trauma formation, and in order to cover up the inability of trauma to generate the present, lies arise in the lie, split in the labyrinth, this is the origin of the labyrinth, but not the solution to the labyrinth.
So dreams and reality are no longer necessary to distinguish, everything shown in the film is both the heroine's dream and her reality, because for the abused person, her time is frozen in that moment "they not only destroy my body, but also destroy my spirit" The reality is the moment when others intervene, rather than a universal reality that belongs to everyone, Zhao Deyin understands this, so he grasps the trauma, and reaches a kind of movement eternity in the presentation of the victim's constant recall trauma. It is not a reincarnation of the multitude but only of the individual, and every recollection is a process of the victim's approach to the truth, but the truth is buried under the lie in order to protect the heart on the verge of collapse.
In a broad sense of color, red represents danger, enthusiasm, madness, but in the sense of color in the Chinese world, red represents a new beginning, the bride is used to wearing a red wedding dress, the New Year is used to hanging red objects, and handed red envelopes in "Burning Secrets" Red not only surrounds Nina, but also attaches to her, the red world that cannot escape contains the red number three girl and the red plastic surgery clinic and the ubiquitous red light, if we add the dumplings that most people in the movie are eating, And the sound of firecrackers like a gunshot, we can grasp the object that this image is against, that is, the time embodiment of the presentation of the "Nian Beast", in the myth about the Nian Beast, the Nian Beast is described as a monster that regularly comes out to eat people, but is afraid of red, firecrackers, and dumplings, so we can see its ultimate opposition appear here, this is the eternal ghost against the battle of the Nian Beast representing time, the strong emotional confrontation is the ruthless oblivion, the door number of 1408 that appears in the movie, taken from Stephen King's novel, It also echoes the content of this film. ”
All tragedies are the destruction of beautiful, innocent things for people to see.
The simplicity in "The Little Prince" is not the original beauty in everyone's heart, but under the coercion of survival and development, we have to become the most hated people we have ever hated. At this time, the audience becomes the real protagonist of the movie, "the heroine who plays a dog", and also becomes ourselves, the gaze of the movie, the pain after the loss of authenticity.
Edit: Mu Da
Design: Mr. Huo