In the domestic film industry, Guan Hu, as one of the representative figures of the "sixth generation of directors", has always carried forward his own unique film style, and since the beginning of 1992, "Hair Is Messy" has been continuously showing his sharpness and personalization. In 2012, the movie "Killing" co-starring Huang Bo, Yu Nan, Su Youpeng, Ren Dahua and other powerful actors was released.
The story takes place in the 1940s in the town of Changshou in the southwest corner of China. The film uses the doctor's search for the cause of death of Niu Jianshi (Huang Bo) as a clue, and depicts the antagonistic relationship between Niu Jian and other villagers in the town through flashbacks. The cattle were so disgusted by the villagers that everyone wanted to kill them quickly. In Changshou Town, compared with the villagers who conform to stereotypes and suppress humanity, Niu Jian is a completely different role. He went around causing trouble, stealing, robbing, cheating, sleeping with widows, putting aphrodisiac powder in the water, and loading the steering wheel of a motor vehicle on his bicycle.
Several chase scenes in the film and the scenes of the cow riding a bicycle are filmed in the way of the MV, highlighting the free and unrestrained state of the cow. The "Happy Birthday" song appeared many times where the cow was strong, and the final burial place was also filled with flowers and fruits, which showed that the director praised the cow's strong behavior. However, in the eyes of the villagers, he was like a demon who destroyed a stable life. The villagers wanted to rush and could not leave, and they were eager to put them to death and then hurry, but they ended up with cowardice and illness. In the end, the villagers had to follow the advice of Dr. Niu and adopt psychological warfare, which was a subjugated soldier without a fight, and let the cattle leave on their own.
Guan Hu used to use flashbacks, interludes and time-space cross-switching techniques to make movies, which were vividly expressed in "Killing". The beginning of the story is more like a shadow throughout the movie, the cow is hoisted and thrown out of the car and happens to be hit by the doctor's car, so that the doctor's car does not fall off the cliff, and the doctor finally rescues the widow horse before the earthquake comes and sends her out of the town. The life was returned, the doctor told another truth in front of the mayor, and The cow doctor died, the mayor died, and the cries of the whole town caused the rocks to shake, and the whole town disappeared. It's all more like a causal cycle.
This killing was a plot from beginning to end, but in the end it was broken by a yellow-headed child, and Niu Jian finally chose to commit suicide for the baby. Dr. Niu, who returned from staying in The Ocean, designed the whole story. The film uses flashbacks, and the middle and later paragraphs combine interludes with reality to reflect the truth and get the final answer. The director is very attentive, the first half of the audience into the director's setting of the villagers' perspective, realized the "evil" of the villagers' perspective, gave the viewer empathy, consciously joined the camp of the villagers, and became a member of the anti-cow zhuangshi, but this is only a one-sided perspective, that is, only look at the surface and ignore the inner deeper connotation, and this thing that we have not been able to see, conveyed by the doctor's own mouth, caused a sharp reversal of the film, and finally triggered our thinking.
Judging from the two films "Bullfighting" and "Killing", director Guan Hu seems to be very fond of film fables. The plot of this film is similar to the Chinese social tradition, such as martyrdom, widowhood, peasant cowardice, intolerance of individuality and heterogeneity, etc., which are easy to think of the present. The longevity town in the film is finally destroyed by the boulder, which shows that the directors hope that some things in the real society can be reborn.
The cattle represent human desire, the villagers represent the observance of the so-called Heavenly Principle, Heavenly Reason and Human Desire form a dualistic opposition, intolerable to each other, "Heavenly Reason" has always wanted to eliminate "human desire", so it uses the concept of nothingness to eliminate, turning the concept into a disease that controls people. In the middle and late stages of the story, Niu Jianshi is also frightened by the so-called "disease", and he begins to doubt his physical health, but the concept of nothingness is always untenable, and he finally realizes the intention of the villagers, that is, the villagers in reality, they are nothing more than to let him go. In the environment of this village, he is out of place, the people he pursues are not satisfied with the liberation, and he has no way to survive. Although he had gone for his son, he himself could not survive in the village, and eventually Tenri destroyed his desires.
In fact, the concept of longevity village originally did not exist, it was given by the emperor, originally only one or two longevity, but people solidified this concept and asked to use this concept to guide their lives. In the film, for this empty name, everyone's life is uncomfortable, they can't drink if they want to drink, they can't mate if they want to mate, and people's desires are constantly suppressed under the control of concepts until they are eliminated. People set extremely high moral standards for themselves and others, but as moral standards continue to rise, human desire is eliminated. Originally, man and morality were one and the same, and after dividing it, morality became rigid morality, and man also became rigid people. The so-called longevity is just an expectation that people have when they face the reality of mortality. Long-lived people seem to be able to control death, and death is particularly kind to them. So from this point of view, the desire for longevity in cultures around the world stems from anxiety about death.
What exactly is killing? Not only life, but also life, all possibilities of life.