When clear and bright eyes see the dirty world, I am not afraid to have you. @Tomato flavored mustache
"With You and I Am Not Afraid", also known as "Kidnapped Child", is a low-budget high-rating film directed by Italian director Gabriel Savotris, which was a box office and word-of-mouth success after being released on the screen in 2002, and was also shortlisted for the 2003 Berlin International Film Festival competition and nominated for the 2004 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The film is adapted from the masterpiece "With You and Me Not Afraid" by Italian writer Nilok Amaniti, which is also the pinnacle of this talented writer, sweeping major literary awards, and the copyright has been sold in more than 20 countries around the world, and the book has sold 700,000 copies.
The plot of the film itself is not complicated, using the traditional three-act method to tell the story of Michelle, a 10-year-old boy, and philip, a kidnapped boy:
The first scene tells the story of the little boy Michelle, who accidentally discovers the little boy Philip in the cave while playing with his companions and helping his sister retrieve her missing glasses;
The second act continues with the secret of the cave as a narrative suspense, and the two boys slowly become acquainted, driving the development of the plot;
The mystery of the third act has been revealed, the boy knows that Philip will be killed, and he goes to save him without hesitation, and finally Philip is rescued, and Michelle is shot to end.
Overall, the film is warmer than thriller, telling the story from the perspective of a 10-year-old boy, looking at the adult world beyond the child's ability to think and understand.
If you only take the plot of this movie as a story, it is inevitable that it is too limited and difficult to feel the true charm of this movie, and I will analyze in depth from the perspective of children, character personality, and theme meaning, from micro to macro:
Children's perspective narration: to show the innocent essence of the adult world that is not easily perceived in the unique narrative angle of children;
Character shaping: The use of contrasting techniques, the description of details, the rendering of the lens language, and the three-dimensional image of Michelle's character shape also allow all adult audiences to find themselves in their childhood;
The theme is presented: the confrontation between children and adults, the contest between ugliness and evil, the film tells the story at the same time, but also examines the good and evil of human nature.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >01, Children's Perspective Narrative: Adopting the narrative strategy of switching from the adult perspective to the child's perspective, through the vision and mind of a ten-year-old boy, he attacks the darkness of the adult world</h1>
The protagonist of the film "With You and I Am Not Afraid" is a ten-year-old boy Michelle, the director must follow the characteristics of children's thinking in the process of presenting the story and shooting the film, the director will use the tone of children to describe the world, with children's thinking to perceive the world, to examine the world with children's eyes. For this part, I will explain the following two points:
First, children's curiosity drives the plot forward
At the beginning of the film, ten-year-old Michelle and her friends finished playing games, almost home, the sister remembered that her glasses fell off, Michelle had to turn back to find her sister's glasses, the glasses just landed on the asbestos tiles located in the grass, lifted the asbestos tiles, Michelle discovered the amazing secret in the cave, exposed one foot made the ten-year-old Michelle timid, immediately crazy in the direction of home riding a bicycle. This was Michelle's first discovery of the cave.
Because the curiosity of the children was driven and slowly became the secret in their hearts, there were six subsequent expeditions.
Michelle is still both curious and afraid to come to the cave (the second time)
Michelle delivers water to a child in a cave (third time)
Michelle with bread in exchange for her pocket money (fourth time)
On the way to the cave, the adult turned back (the fifth time)
Michelle goes out to play with the children in the cave on her back, but is found by the adults (sixth time)
After being warned by his father not to go, he went to the cave anyway, only to find Philip transferred (seventh time)
A child, from the first cry, means that he begins to connect with the world. After this, they become active, like to be close to nature, like everything new, which is also the nature of every child.
For many young boys, who always wanted to be adventurers at an early age, curiosity drove their exploration of the unknown world, and ten-year-old Michelle was no exception, who wondered why there was a small child in the cave.
Secondly, there is no kidnapping in the eyes of children, only friendship
When Michelle peeks at Philip and his mother on TV, he conveys to Philip the love his mother has for him on TV, and we can see that the "kidnapping" is beyond the comprehension of ten-year-old Michelle.
Michelle encouraged Philip to go out of the cave to see the outside world, but after the two played, Michelle carried Philip back to the hole, we know that Michelle did not know that this was a kidnapping, in the process of watching the movie, many people will scold Michelle, how so stupid, how not to take Philip out of here immediately, but ten-year-old Michelle did not know that Philip was imprisoned, was kidnapped, in the eyes of children there is no concept of kidnapping.
Michelle was not surprised to learn that his family and other villagers had been instructed by the Milanese to kidnap Philippe, he did not understand what a kidnapping was, so he innocently asked his father why he had locked Philip in the cave, but his father could not give him a correct and reasonable explanation, but only warned him not to go again.
In my opinion, these details reflect the inability of ten-year-old Michelle to understand kidnapping, in the dream world that Michelle constructs, there is almost no right and wrong and frame, ugly and dark.
The world of children is as "poetically inhabited" as Heidegger aspires, and they have no preconceptions about the world in front of them, but explore and discover with the simplest eyes.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >02, Character Shaping: Adults and Children contrast, highlighting Michelle's innocent character and creating a strong emotional tension in the story</h1>
The reason why the film "With You and I Am Not Afraid" can make people have emotional understanding and resonance, in addition to the unique children's perspective and the story content itself, is inseparable from the shaping of the character in a short period of time to the extreme.
Film characters are all things that are given human character, are the promoters of the film plot, and are also participants in contradictions and conflicts; and shaping means using audiovisual language and other film art means to portray the character image, excellent film works can always highlight the richness, clarity and firmness of the character in a short period of time, so that the character image is more full and real, so as to directly hit the audience's heart.
As the famous American dramatist George Baker said:
"The permanent value of a play ultimately lies in the character reveal in it, which attracts attention and is an important means of sympathizing the theme and characters of the play in the audience."
"With you and I am not afraid", the simple five words are full of warmth and strength, just like the protagonist Michelle, so innocent and brave, he is like a bright sun, in his human brilliance against the background of all the darkness of the adult world is revealed, I think the director's portrayal of Michelle is the biggest highlight of this movie. The film mainly shapes the character through the following methods:
1. Contrasting Techniques: Reveals the darkness of the adult world and the selfishness of other children of the same age
The film uses contrasting techniques in many places to show Michelle's kindness and bravery, compared to Michelle, other children appear selfish and weak, which depicts other friends as follows:
The child king of this group of children went so far as to offer the shameless punishment of letting the little girl in it pull off her pants, and the little girl would prefer to accept it weakly for fear of her partners abandoning her;
Michelle wants to give Philip a toy car in exchange for a secret with the boy who owns the toy car, but because the toy car boy wants to drive, Michelle selfishly betrays Michelle and tells the adult that Michelle found the kidnapped Philip.
Michelle, on the other hand, is:
In the game, Barbara could not bear to accept the punishment of taking off her pants, and Michelle, out of sympathy, bravely stood up and accepted the punishment for Barbara;
Will use his pocket money to buy bread for Philip, will want to give Philip a toy car, he wants to warm Philip with a kind heart;
Even when warned by his father that he was afraid of the snake in the night, he was determined to rescue Philip.
These little friends are in stark contrast to Michelle, as if they are a continuation of their parents, a continuation of their selfishness and cruelty. In childhood, the behavior of parents always affects the behavior of children, and their behavior always affects the values of children.
The image of the kind and brave Michelle is also to satirize the ugliness and darkness of adults, adults will kidnap other people's children for profit, ten-year-old children do not have the ability to recognize lies, he never thought that his parents would be such people.
When Michelle is discovered by the adults that he has been to the cave, the kidnapping of him by his father cannot be explained, he only warns him in a barbaric way, which further proves his father's hypocrisy and greed.
This kind of adult world view and the child's view of children violently collide, and the innocent eyes of children are like a sharp sword, so that the ugliness of the adult world is invisible.
2. Lens language: bright tones, melodious cello soundtrack, but also to show the original essence of children's innocence and kindness
In this movie, I think many people will be attracted by the beauty of the villages in southern Italy, the endless wheat fields, the golden ears of wheat swaying in the wind, the blue sky over the blue clouds, and the eagles that occasionally fly, under the clear sky, children playing in the high ears of wheat, or riding bicycles.
The wind blows the wheat waves, and the laughter is as innocent and kind as a silver bell. There is no other color. The soundtrack of the film is also outstanding, and the recurring violin pushes the whole plot to the climax, and also reflects the original voices of the children's hearts.
The main body is full of bright tones, which also shows that the cave where the kidnapped child is located is so dark, the brightness on the ground contrasts with the darkness underground, but Michelle is not afraid of the dark, just follows the way the ten-year-old thinks, he wants to make friends with Philip, wants to warm him, and finally knows that Philip is going to be killed, and he will bravely save him.
The director did not use too many shots on the evil side of adults, but wanted to re-represent the friendship and warmth between the two children to examine the good and evil of human nature, so the color tone of the film was still bright as a whole.
3. Detailed description: Make Michelle's image more vivid and three-dimensional
Many people have such an experience when watching movies, and after watching the movie for a long time, even the name and plot of the movie will be forgotten, but only the small details in the movie are deeply remembered.
As Leo Tolstoy said:
The artist's dedication to detail will surely produce great artistic charm.
When Michelle finds Philip imprisoned in the cave, because of living in the dark environment for a long time, Philip thinks that he has reached heaven, and then mistakenly thinks that Michelle is his guardian angel, a sentence "Are you my guardian angel"! Listening to it is so heartbreaking and sympathetic.
This sentence also hints at Michelle's tall image, he is indeed Philip's guardian angel, which is also the meaning of the movie name "With You and I Am Not Afraid", because the guardian of angels is not afraid, and it is precisely because Michelle is not afraid of the mysterious prisoner in the dark cave, not afraid of the intimidation of adults, not afraid of the betrayal of friends, not afraid of the villains who live in the same room, not afraid of the monsters in the night, so that Philip is not afraid. All the difficulties did not frighten Michelle, fearless in the face of innocent friendship.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >03, presentation of the theme meaning: attacking the darkness of the adult world from the perspective of a child, examining and paying tribute to human nature with the life of the little boy Michelle</h1>
(1) The exploration of the good and evil of human nature under the innocence of children
In the film works from the perspective of children, we can feel more feelings that are often ignored in ordinary times, and through the child's heart, we can let the audience experience the good and evil of human nature, and achieve the expression effect that cannot be achieved from the omniscient perspective.
Michelle in "With You and I'm Not Afraid" represents the children who have just come into this world, and they are always full of kindness to the world. However, with the growth of knowledge and the enrichment of experience, some children slowly lose a lot of valuable qualities and their original intentions in the process of growing up.
The adult world has been too much saturated with social culture and ideology, they are confused by money and power, and they are imprisoned by the shackles of materialism.
In the world of children, the bright children's hearts bring them a clear world, and what is valuable is not only that their eyes capture the beauty of the world, but that they can evoke people's inner pursuit of beauty.
(2) Thought-provoking ending
At the end of the film, when Michelle goes to save Philip, she is mistaken for Philip by her father who is about to kill Philip, and poor Michelle is shot by her own father, which is how ridiculous and funny the ending is.
In fact, the film has laid the groundwork in the front, when Michelle and her sister do not want to go to the basement to get wine, the father uses the method of selecting death squad members during the war, who gets the match without a head, who goes to get the wine, and at this time it is also the father who gets the match without a head. And when the adults later chose who to kill Michelle, the father proposed the same method, and if we think about it, we must think that it is the father who is going to kill.
In my opinion, the funny ending of the film brings not only sadness and sighs, but also a powerful attack on the ugliness of human nature, which is a warning to each of us to maintain a kind heart, not to be confused by the "golden rule" in the adult world, only if the original intention is not lost, we can not be bound by this strange world.
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To sum up :</h1>
In my opinion, this is not only a film that shows children's friendships, but also a film that attacks the good and evil of human nature. If you only read it from the content of the story, it is too limited. Therefore, this article analyzes from three aspects: the narration of children's perspective, the shaping of character personality, and the presentation of theme meaning, and shows the unique charm of this film from micro to macro.
"With You and I Am Not Afraid" as a film that describes the world from the perspective of a child, in addition to the unique narrative perspective, it will bring a different perception to the audience than adults, but also because the character is portrayed vividly. The bravery and kindness of the ten-year-old boy Michelle called on human beings to pursue the spiritual value of inner beauty unremittingly, and the angelic light he emitted left a deep mark on the adult world.