The Annual Academy Awards have become the focus of attention for the film industry and fans, and although the 2021 Academy Awards have not yet begun (it is said to be postponed until April), a large wave of films that have dared to compete for the Oscars have been listed as nomination contenders by the public.
Chinese female director Zhao Ting's work "The Land of No One" has a strong competitive momentum, in addition, there is a Chinese actor Orion Lee as one of the starring "The First Cow", which was also nominated by the media for praise.
It has been named Best Picture by the New York Film Critics Association Awards.
If you don't like a noisy style film, then "The First Cow" is likely to be very good for your taste, because its expression is so quiet. This style is so rare that I even feel a little surprised after reading it.
Heavy metal music, the sound of cars and horses, the lights and greens are all absent, and the occasional background music is pure music in a quiet style. If it is seen by an impatient person, it will help you find a sense of tranquility; if it is a quiet person, it can enter your world in seconds.
Another thing that I find a little stunned is that the storyline is so simple!
It can be roughly summed up by the story of two people who are together in the forest stealing milk to make a small cake and are eventually hunted down.
I don't know why, when watching this movie, I always think of Chen Kaige's "Wuji" comment "A bloody case caused by a steamed bun".
This probably broke my relatively narrow view of cognition, mistakenly thinking that similar to this kind of film participating in the competition, the more complex the storyline, the better. But I didn't think that simple is also simple.
Although the storyline looks simple, it is also a feeling that makes you reminisce about the feeling that is not simple, which is really powerful. Express the connotation of not being simple in a simple way, cow!
At the beginning of the film, there is a subtitled screen of "Friendship is like a bird's nest and a spider's web - William Blake's "Proverbs of Hell"", which generally expresses the idea of "friendship".
This expression, and the < nirvana sutra of the film Infernal Path> volume 19; "The greatest of the eight hells is called the Endless Hell. The meaning of suffering for the sake of uninterrupted suffering" is very similar, anyway, it is this way of opening the "Infernal Affairs" series that suddenly comes to mind.
The background of "The First Cow" is a forest, set in an era that can attract people from all directions to dream of a gold rush.
The director does not use the very old-fashioned method of directly pointing out that it is a certain year, but uses the costume of a modern person wearing a down jacket and a beanie, and the costume of a gold digger wearing old leather boots and a round top hat on his feet, forming a time boundary between the present and the past.
If you don't pay attention to this detail, you probably can't understand the connection between the front and the back.
Different from the conventional treatment of the opening story and the ending, "The First Cow" is very chic in the opposite way to guide you into the plot, which once again proves the importance of the opening details.
The two white bones that modern girls find in the forest lying side by side are the two friends who have been with each other on the way to the gold rush, one is the cook Figovitz, and the other is China's Lu jin.
Figowice, a fatherless and motherless orphan who lives on a wandering path, works in a bakery and knows how to make bread. Lu Jin is from the north of China, and he set foot on this land of gold seeking to make a fortune.
The forest is a living world where primitive atmosphere and class hierarchy coexist.
People who come and go along the way can exchange coins for objects, or they can barter, and it is natural to catch beavers and sell furs here, this natural place, in a time node where the rules of the past and the present intersected.
The two friends who met on the forest road are small people at the bottom of the forest survival law. They don't have enough food and they don't have enough money, but both have dreams about their lives.
Lukin wanted to open a hotel that would provide a place to rest for people who were constantly walking. Figowitz wanted to open a bakery, and the sweet taste of the cake made it feel warm and safe.
Figowitz said that he lived like a beggar, a cook who could make bread and a beggar needed bread to survive. Lu Jin, who joined the gold rush army, has an equally unstable life, and before he meets the cook, he is being hunted down by the Russians in the forest.
People in the same situation are easy to warm up together, and the first encounter was when the cook saved Lukin, who was chased by the Russians, and soon after the two separated, the second encounter took place in a small wine house in the forest.
Lu Jin is very business-minded, the chef is very practical, and the two of them began to work on the production and sale of small biscuits or small cakes. One of the ingredients for the two of them to make the cake was a cow from the stolen local chief's family.
The figure of the commander-in-chief is a representative of a higher class in the forest. He had a large house where he could build a stove, a servant who could protect him with a gun, and the cow of good breed that had just been transported into the forest.
The likes of the commander-in-chief and the colonel, in this forest, there is no such thing as struggling to survive in this forest. What they need is a delicious pastry and a life without so much suffering.
The general leader represents the strong, and the cook and Lu jin represent the weak.
If the weak dare to steal the milk of the strong to do their own small business, does it mean that the weak dare to challenge the strong?
The cook once told Lu Jin that the general manager was confident that no one would steal his own things, or that someone would dare to steal his own milk on his boss's turf. This strong sense of self-confidence is based on a sufficiently high class rule.
The small business soon attracted a large number of passers-by to line up to buy it, and even the chief was attracted to taste the small bread that the cook and Lu Jin were selling at the roadside stalls.
The life that used to make a lot of money by stealing milk and selling cakes suddenly changed. At the request of the general, the two made a French cake Claphti to entertain the colonel who was visiting the chief's house, and then the dangerous atmosphere came.
(It should be fried cake or something like that)
The cook was keenly aware that stealing milk might be discovered by the general manager, and proposed not to do business first. But Lu Jin did not agree, and finally on another night when he went to the chief's house to steal milk, the two were discovered by the chief's employer.
Run away, go home, take the money you've hidden beforehand, and run away again.
The cook suffers a head injury, and the two lie down to rest after walking for a distance, which is the end of the film.
When you still want to open your mind to think about the subsequent development of the two people, you suddenly understand that the two white bones at the beginning of the original film are themselves, and this is the ending.
As for the modern girl with a dog in the forest who first appeared, it was just a story-telling introduction.
Until the end, there is no complicated story that was expected in advance, and even whispered in his heart that the story is too simple.
A large number of dark night shots and birdsong from the quiet forest can perceive the layering of the picture.
It is a very simple story to see, but it has a taste of careful tasting, "The First Cow", you can taste it carefully.
A very delicate and soft lens language style, without using a bullet, you can tell the ending of the characters in the play.
This story tells us that stealing other people's milk to start your own small business is not good... (Idle talk)
Some people say that "The First Cow" reveals the intervention power of early capitalism in a simple story, and it makes sense for those who look at it from the depths.
But just looking at it as a very simple story, it's not impossible, from any point of view, the most important thing is that "The First Cow" can really let you watch a movie in a very quiet state, which is enough.