Recently, it was the domestic film protection month, and I also watched a few movies with my friends, and I always felt that it was not satisfactory. The exquisite picture is too much to see, and the beautiful songs fill the ears, but they do not get a sense of pleasure, and some aesthetic fatigue.
But then the movie is definitely a clear stream.
If you have a dream, go and break it
Have Dreams, Will Travel
There are not many people participating in the score on Douban, but there are also 8.2 points. Some people say that the name of this movie is really not translated well, "If You Have a Dream, Go And Break In", turning a good warm and sticky literary film into the wrong way of action movies and even chicken soup promotional films.
In fact, this is really a title that will bias the audience or even give up watching. In my opinion, the film is not just a way to talk about the realization of dreams, but through the adult words and deeds of the two children, it illuminates the helplessness and darkness of the adult world.
It can be said that this is a fable dedicated to adults.
Douban introduced the film this way: In the 1960s, two 12-year-old children were fed up with the neglect of their families and planned to find a cool new pair of parents to start a new life.
The two children are Ben and Cassie.
Ben is a 12-year-old boy, handsome and handsome, with a weak personality and not much to say, but has a strong sense of observation and understanding of the world around him. As he grew older, he felt more and more neglected by his parents. Meanwhile, Ben's parents have little communication, immersed in their own worlds and preferences—the father's obsession with decorating his own boat, which in the eyes of the little boy Ben is just a broken boat, but in the father's view, the boat carries his dream of connecting with the world; the mother indulges in various film magazines and maintains ambiguous relationships with various men outside of marriage.
But none of this was seen by his father, or rather, Ben's father was noncommittal about it.
It is not difficult to think that this is an extremely unhealthy marital relationship, like a formal marriage.
As for the heroine Cassie, her first appearance was on a rainy night, as an orphan in a car accident, she was adopted by Ben's parents until her physical recovery. But we never know what the car accident started, and the director just keeps suggesting to us through a few intermittent movie footage (which is actually Cassie's nightmare) that Cassie has a secret in her. But she always avoided talking about it, saying, "I'm flawed, very flawed."
Also a little girl with a story.
Unlike our appearance ben, Cassie is an early and mature girl, she is sharp-tongued, firm-eyed, often to the point, has a strong logic of thinking, she can clearly see the huge problems of the Ben family of three in the way they get along. Disgusted by this environment and fond of Ben, Cassie offered to go with him to Baltimore to find his uncle and aunt.
Ben agreed.
The next plot is a special road movie. On the way, the two children supported each other, their feelings grew, not only married, but also arrested by the police as a mobile saboteur, but also hitchhiking everywhere, fighting for each other's wind and jealousy, and also learned to lie. In short, in order to successfully reach the uncle's house in Baltimore, it can be said that everything is extreme, funny and cute.
The whole film is the product of Ben's review of his early life experiences as an adult, starting from Ben's perspective at the age of 12 and unfolding the narrative. But I think the real audience of the film is not children, but adults. Its ambiguity lies in the fact that the film not only restores the minors' yearning for a better life and the insistence on pursuing the dreams in their hearts, but also contains the observation, imitation, thinking, repair, or even reinvention of the adult world (especially the emotional world).
That's the most important thing that attracted me to it.
And, of course, there's a nice soundtrack.
Lissie - Dream It Out Loud
From ten thousand frames of film
00:0003:15
I've always thought that 12 is a unique age stage: in China, it's a leap from elementary to middle school. Adolescent individuals entering adolescence begin to be aware of the existence of the self to a great extent, take care of self-pity, and cherish their feathers extremely. They will have some sighs, some immature little thoughts, and at the same time, try to put on the top hat of their own philosophy for these small thoughts.
Cassie played such a role in this journey. She is precocious, delicate, and almost Ben's life mentor. As Ben's companion (the two married in the presence of a farmer and twenty or thirty pigs), Cassie encourages Ben to face up to the dream in his heart and work with him toward it.
Cassie: Is that what you really want to do?
Ben: (nodding) Yes.
Cassie: So it's not a pipe dream, it's a plan. You have to learn to embrace it.
On the other hand, Ben's parents, although they have a real husband and wife, but the two sleep in the same bed and dream, do not want to understand each other's interests and hobbies, turn a deaf ear to each other's dreams, and have no communication, let alone support each other.
This is a reflection.
Examining the meaning of marriage through the lens of two children is where the film is more successful. Cassie, 12, has a unique understanding of the relationship between husband and wife. When Ben jumps up when he hears the farmer couple arguing, Cassie is surprised and even speaks out, thinking that "yelling is fatal to a relationship." You feel like you're communicating, but the effect is the complete opposite. ”
We don't know why Cassie made such remarks, but it is conceivable that her experience was definitely not simple. Sure enough, at the end of the film, when Ben risks rescuing Cassie from a mental hospital, Cassie finally confesses that it was his fault that led to the death of his parents in a car accident and the family was broken. And she was just defending herself, in order to avoid sexual abuse by her alcoholic father.
In fact, by this point you should understand that this is the self-healing process of two traumatized children, unfortunately, these traumas are due to the adults - Ben's motivation for running away is that he is not accustomed to the parents' loose and deformed relationship between husband and wife; Cassie's motivation for rebellion I have also explained is to get rid of the poison of his father's dark psychology.
The reason I think this movie is a fable for adults is because on the journey to Baltimore, Cassie and Ben went through an emotional stage that adults have experienced. From acquaintance, sharing weal and woe, holding hands, to estrangement, support again, and accompanying each other for a lifetime, the state of Ben and Cassie, a pair of little lovers, is a small microcosm of the adult emotional state. But the difference is that although Cassie and Ben will also face quarrels and incomprehensions, actively seeking reconciliation and mutual tolerance is their first choice to do. The common feature of the two of them is that they know how to love someone and are willing to make changes for each other to better maintain the relationship between husband and wife who love each other.
Going back, on a deeper level, what the two children are looking for is a figure who can be the benchmark of their adult life, Cassie believes that the aunt and uncle are like this, they are close, love each other, and have a harmonious relationship. Along the way, Cassie and the two try to understand the adult world, and marriage is a corresponding manifestation of this effort.
The director uses the child's perspective to reflect on the entanglement, contradiction and chaotic relationship in the adult world, while outlining the anxiety of adults about relationships, as well as the uneasiness and desire to find out under the anxiety of minors being shrouded in adults.
But overall, this film is still a little pretentious, such as the scene where Ben's parents hold their heads and cry at the end, it seems that it is precisely because of Ben's actions that bridge the abyss between the two people's crisis relationship and thus reach a reconciliation. And this in the theory of screenwriters, is really a very uninvited behavioral design.
Although the adult love story of two children is difficult to impress the audience in principle, it reflects the helplessness and darkness of the not-so-simple adult world. However, the writer or director deliberately elevates the intention of the story at the end, deviating from the original theme of love and communication, and seems to require the audience to swallow these dogmatic warnings.
But in fact, the audience's grasp of the theme will always be different. Telling the story to be told clearly, as to what kind of understanding can be obtained, is only the audience's own business.
But the flaws are not hidden, this film is still good.