Dream Shattered Taoyuan --- after the viewing of "Mysterious Village"

Fortunately, there is HBO, otherwise it is not easy to find some good movies.

Yesterday I woke up from a nap and saw the end of the first season of the leftovers, headless and brainless, and until now, I have not come out of the confusion, as if I have a little bit of a sense of entering the context of the cult.

Bored this morning, casually turning on the TV, the village ("Mysterious Village") has been released again, at first I was attracted by its slight horror atmosphere, and then I fell into deep thought again as the plot of the movie progressed.

Human beings, truly the most grotesque creatures in the universe, strive to construct their own new order, while at the same time constantly trying to break it.

For thousands of years, people have sought the highest good, and along the way they have established two sets of rules, one called faith, the other called law, the former guiding the human heart and the latter determining the boundaries of human behavior.

With thousands of years of cultural accumulation Chinese the ideal realm created by words is called Taohuayuan, and the Americans with hundreds of years of history have also created the village with movies, the difference is that Chinese are still looking for the entrance to Taohuayuan, and the Americans are already looking for its exit.

The village is about a group of people who, because of the pain of losing their loved ones, fled to the forest to establish a village full of idyllic style, where they lived an isolated, warm and friendly life, and everyone stuck to the stereotype that they could not enter the woods around the village, because there lived a group of "unspeakable" creatures, and those creatures did not invade each other with the people in the village, unless the boundary between them was rudely crossed.

But every family here has a secret, and the atmosphere of terror has always hung over the hearts of the village and the children.

However, the more forbidden things are, the more the child has the desire to explore, the child's nature is unstoppable, Lucis has the courage to experience fear, the mentally handicapped Noah has boldly broken into the woods and brought back the flower of evil, and the village has been warned by the creature that "cannot be said".

All this did not stop Lucis, and the desire for the outside world led him into the silent forest, where the villagers were threatened with an even greater horror that night, after Tabitha's lively wedding.

Lucius confessed his recklessness at the gathering of elders, and the unspeakable creatures of the woods were sacrificed by slaughtered sheep.

However, the news of Lucis's engagement to Ivy hits the mentally handicapped Noah, who stabs Lucis with a knife.

Lucis is dying and needs antiviral drugs to save her life, and the blind woman Ivy bravely asks to go through the forest to the town to seek medicine, and her request is supported by her father.

After her father's explanation, Ivy's behavior was finally understood by the elders, and it turned out that the secret that every family in the village kept was actually the unnatural death of their respective relatives, who were not killed by unspeakable creatures, but died from the atrocities of the evil kind.

Before leaving, Ivy's father took Ivy into a special room, and Ivy personally touched the giant claws of the unspeakable creature.

With the prescription, amulet and two companions delivered by her father, Ivy set off, but because of excessive fear, the two companions soon refused to move forward when they entered the forest, and Ivy had to continue the journey alone.

She was chased in the forest by unspeakable creatures, but she cleverly led him into the pit and followed her father's instructions to find her way out of the forest.

Climbing through a low wall covered with vines, Ivy came to the road outside the forest, in fact, the forest enclosed by the low wall was a wildlife sanctuary, and outsiders were not allowed to enter it at all.

Despite being suspicious of Ivy's words, a young police officer who found Ivy helped her, and Ivy took back the medication she needed.

However, Lucius's hope of survival is still slim, and the unknown creature ivy encountered in the forest is actually Noah, who discovers the clothing used by the elders to intimidate the children, and he wears it to chase Ivy, as he usually does with her, but unfortunately dies in obscurity.

It is said that another village built to escape the evil harm of human society should be in line with the ideal and the best, but this isolated village has not escaped fate.

Man's survival first needs matter as the basis, which are either drawn directly from nature or obtained from other creatures, so man is bound to struggle with the natural world in which he is placed and other creatures around him; at the same time, not only other creatures, but also the individual's own kind are both collaborators and competitors, and various complex relationships are bound to form between individuals and others.

Even if human beings' material needs are temporarily satisfied, they still need to face their own hearts, and they need to deal with their own conflicts with others, as well as their own behavior and inner conflicts.

Based on instinct, any individual who positions his relationship with the outside world must be self-centered, he will define things that are beneficial or harmless to him as "good" and opposite things as "evil", and as social life advances, these concepts of good and evil will evolve into morality and become public unspoken rules.

Human nature is not naturally good, it arises from the rejection of evil, which requires man to choose and persist. This choice and persistence, for the predecessors, is an inevitable result, it is based on the belief that "good has good rewards, evil has evil rewards", which gives rise to religion.

In order to proclaim and maintain the "good" and to suppress and punish the "evil", religion needs to resort to precepts, such as "do not enter the woods" in the village, which may have been justified at first, but later appeared inexplicable or simply unreasonable because of the single assertion of its authority, which fell into superstition.

The old world always tends to be conservative and closed, and the new forces are always full of tension, they want to open up, innovate, the existing precepts and authorities are difficult to imprison them, and society continues in this alternation between the old and the new.

Ivy's father recognized this, and the other elders finally understood. In fact, whether they agree or disagree, whether they understand it or not, they must accept it, because the future world must be young people's.

The problem is that since the precept of "not entering the woods" is a defense of "good", then the act of breaking the precept must be "evil", at least, the village must rely on this precept to keep evil and killing out, then Ivy's violation of the precepts will inevitably allow evil to penetrate deep into society (if not inevitably, this precept will be reason for some people not to obey in the future), which must not be what everyone wants to see.

At the same time, in the movie, the woods of the village and the world under the walls are not absolutely harmonious, there are love and hate, there are also killing, fear and grief, and there are lies constructed in the name of "good", for example, the forest is inhabited by monsters that "cannot be said".

At the end of the day, the paradise in the forest is really just a small version of the world we live in.

Speaking of this, I can't help but feel a little sad, as if all human efforts are in vain, even in the movie, can Lucius be resurrected? Can Ivy get the happiness she wants? How does Noah's family pack up their feelings? How will people in the village view the ban and the outside world in the future?

The future fate of The village is also unknown.

However, The Village is clearly not meant to show us the director's despair of the world, in which the love that is deeply rooted in each other, the elders' relentless maintenance of the safety of their children, and Ivy's overcoming of fear and retrieving the medicine, which is in itself hope, and beyond the forest, trust and goodwill, civilization and order are still there.

Inside and outside, there is a reason why people hurt others, evil must be suppressed, beaten and punished, justice and justice must always be upheld, and love, trust and tolerance always need to be cultivated.

Some sacrifices, we do regret, but they are also the soil of goodness, the opportunity for love to manifest.

Good and evil are not absolute, it is just two sides of the same body, there is indeed a lot of evil in the outside world, it will bring us pain, but at the same time, it also has the medicine we need to save our lives, there are people who are willing to believe in us and are willing to help us.

Since the paradise is essentially the same as the world in which we live, there is no need for us to create the realm of "pure goodness" through escape and spatial isolation, which is practically impossible.

Since we are born as human beings, we will always need to face ugliness and evil and fight them tirelessly, and we will always need to cultivate love, trust, tolerance and goodness; we need the law, we need firm faith in the supreme good, we need the courage to fight evil, and the only thing we do not need is to escape in the face of evil.