introduction
There are three kinds of people: the living, the dead, and those who go to sea
— Aristotle
one
A Wolf Song is a film directed by Abel Anzac that tells the story of a young submarine listener who possesses a rare gift to recognize every sound he hears. On a French nuclear submarine, everything depended on him, and while this capability seemed absolutely reliable, he made a mistake and put the crew in danger of death.
He hopes to regain the trust of his comrades, and his quest will put them in a more dramatic situation. Eventually, in a world of nuclear deterrence and misinformation, they find themselves trapped in an uncontrollable piece of equipment. As a French film, "Wolf Song" inherits the artistic tradition of French cinema, although it is biased towards war films in the choice of themes, and has a fairly clear official propaganda orientation.
Director and screenwriter Abel Anzac is a French diplomat in cultural affairs in the United States, with a certain official background, so the text content of the film is mostly ideological, is a French sea-based nuclear weapons propaganda film for the French public, focusing on the propaganda of nuclear submarines. But outside of ideology, the director has carried out a certain exploration of human nature, starting from the special identity of soldiers, revealing the spirit of responsibility that penetrates deep into their marrow, and their highly procedural operating structure.
Therefore, it can be said that "Wolf Song" itself has an extremely complex and multiple nature, it is both an excellent war submarine film and an ideological film with a missionary nature, and at the same time it is artistically explored.
"Wolf Song" sets the story in a semi-overhead world, which is the construction of the political structure of the future world, in this alternate world, with a lot of realistic plot presuppositions, such as China and Russia in the film, which appear as enemies of the European continent, and the countries are in a cold war state subject to nuclear deterrence.
At the same time, the film also appears iran and Syria, these two countries became the front line of the next world war, this assumption should be in line with the current stage of the world's major conflict zone, from the perspective of governance, the establishment of public enemies is a common means of transferring contradictions, and the ideology of "Wolf Song" is also divided into two parts.
The first is the glorification propaganda of the spirit of the army, the spirit of responsibility and the French nuclear weapons and sea-based troops, and the second is to establish a sense of crisis, guide the direction of contradictions for the audience through public markings, subtly establish a sense of confrontation between countries, and emphasize the terror of nuclear deterrence.
In the film's expression space there is a proportion, that is, the reasonable proportion between space and the amount of information, the main display space of "The Wolf Song" is compressed into the small submarine inner cabin, in order to dissolve the sense of oppression, a large amount of information input is required, in "The Wolf Song", these large amounts of information are mainly borne by the twisting story and the dialogue between the characters, on the one hand to eliminate the sense of boredom, on the other hand to provide a certain depth of expression.
Based on this, the director added more deeply to the exploration of human nature, quite experimental expression of the interaction between people in the enclosed space, even between soldiers, in the compressed space will amplify their emotions, and trigger a crisis of trust between each other, the submarine this special artificial space provides us with a kind of heterogeneous communication at the spatial level, in such a closed space, the trust between each other becomes fragile, and a small mistake may endanger the lives of everyone.
On the other hand, "The Wolf Song" shows us in an unquestionable tone what is the duty of a soldier, even at the cost of his life, to perform his due duties, and at the end of the film, the game between the two submarines clearly reflects this, there is no right or wrong, only rules and duties, the two submarines have their own tasks, but also have their own destinations.
As a war submarine film, "Wolf Song" has extremely meticulous tactical details, with a variety of advanced equipment display, "Wolf Song" has been co-produced by the French Navy, and the Naval Acoustic Analysis and Identification Center to train the film starring, submarine training unit to assist the art in the studio to build the submarine interior. Director and screenwriter Abel Anzac is a French diplomat in the United States for cultural affairs, and with such strong official support, the film naturally acquires highly sophisticated technical details.
There is no flaw in professionalism, the most important thing is that "Wolf Song" is not limited to this, Abel Anzac made the film jump out of the simple propaganda field, turned to the exploration of connotation and art, achieved both, taking human nature as the entry point, juxtaposing the grand category of the sea and the world, coupled with the political, military and other aspects of the game and competition, making the film present a high degree of inclusiveness in which various elements intersect.
Finally, is the analysis of the film's artistic techniques, "The Wolf Song" in the means of expression to deepen the emphasis, through the way of information superposition to highlight nuclear deterrence and collectivism and imperceptible sense of responsibility, the word deterrence has been emphasized many times, and with the atmosphere to create, depicted a story full of twists and turns, in the nuclear deterrence is not left in all countries, have filed a record to develop a one-way procedure, as long as a nuclear country dares to launch a nuclear bomb, then the entire earth will be destroyed in the subsequent nuclear retaliation.
It is precisely for this reason that the film creates a reasonable push logic, through snare and launch "rules", to trigger this domino-like chain of deterrence. Interestingly, as a French sea-based nuclear weapons propaganda film for the French public, the film creatively integrates love elements, has a more explicit portrayal of the love chapter between the male and female protagonists, and the Romance and Attitude to Love of the French penetrate into the serious war submarine films, injecting a touch of uninhibited and free breath into the monotonous mechanical ideological machine.
A shadow and a word, the world is illusory
It is a stormy boat, and the words can withstand sorrow
WeChat public account: SuperFlaneur
Public account team: Drama and Film and Television Studies, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology
Final South Film Talk Film Group