After the end of the Second World War, as the war with the widest scope, the most involved countries, the greatest casualties and the most profound lessons so far, World War II naturally became a very important theme in the war genre.
The French film The Old Gun is one such film, which tells the story of a man who decisively takes revenge after his wife and daughter are brutally killed by the Germans.
The film was released in 1975 in the last century, but it still has enough to watch today.
First, the male and female protagonists of the film are very famous. The male protagonist is the famous French actor Philippe Novire. He is not a handsome character, slightly fat, but he is a household name in France. He had a wonderful performance in the Italian film Cinema Paradiso, playing the old film projectionist Evert who impressed the audience, and "Cinema Paradiso" won the 1990 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
The heroine is the famous actress who is well-known in Europe and loved by Chinese audiences, but tragically died young, that is, the famous actress who played Princess Sissi. Her charming eyes seemed to discharge and speak.
Second, the narrative of the film is very distinctive. The first 29 minutes of the film can be seen as the first part of the film. Tell the background of the era in which the story takes place in chronological order, as well as the professional and family life of the hero and heroine. Although it is mixed with the scenes of the wounded in the hospital, the flesh and blood blurring and shouting scenes, in general, there is a comfortable, romantic and warm environment of family life, which contrasts with the cruel reality of the continuous gunfire outside the home.
The hour or so behind the film can be seen as the second part of the film. This part has two clues, one is based on the narrative of time and space, telling the revenge process of the male protagonist; the other is in the form of flashbacks of the male protagonist to see things and think of people, tracing the acquaintance, intersection, twists and turns of feelings with his wife, the cuteness and intelligence of his daughter and other bits and pieces of life. Through the strong contrast of the colors, environment, and character emotions of these two clues, the cruelty of the reality of the murder of the wife and daughter and the emotional waves of the male protagonist's heart are strengthened.
Third, the film presents a battle of one man. The story takes place in 1944. At that time, Hitler's fascist Germany was still occupying French territory, but the Allies had launched the Normandy landing campaign, the German army had taken on a strong posture, and the German army and the security forces of the appeased Vichy government were still frantically suppressing the rebels.
The film is not a macro narrative, but a person's revenge.
The male protagonist, Julian Dandy, is a doctor at the Keane Hospital in Montauban in the southern French city. He has a happy family, loves his mother, a cheerful and romantic wife, a lively and mischievous daughter, and the family is happy.
The hospital secretly treated the wounded fighters who resisted the Germans and the security corps, and as the attending doctor, Julian was constantly searched and threatened by the security corps. At the suggestion of his good friend François, Julian persuaded his wife Clara and his daughter to take refuge in their own castle home in the countryside.
A few days later, however, when Julian came to the countryside to visit his wife and daughter, he saw a horrific scene: the villagers and their wives and daughters were all shot, assassinated or burned to death. He detoured into his own but occupied castle by the Germans, found the ancestral gun hidden, began to take revenge, and finally killed more than a dozen German soldiers with his familiarity with the terrain and rational calculations.
Fourth, actor Novari's one-man show is full of tension. Julian came to the countryside and saw the devastation of the German massacre, and there was a rush of vomiting in his throat, which should have been a normal physical reaction under strong stimulation; seeing the inhuman scene of his daughter being shot and his wife burned to charcoal, he had to shove a handkerchief into his mouth to avoid making a sound and alarming the German soldiers.
Once a soldier, he had a rational and calm personality. After witnessing the cruelty of the enemy and the tragedy of his loved ones, he did not immerse himself in grief excessively, took the scalpel's hand, resolutely picked up the old gun, and turned revenge into a delicate calculation. He destroyed the wooden bridge in and out of the castle, cut off the water supply of the castle, shot and killed the German soldiers one by one, and finally burned the German captain alive with a flamethrower gun in the way he treated his body in the same way, and finally succeeded in revenge with his own strength.
Revenge, however, didn't cause particularly big swings in his mood. When his friend François came to pick him up, although he was calm, his heart was fluctuating, his eyes were red, tears were in the circles of his eyes, and the expression of pain turned into a somewhat reluctant shallow smile. Although he has revenge, he is still in grief, but he does not want his emotions to affect the mood of his friends, and Novari has a good grasp of this psychology of men.
This kind of unhurried revenge highlights the heroism of men. The shock brought to the audience by such a performance is no less than an earth-shattering feat, but you need to calm down and savor it.
Fifth, the translated version of the film is full of dubbing masters. At present, two versions of the film source can be found on the Internet. One is the original film, with the original French-German sound accompanied by Chinese subtitles. The other is the translation and production of the Shanghai Film Translation Studio, which concentrates the excellent dubbing masters such as Bi Ke (voice for Julian), Shang Hua (for François), Qiao Hazel, Tong Zirong, Yang Wenyuan, Yu Ding, Wu Jingwei and Ding Jianhua (for Clara), Zhao Shenzhi, Liu Guangning and so on. Listening to those amazing dubbing is really an audiovisual enjoyment.
The beginning of the film is a family of three riding a bicycle on a country road, followed by a dog running, and at the end, it is also fixed in this picture, and the picture before and after it has a different taste in different moods.
Note: All images are from the web.