Some time ago, Deng Chao and Yu Baimei jointly directed the new work "Galaxy Tuition Class" exposed the trailer, one of which was frequently brushed on social platforms such as Weibo and circle of friends: education is not filled with a bucket of water, but to light a fire.
For a long time, there have been many film and television works around the topic of "education", which is like a pond carrying meaning, constantly having various interpretations and dissections, which are thrown into it. However, some movies aim to amplify the brilliance of education, while others use reality as a blade to directly attack the darkest and most terrifying hideous features in the mixed "education market".
For example, the one to be recommended today - "Someday".
The drama film, released in Denmark on April 21, 2016, is directed by Jesper W. Nelson and starring Russ Mickelson (yes, the younger brother of Jack Mickelson, the devil's father in The Shining), Sophie Grabau, Harald Kaiser Herman, Albert Rudbek Linhart, and others.
Based on true events, the film takes place in a boarding school in Port Gold.
In the fall of 1967, the single mother of the mischievous brothers Eric and Elmer was seriously ill with cancer, and the uncle was unable to take care of them, so he had to send them to a prestigious local boarding school. On the occasion of parting, the mother promised to take the brothers home until Christmas.
I thought it was a borrowed time that only had to endure the pain of separation from my mother, but it almost became a lifelong nightmare for the brothers.
The school's teacher group, led by principal Heck, includes a cold-faced homeroom teacher, a pedophile teacher, a brainwashed life teacher, a doctor who stays out of the way, and a newly hired Language teacher, Hammerskhoy.
There are 47 students in the school, 47 "ghosts" who have survived the abuse, to be precise. In addition to attending classes during the day, they are forced to do hard work, three meals a day are full of some difficult to wrap their stomachs, and the daily corporal punishment and abuse are innumerable.
Unfortunately, on Christmas Eve, just as eric and elmer were counting down the days they were counting down, their uncle called to inform them of the bad news of their mother's death. This means that the two must continue to live in school until the age of 15.
Even more desperate than disappointment is the dashing of hope.
To this day, there are still many people who have never seen or even heard of the film, just as they have not heard of the things that actually happened in the film.
Most of the viewers who have seen it define it as the Danish version of "The Melting Pot".
The same school child abuse theme, the same "based on real events". The same gray reality.
Still, "Someday" is a little different from "The Melting Pot."
As far as the story is concerned, the former is more "bad" than the latter and "better" than the latter.
The "badness" of "Someday" lies in the root distortion of ideas.
Compared with the corrupt humanity of teachers in "The Melting Pot", the principal heck in "Someday" firmly believes that the children sent to boarding schools are bad children who "no one can discipline", and in his view, since words do not work, they can only use violence to dissolve the "hostility" of children.
If the boarding school is compared to a pyramid within the educational mechanism, then heck is standing on the top of the tower, acting as an opinion leader, like "God", the terrible thing is that heck, who holds the power of life and death, stands on the side of extreme misconceptions, and under the influence of his continuous indoctrination, the rationality of violence, and the pathological cognition of the "master and servant" class, penetrate deep into the bone marrow of every teacher in the school.
It turns out that human beings can incarnate as demons under the influence of some extreme environment.
The devils show their fangs in the form of slaps, heavy punches and kicks, and even worse, they satisfy their ugly lusts by sexual assault. Even if they are faced with a group of ignorant children.
Elmer was slapped the first time he proudly talked about his dream of being an "astronaut"; the brothers were slapped when they learned of their mother's death and burst into tears at dinner; when the principal asked Eric to work in the school factory until he was 18 years old and then left, Eric scraped the principal's luxury car and was beaten to shock...
Even more terrifying than the combination of fists and kicks is the small office of Alex teacher in the middle of the night.
At bedtime at night, alex on duty quietly entered the student's dormitory, walking between the beds, looking for tonight's "food". Once he had a goal, he would go over and pat the child on the shoulder, pull on his weak arm, and say, "Come, come..."
Over and over again, laughing with a knife in it, like a vicious incantation.
The next morning, the children who were taken to the office by Alex had a very difficult time walking.
Elmer was the next victim.
The cause is absurd. Elmer showed his reading ability in class, and read aloud the "family letter" for each classmate after class, kind as he was, he would omit the information in the letter that was enough to make the recipient depressed, and through his own imagination, make up for an uplifting statement (here also illustrates the crux of the problem: the lack of family affection is the root of children's suffering). For a time, Elmer was very popular with his classmates, and the people who looked for him to read the letter lined up in a long line.
As a result, Alex, who was hiding in the shadows, heard Elmer reading the letter and had evil thoughts, and he threatened Elmer with Eric's safety: "If you don't want to do it, your brother will suffer."
One night, Elmer came out of his small office, hiding in the washroom, wiping the glare of blood between his legs. Faced with the anxious concern of his brother Eric, the little boy resolutely shouted to him: "Go away! Elmer's cold eyes exploded with disgust for himself.
The open wings of the angels became a feast in the eyes of the devil.
Behind the piles of atrocities, there are unrepentant abusers. The key is that each of them is convinced of the correctness of what they are doing. Principal Heck repeatedly stressed to the students: "All this is for your own good." ”
The bad guys believe that sin is good deeds and beatings are salvation – this is where "Someday" is even more "bad" than "The Melting Pot", and it makes us understand that some evils, even if exposed, punished, and beaten into eighteen levels of hell, can never be clarified.
Some moments in "Someday" are slightly "better" than "The Melting Pot."
First of all, it used a fairly good ending, opening an outlet for the emotional depression of low pressure, and the light seeped in, a small piece, enough to warm the cold soul.
When Eric is beaten to death by the headmaster, Elmer is reluctant to give in anymore, and taking advantage of Heck's good mood, he takes a leave of absence to go to town to seek help from his departed Language teacher Hammerskhoy.
Hammerskhoy's reason for leaving was simple: at first, she disagreed with the violent education law of the principal and his party, and then one night, for a variety of reasons, when she heard Elmer say, "You are the same kind of person as them," she couldn't help but slap him. Then, Hammerskhoy resolutely left her job, she knew that if she continued to work in school, sooner or later, she would become the next devil.
Hammerskhoy took Elmer to the police station to report it to the newly appointed prosecutor. As a result, the deep sins of the boarding school are exposed to the light of the sky, and the children escape from the clutches of the devil, and the brothers are taken away and raised by hammerskhoy.
Evil is rehabilitated and justice is done.
The light that "The Melting Pot" failed to seek, "Someday" stumbled to find.
Secondly, the portrayal of the victim, that is, a group of children, is more warm and dramatic.
The most brilliant thing is Elmer's dream of "going to the moon". Elmer's right leg is disabled, the specific reason is not explained in the film. His dream is to become an astronaut and land on the moon. Because the universe has no gravitational pull, it can "accommodate" his mobility.
Because of this dream, Elmer received the brothers' first slap after entering boarding school. Later, in order to rescue his brother who was critically ill, Elmer wore a spacesuit imitated from tin foil, and on the night of the successful landing of mankind on the moon, he jumped down from a tall tower, the camera instantly upgraded, the background illusioned the universe, and Elmer, with a blue nose and swollen face, saw the vast starry sky, and also saw his deceased mother...
The clue setting of "Dream of Landing on the Moon" makes "Someday" less realistic cruelty and more dramatic tension and warmth than "The Melting Pot".
As it is said: there is always a glimmer in the darkness, and there is hope in despair.
In the final scene of the film, Hammerskhoy drives away with the two brothers. The long forest road, flying dust, makes the sunlight more clearly visible. Subtitles appear on the screen: this is a true story.
A heart that had just been put down hung up again.
The director said that many students who left the boarding school still rely on drugs to alleviate depression to this day. What they care about is not the line that repeatedly appears in the film: "One day, everything will be fine." What they want is the exact date of "this day."
"Someday" or "The Melting Pot", including the 2017 Chinese film "Carnival"... The emergence of films of this kind of theme is a good thing and a bad thing.
Fortunately, we are not willing to forget, and the bad thing is that art always has "opportunities" from life.
"Someday" received a super high rating of 8.7 on Douban, however, I can't bear to applaud this good movie, I would rather it never appeared because it was "not real enough".
We cannot control the devil in the skin of man, but we can extinguish every seed of evil for unarmed children.
The film does not account for the fate of the teachers, that is, until the end of the film, they have not been punished as they deserve. But believe me, that's sooner or later.
Shadow Vanguard Contributing Author | Old skin
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