This article is written by Hu Xiaoxian
It's a small town submerged deep in the Rocky Mountains, almost isolated from the outside world, quiet and not noisy, and people in the outer city call it "dog town". There are only a few families in the town, and "the houses are like houses, and there are Ryota Miike Mulberry Bamboo. Strange traffic, chickens and dogs smell each other. "This place is like a paradise written by Tao Gong, although the people in the town are very poor, they respect each other as guests and have a kind heart." One day, a beautiful, noble and weak woman fled to the town, and what happened to the town? Will she be treated like the guest who broke into Taohuayuan?
The movie "Dogtown" gives us a particularly special and real, cruel and unexpected answer.
"Dogtown" is a novel by talented director Russ. The first of von Trier's "American Trilogy". Three hours is similar to a stage drama movie, it really requires patience, it needs a person to watch quietly, because these three hours are three hours of unhappiness.
However, when the movie is finished, it will certainly not be disappointed, and it will also send applause to the director. But may be disappointed with humanity. Even, I will be disappointed in myself.
1． Love in trouble
From ancient times to the present, human beings' praise for love is better than everything: Zhijun's heart is like the sun and the moon, and the mountains and the earth are united before they dare to break with the king... In fact, the most beautiful love can not escape the most real human nature, "the world is thin, human feelings are evil, and the rain sends dusk flowers to fall easily." "People are more or less clear, so that great love is generally short-lived and parted. So what about love in Dogtown?
Start with the plot of the film.
Tom, who has always wanted to find good subjects and writes a great novel, wanders around the town every day. One night, he hears gunshots and finds Grace, the girl who broke into the town, and he helps her hide, but when he deals with the rich and powerful guy sitting in the car, the big guy hands him a note with a report phone number and a huge bounty, and Tom is unmoved. He sincerely persuaded the beautiful girl to hide in the town, and persuaded fifteen people in the town to take her in, and in order to make the townspeople accept her, he suggested that Grace work for each family for an hour.
At first, everyone was kind and friendly to her, and there was nothing left for her to do. Everyone treated her like a guest. With the arrival of a wanted notice, the people of the town knew that she was a wanted criminal, and they knew that she was wronged, but people had a delicate psychological feeling about her, and the women began to support her, and the work became heavier and heavier, and despite Tom's best help and comfort, she would be tired like a dog every day.
Later, even the little boy bullied her and threatened her from time to time. And even more frighteningly, she could not rest at night, the men of the town were already salivating at her, and just when the police came to visit again, Chuck took the opportunity to rape her. Subsequently, men from all over the town would come to her. Even the blind uncle did not let her go, from touching her thighs to molesting her...
Only Tom didn't, and Tom cared for her like a loved one, becoming the only light in Grace's heart. However, watching the men in the town possess him one by one, Tom could not sit still, deeply in love with Grace, he wanted to get her more, physically and mentally tired Grace reacted coldly, which made the burning Tom very disappointed and angry. The man of the whole village can possess her at any time, but does not give his body to the person who loves him? Grace looked at him angry and said softly, "I love you, and you love me." If you're going to be like them, then come on. ”
He left in a daze.
That fall, the first snow fell, and it came a little early. Faced with Grace's grievances, Tom decides to send her out of town, planning to keep plotting, and finally decides to let the only van in the village take advantage of the fruit transport to take her to escape. The night before she fled, Tom regretted it, and he called the townspeople for a meeting. The next day, Grace felt a little strange, the whole town seemed to get up at the same time, she took a simple baggage, smoothly sat on the only truck in town, gave him all the money on her, and when the car was halfway through, the driver said that the money was not enough, and then forcibly took possession of her.
Exhausted, Grace drifted off to sleep. When she woke up, the whole town was watching her. Including Tom.
It turned out that Tom ostensibly helped her escape, but after weighing the pros and cons, he chose to stand in the crowd and betray Grace.
In fact, everyone in the town did evil to Grace, And Tom knew, and he always said he wanted to help her, but he never really helped her. On the one hand, he just used her as his own experiment, to test the good and evil of the townspeople, and then condescendingly teach them to persuade the people who had never listened to him carefully; on the other hand, he was afraid of causing trouble for himself, and later looked at the people in the town rejecting her and bullying her, he chose to alienate Grace, and from the bottom of his heart, he also agreed with the townspeople that "she is a scourge."
He personally tied Grace with a heavy chain around her neck, and saw her like a dog, moving forward heavily, but he never thought of helping her take it off...
What about the eyes that confirmed love? What about mutual understanding and mutual trust? What about saying "I love you" again and again?
Grace looked at Tom, who was passing by, and said, "It turns out that you kept that note with a big bounty on it." I shouldn't have told you how terrible the man who gave the bounty was. ”
How we hope that love can overcome evil, but reality tells us that although love is beautiful, it cannot withstand the bullying of reality.
2. Indifference in the collective
Why do the people of the small town of good friendship treat Grace like this? There are two problems implicit in this.
Chuck said to her the day he raped Grace: Who made you beautiful and weak?!
There is nothing wrong with being beautiful, but weakness is not. In a society under the rule of law, there are still people who commit crimes, and the targets of those hunters are generally the elderly, women and children, bullying people with weak resistance, and the less danger the perpetrators themselves will be. If you can't make yourself strong, at least don't expose your weaknesses, or don't do dangerous things, go to dangerous places, and make dangerous friends.
If they are all unfortunate enough to encounter, at least resist loudly.
The second problem is "resistance."
If Grace had resisted resolutely from the moment Chuck wanted to kiss her, leaving him with little hope, perhaps he wouldn't have had the courage to force her later.
Later, Chuck's wife came running with several women, and she smashed Grace's most beloved little porcelain man and said to her, "Chuck admitted that you seduced him many times, and he was afraid that I would not be happy and did not say..."
Grace didn't say anything, just tears of grievance. She knew that no matter how much they justified it, they would never believe it, they just believed what they wanted to believe.
Everyone in the town knew that Grace was afraid to report, that everyone had her handle, that everyone gave her orders, that they treated her like servants.
Then we find that the so-called kindness is hypocritical, or temporary, even if everyone knows that she is a victim and has had a brief sympathy, but still feels that because of her failure to report, she has become Grace's benefactor, and there is a reason to call her.
And how could she alone take care of everyone's emotions?
Many times, the bad guys start with temptation and do evil step by step.
From childhood to adulthood, we must have had the experience of being bullied and bullied. Some bullying people are not active bullying, but passive bullying, just like those people in the town, they will affect each other, when bullying others do not need to pay any price, and even get recognition, everyone will form a tacit understanding, even if they know that this is not right, do not dare to stand up and resist.
This situation is too commonplace, schools, companies, units any place where the crowd gathers, the weakest person, must be the most bullied, but also the most thankless person. If he or she doesn't resist all the time, this behavior will go on forever.
However, such people often have a great cost of resistance, so they dare not resist lightly. But once you rebel, like Arthur in Joker, you will be more afraid than the wicked.
3. Disclosure of the public
The movie also has a very wonderful arrangement, that is, to expose the ugly things that everyone has done in public.
Tom witnesses all the people in the town who hurt Grace, and instead of accusing and exposing them, He encourages Grace to expose everyone's evil deeds so that they can recognize their mistakes.
Tom calls a meeting of everyone in the town and asks Grace to tell her everything the town has done to her. Those who had insulted Grace some bowed their heads, some loudly resisted. Annoyed and angry, Mrs. Chuck says that everything Grace said is false, and Liz, the girl who is jealous of Grace, loudly accuses Tom and threatens Tom not to take the wrong line.
If someone asks you to say the most despicable thing in your life, it is estimated that ninety-nine point nine percent of people will not say it, or even one hundred percent. The more dirty things are, the more afraid of others mentioning them, being able to say them, and probably passing their own psychological barriers. And those evils hidden deep in the heart are forever buried deep inside.
But Grace unreservedly spoke out about the evil of everyone in the town, which was undoubtedly "worse" and aggravated the indignation of the townspeople towards her. Where is Tom to help her, he always tries to dig up all kinds of ugliness of the townspeople in various ways to prove his thoughts, and thus tame everyone, but he never really looks at himself directly, why does he succumb when it comes to his own interests?
The end of the movie is also a stroke of God.
Chains and plates were tied to Grace's neck and feet, and she took the initiative to work for them, and no one felt guilty, and everyone was collectively silent, as if waiting for something.
Five days later, several black cars slowly drove by, and grace's father, a powerful underworld boss, came to pick her up.
It was Tom who took out a note and made a phone call in front of the whole town. However, Grace is not a fugitive, she is the only daughter of the underworld boss. She just didn't want to inherit her father's business and become the perpetrator of murder and arson.
Her father said to her, "People have made mistakes, and you must punish and accuse them." If you don't punish them, you don't give them a chance to know what is wrong; you forgive them because you claim to be morally superior to them, which is arrogance! ”
All along, Grace hated her father and hated him for taking plunder for granted. And all she wants is a kind, warm and peaceful world. She felt that dogtown was.
The kind, innocent, princess with the plot of the Virgin, who had never experienced suffering, was now scarred, and she tried to find an excuse to forgive them: "They are just weak, and if I were a member of the town, I would certainly be on the side of the crowd, but that does not mean that they are not wrong." 」
Fathers were right, they were punished for the mistakes they made.
In the process of examining human nature, Ryunosuke Wasagawa discovered that the ugliness of the human world was "surrounded by ugliness, and he himself is ugly." This sense of disappointment is very much in line with Grace at this time. It's just that she didn't end up choosing suicide in despair like Wasagawa, she just fought evil with evil.
She promised her father to inherit, first of all, to drag out Mrs. Chuck, who loved her children to her death, and kill her children one by one in front of her, including the swaddled baby...
Pulling back the curtains, the town is plunged into a sea of fire... Only Tom is still alive. Grace stepped out of the car and pointed her gun at Tom, looking at the man who had always played the role of a good and true hypocrite, but who pushed her into the abyss step by step. Kill him mercilessly.
If it hadn't been Tom who had asked her to get out of the car and atone for her sins, maybe she wouldn't have killed him with her own hands and justified her evil deeds, which made her even more angry.
So, as viewers, are we defending our "evil" again and again?
4． Condensed human
Some say dogtown is a condensed human society with no real redemption and goodness, only a strict system of rules. The film has a profound meaning and a peculiar way of expression, this town is built on a flat stage, each family only uses chalk to draw walls and doors, this kind of wallless and doorless presentation, it seems to be a secret fit in any corner of the world, especially where poor, low-rise people live.
They are weak, and in order to cover up and vent their weakness, they will bully people who are weaker than themselves. Like Chuck, who escaped from the city here, he was inferior and lonely, ostensibly he wanted Grace's understanding and approval, and the ultimate goal was to possess her body, like a cow, to vent his bestiality, and then the men of the town were like this. It seems that bullying people who are weaker than themselves can get spiritual comfort.
And his wife, who also chose to believe his lies, believed that other women seduced him, and he was just a victim. Like The Beautiful Legend of Coco Ciri, all women do not blame their men, but tear and scold the woman who has been violated by her husband countless times.
The films of Las von Trier constantly remind people of their own evil, and he completely breaks people's unrealistic fantasies and the utopian worlds that people like to create.
Yes, the world doesn't need fantasies, it needs institutions.
I don't know if I can understand von Trier's expression, "Dogtown" contains a lot of things, in addition to the moral confusion of individuals, the indifferent attack of the group, the killing of the end of the criticism, more is to reflect the "self" of human beings hidden in the stomach and bending, the clearer you see, the more sober. The dirty face under the most obscure skin of mankind was displayed in front of everyone, and only when humans faced it and faced it squarely could they change it and defeat him.
However, when the various "small" and "evil" hidden under the robes of human beings are ruthlessly exposed to the public and become the focus of public attention, I wonder if human beings will defend themselves like the people in dog town? Or will not admit it at all?
(Image from the Internet, copyright belongs to the original author)