Mad Dating Mirador is the first animated feature film directed by French director Sylvia Jomai and was nominated for the 76th Academy Awards – Best Animated Feature. The film tells the story of Chabin, the grandson of Grandma Susha, who was kidnapped by the French Mafia when he participated in the Tour de France Bicycle Race, and in order to save her grandson, Sheba Susha took her puppy Bruno to Mirador, where the mafia's lair is located. On the way, Su Sha's mother-in-law met the three sisters of the beautiful Du, who broke into the mafia nest with them and successfully rescued her grandson Chabin.
Beautiful all trio
Director Sylvia Jomai was born in Maison-Lafitte, Yvesín, France, and was influenced by the literature of the time, and Sylvia's work was full of French absurdism. When designing the appearance of the characters, he uses exaggerated techniques to highlight the characteristics of the Appearance of the French, which fully shows the temperament of the French and shows us the strong local national atmosphere and French cultural characteristics of France.
Sylvia's works usually show us the theme of the work in an absurd way of expression. The absurdist theatre originated in France and is one of the modern theater genres. Unlike realistic works, absurdist works are usually strange and strange, using exaggerated and even absurd expression techniques to show us the ugliness and horror of reality, the pain and despair of life, in the form of comedy. While watching the absurdist movie and laughing, you can feel the sadness and despair conveyed to us by the work.
Directed by Sylvia Jomai
Next, we take "Crazy Dating Mirador" as an example to analyze the use of character image, combination of sound and painting, and expression techniques in absurd films.
The physical characteristics of characters in absurdist films are often exaggerated and strange. Director Sylvia is comfortable with the styling of characters in absurdist films, not only exaggerating the appearance of the French, but also highlighting the personality characteristics of the characters in the film.
Grandma's diminutive stature contrasts greatly with the beautiful tall and obese woman. Not only does Grandma not have a beautiful appearance, a tall figure, the director even set the role of Grandma as a disabled old man - an ordinary grandmother with long and short feet who can only rely on raised shoes to maintain walking balance. The director set up the imperfect character characteristics of Grandma in order to highlight the huge energy of Grandma, in order to save her grandson, stepping on the pontoon boat to follow the mafia cruise ship, with courage and wisdom to save the grandson. Contrast your excellent personal qualities with your flawed appearance to highlight the contrasting beauty.
In my opinion, Chabin's character is a prop without a soul. In the whole film, Chabin does not show ideological activity, even if he is kidnapped by the mafia, there is no reaction, and the director deliberately reduces Chabin's influence on the entire film in order to highlight the image of his grandmother, and connects the story like a prop.
Chabin lost both parents at an early age, and here the director portrays Chabin as a child who does not speak, has unfocused eyes, and has deep dark circles, highlighting the social image of autistic children. Growing up, Chabin had a goal and worked hard to participate in the Tour de France, and at this time, like the rest of the participants, his legs were very thick due to long-term cycling, and his upper body was extremely thin due to lack of exercise, which was a huge contrast with the strength of his legs.
The portrayal of beautiful women in the film is very tall and fat. Because beauty is a place where people are drunk and gold- From the beginning of the film, the thin men follow the obese women to the singing, and one of the men is caught in a coma on the fat woman's ass, and the scene where the woman ignores it can be guessed, the film implies that beauty is like Hollywood, and the worship of money is prevalent.
In the hotel where the elderly Three Sisters perform, Sylvia's portrayal of the hotel manager is even more grotesque. The hotel manager has no bones, and in front of the guests, the body is bent forward, suggesting that some people in society nod their heads to people of high status, while in front of others, the hotel manager's body is bent backwards in a twisted form, reflecting his image of high toes.
"Crazy Dating Mirador" is an animated film with almost no dialogue, which uses more character expressions and body language to express the thoughts and story lines of the characters. As a musical comedy film, the director is very good at handling the sound and picture, driving the audience's emotions through the combination of sound and painting, attracting the audience to the plot of the story development, so that the audience can feel the sad emotions conveyed by the film while laughing at the absurd plot.
Whenever talking about "Crazy Dating Mirador", people will be very impressed by the classic performance of the three sisters of Meidu: the elderly three sisters have no beautiful singing voice, and can only rely on their talents to make a living - using the objects of life to play music. One of them rustled rhythmically by tapping the newspaper, the other played the iron shelf in the refrigerator with his fingers, making a crisp banging sound, and the last one opened the vacuum cleaner and controlled the vacuum tube with his hand to produce a whimpering sound.
Using the sounds of objects in life to weave into a shocking music, people feel incredible, and at the same time, they have to admire the imagination and talent of the director. Here in the way of joyful comedy to show the talents of the three beautiful sisters, but also to suggest that the fame and youth of the three sisters are long gone, can only work hard to make a living, here reflects the characteristics of absurdist film, in the form of comedy to show tragedy, in an incredible and admirable way to show the tragedy of life.
However, the same performance, by adjusting the sound of the instrument slightly, can give people a different feeling. The same sound of the three sisters playing with newspapers, refrigerators, and vacuum cleaners became the catalyst for nightmares in the sleep of the puppy Bruno. The puppy under the performance stage, because he smelled chabin on the handkerchief of the mafia boss next to him, appeared in the dream: the puppy sat on a slow-moving train, and looking down at the train, it was the chain of the locomotive that was put on Chabin's neck, pulling the train by the strength of Chabin's walking.
The background music at this time is still played by the three sisters, and the rustle of the newspaper and the crisp sound of the refrigerator holder are weakened, while the whimpering sound of the vacuum cleaner is enhanced, combined with Chabin pulling the whole train with the strength of his neck, walking like a slave, the music at this time creates an atmosphere of sadness and horror. The absurd dream implies not only that Bruno, the puppy, dreamed of Chabin because he smelled his master, Chabin, but also the pain that Chabin is now suffering— being forced to ride a bicycle by the mafia like a slave as a bet for mafia entertainment.
Of course, the film's excellent use of sound and painting is not only reflected in the absurd expression method, but also in many excellent places. The combination of French classics when Grandma checks out Chabin's Plastered Tour de France reflects a strong French atmosphere; the most prominent scene of the combination of sound and picture is that grandma asks Chabin at the beginning of the film: "Is the film over?" It wasn't until the end of the story that the elderly Chabin replied, "Yes, it's over, Grandma." "It shows that Grandma is no longer alive, and the story of Grandma and Chabin is over.
The grotesque techniques in movies often refer to all kinds of bizarre, extremely exaggerated, and counterintuitive portrayals of people, things, objects, scenes, etc. in movies. The use of grotesque techniques in "Crazy Dating Mirador" is very much used, which not only deepens the theme, but also exposes the social situation in France at that time.
Before Chabin participates in the Tour de France, he undergoes intensive training and precise dietary control. During the training, after hearing the encouragement of the French president, Chabin rode even faster than the bus next to him, suggesting his desire and motivation to race; after the training, Chabin needed to eat. Our real-life control of food intake is generally weighed, and the director uses a grotesque way to describe: let Chabin sit on a scale connected to an alarm clock when eating, and once Chabin reaches the required weight, the alarm will remind Chabin to stop eating.
France attaches great importance to cycling competitions, and the holding of the Tour de France is a time for national celebrations. There is a clip in the film where there is a pork shop with a pig's hands and feet tied to a small bicycle in the exhibition window, riding a bicycle with sausages as wheels. I had just seen the pig riding the bike think it was funny, until I saw Chabin trapped in the mafia's lair, forced to ride on the bike non-stop, as a bet on the mafia, at this time I suddenly realized that the pig with his hands and feet tied to the bicycle, hinting at what happened to Chabin later.
Grotesque techniques are also reflected in the confrontation with the power of disparity. For example, when the mafia kidnapped Chabin on a huge cruise ship, Grandma rented a pontoon boat and braved the wind and rain to catch up with the cruise ship. The huge cruise ship contrasts sharply with the small pontoon, highlighting the strength of the mafia and the smallness of personal power, while Grandma follows the cruise ship in the form of a foot pontoon boat, which embodies Grandma's perseverance and love for her grandson in an exaggerated way.
In addition to the description of the plot, the grotesque technique is also reflected in the description of the environment. Grandma tracks down the Mafia cruise ship to the harbor of Mirador, where a strange "Statue of Liberty" appears — an obese woman holding a cones in her right hand and a hamburger in her left. Here there is a historical performance of France's sending of the American Statue of Liberty, which also reflects the image characteristics and living habits of French women at that time.
In many places, the film uses grotesque techniques to suggest that beauty is a reflection of Hollywood. The image of the Engineer Mouse's head hints at Hollywood Disney's Mickey Mouse, who took a photo of him at "Hollyfood" (Hollywood is Hollywood) and hung a badge with "sucker" written on it with Donald Duck. When the mafia boss is shot down by Grandma on the chimney of the cruise ship, the cruise ship explodes, and fireworks bloom on the castle-like beauty, all of which show that beauty is a reflection of Hollywood.
Absurdist cinema is not only a comedy, but also a tragedy.
In absurdist films, we can see hilarious pictures, but we can't just "watch" the film from the surface, but also understand the irony and sad emotions conveyed to us by the author through the film's comedic expression, understand the social situation revealed by the film and the more profound themes to be expressed.
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