The fact that man comes from the animal kingdom has determined that man can never be completely freed from bestiality, so it can only be a difference in the degree of animalism or humanity, which can only be freed from more or less. - Engels
Behind any absurd behavior of human beings is the barbaric force that lurks in the shadows of human nature, breaking through the norms of civilization that have endured for a long time. For all the flaws and ugliness of human nature, a single story can no longer bear it. So, the South American ghost director made six short and pithy short films and connected them into a "Wild Story" that reflected the history of human nature.
The film's new perspective allowed director Damien Szfron to be shortlisted for the main competition section of the 67th Cannes Film Festival, nominated for the 87th Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and was selected as the top ten films of 2014 by Time magazine.
Hatred, coldness, anger, insensitivity, greed, and jealousy are the themes of each of the six stories, and they are the original sins that are prevalent in human nature. So, will the world become ugly, a mess, and hopelessly incurable?
The film unfolds with such a question, and also carries or induces the audience to carry out forced self-examination of their own lives.
For a film, choosing the appropriate narrative structure is crucial to the narrative of the story. The film "Wild Story" adopts the typical "theme - juxtaposition narrative" style.
The six stories that make up the film are not causally linked or chronological, but are linked to common themes— human revenge and disaster caused by out-of-control behavior.
Here's how I'll explain the storyline of the film:
In Pastnac, passengers on the same plane are chatting and accidentally discover that they have all known and hurt a man named Pastnack. This man was the captain of the plane, and he had carefully planned to take the passengers to destruction.
In "Rat Poison," the waiter at the restaurant discovers that the guests who come to dinner are loan shark creditors who have forced her family into a desperate situation and are now entering politics. When the cook learned of this, she used rat poison and a knife to avenge the waitress, and she was taken away by the police.
"Return to the West Road" tells a story about "road rage": two drivers from different classes end up fighting each other due to a verbal altercation.
In "Little Bomb", the demolition engineer who dragged the car away for no reason and complained about it planned a small explosion against the trailer company.
The rich man in "The Deal" buys off all parties to cover up his son's act of killing pregnant women, but the pregnant woman's husband who comes to take revenge hacks the gardener who has been arranged to be a scapegoat, making the rich man's plan bankrupt.
In "Until Death Separates Us", at the lively wedding banquet, the bride discovers the fact that the groom has cheated on the affair and makes a big fuss about the wedding, but then the two reconcile and make love in public, deciding to maintain the marriage with mutual revenge.
Through these six plots, we can find that there are three levels of juxtaposition themes in the short film "Wild Story".
On the surface, all kinds of out-of-control behavior exposes the irrational elements of human nature.
But further analysis reveals the film's critique of Argentine social reality.
At a deeper level is the film's existential philosophy: in a world of absurdity, whether human beings make antagonistic autonomous choices according to their individual will when faced with extreme situations.
It is not difficult to see that the out-of-control behavior of the protagonists in each story stems from the irrational elements in the depths of their personality. Although these characters all play normal professional, family and social roles in the modern civilized world, they are extremely vulnerable to anger or hatred in their hearts and resort to extreme means.
The captain in Pastenac hijacks the plane and kills his victims, revealing the darkness and paranoia in his personality. In "Guixi Road", the two car owners fight for a quarrel, but also out of narrow mentality and belief in violence.
Human irrationality also rises to the social level from time to time, just like the engineer in "Little Bomb" who planned the explosion and was regarded as a hero by the whole society, which is undoubtedly a collective unconscious carnival. Stories such as "The Deal" also show the violence and wildness hidden behind the mask of modern human civilization and self-discipline, and the ultimate destruction of individuals or the destruction of social order.
(1) Arrangement of rhythms
The film begins with "Pastnack" in a more relaxed scene: the camera follows a beautiful female passenger through security to board the plane, and a male passenger helps her put away her luggage and begins to talk. During the small talk, the two discover that they both know a person named "Pastnack", and the atmosphere is suddenly full of suspense.
As more passengers joined the discussion to say they knew the person, the pace of the film began to accelerate. When the panicked flight attendants informed everyone that Pastenak was the captain of the plane, the tension reached its climax. As the plane rushes towards Pastnak's revenge object——— his parents who are drinking tea in their courtyard, the picture abruptly stops, leaving the audience with horror and suspense.
The whole story is only nine minutes long, and the rhythm from slow to fast, from soothing to tense, metaphorically describes the madness and unpredictability of the irrational kingdom.
(2) The use of the picture
At the beginning of the film, the director shows the audience a group of wild animals: eagles in the night, roaring bears, crocodiles with open mouths, and more beasts such as lions, tigers, and wolves.
They seem to stare at the audience in front of the screen, and also interpret the theme of the film: irrational humans are no different from animals, and the law of the jungle dominates civilized society.
The violent scenes that abound in the film also highlight the dark madness of the irrational world: the kitchen lady who stabs the diners with a knife, the bride who throws the enemy against the glass window, the two vicious drivers...
The hot weather and wild dance in the picture also symbolize the love-hate, passionate national character, and amplify the irrationality in the human instinct that promotes revenge.
(3) The use of black humor
The disasters in the film are often caused by a very small thing, and the strange logic of life makes the audience laugh.
The film also uses irony to achieve comedic effects and amplify the absurdity of life: the engineer becomes a civilian hero after creating an explosion and is respected by his fellow prisoners; two men who lost their lives because of "road rage" are judged to be martyred by the police who rushed after the incident; the rich man tries to clear his son's crime, but is shattered by the husband of the victim who came to take revenge.
The film's language, actions, and details are also full of black humor: the kitchen lady's uncaring description of life in prison is more free than outside; the bride's wedding scene makes the scene chaotic; the driver's attempt to blow out the fire before his death, etc., all make the audience feel the cruelty of life while wanting to laugh.
As for the heavy topic of death, the film also adopts a playful and relaxed attitude, which makes the absurdity of the strange world in the film reach the extreme.
"Wild Story" is actually not wild, it is the truest reflection of our hearts, but it is just a cruel expression of it in the form of a movie. It is also because the sense of substitution of the story is very strong, so it can cause the viewer to think deeply about themselves.
(1) Don't let emotions overcome your intellect
"Wild Story" is a very "emotional" movie, and the tragedy in the story is caused by the protagonist's collective emotional loss of control. One of the hardest things in the world is managing your emotions.
Napoleon once said: "A man who can control his emotions is greater than a general who can take a city."
The less experienced people are, the easier it is to not be able to control their emotions. Conversely, the deeper the experience, the easier it is to be rational. And what experience is, is what a person has seen, heard, done, and the thoughts that these things bring.
There is no necessary connection between the depth of experience and age, and an old man who has experienced the wind and frost but never knows how to reflect will not be more mature than a young man who is new to the world but thinks about everything. For example, the old man who dominates the high-speed rail; such as Yi Qianxi, who became famous at a young age; such as the old man who slapped the girl when he did not get the seat; such as the young writer Jiang Fangzhou.
Therefore, the ultimate value of life lies in the ability to awaken and think, not just to survive. We absorb new knowledge and generate new thinking through continuous reading, which will slowly transform into new precipitations in life. And these precipitations help us to look at people and things rationally, and eventually learn to use reason to overcome emotions.
(2) To be kind to others is to be kind to oneself
What is kindness? Looking up the dictionary, we can know that it is friendly treatment, and it can also be said to be tolerant. Being kind to others has multiple meanings, such as understanding, respect, tolerance, care, and helping others.
In life, there will inevitably be collisions and frictions between people, just depending on how you deal with them. Like what we call "taking a step back from the sea and the sky," tolerance makes things simple, while harshness complicates things. Just like the tragedy of the Audi man in the film, it could not have happened, but because he could not tolerate the provocation of the truck driver, he was out of control and indulged, and eventually brought both of them to the brink of destruction.
When others offend and trample on your dignity, we should strive to turn the work into a jade on the basis of adhering to principles. And that kind of for tat and needle tip to Mai Mang way of doing things is really not advisable, but will make themselves walk into a dead end.
Smart people know how to be kind to others, will not grasp each other's mistakes, and will use their own way out of fruitless stories.
These stories in the movie are like a mirror that can shine through everyone's heart. When some stories really happen to us, are we as extreme as the characters in the movie, so we can't control ourselves, and we have to win or lose?
Maybe we think we know ourselves well, but when something irritates us, the behavior we make may make us feel strange.
It is said that life is a practice, and we just have to practice our virtues more. This virtue includes kindness, tolerance, reason, benevolence, and so on, which is also the biggest difference between man and animal.