Last weekend I went to a small movie salon, my friend asked me what film to put, I said or put the recently very popular "Network Mystery Trace", although the resources came out early, but I have not watched it, it is it.
Sure enough, the super strong reputation wood has deceived people, better than the previous two weeks of "Unfriend 2: Dark Web", in one go into no urine point, it is really good-looking!
What big star is this movie, the most famous is the male protagonist John Zhao, you may be a little unfamiliar with this name, but he often appears in Hollywood movies and American dramas, including "Star Trek" such a big production, ah he! What's it called?
He looks a bit like Zhong Hanliang:
The first time I met John Zhao was in "American Pie", and then he acted in an absurd comedy called "Pig's Head Walking the Street", which was also quite funny, and wanted to have fun with the recommendation of classmates.
Stills from "Pig's Head Walking the Streets"
Looking at his surname Zhao, at first he thought he was a Chinese, checked to know that he was from South Korea, moved to Los Angeles with his parents at the age of 6, and worked hard from a comedian to the protagonist of the film step by step, which is very good among the Asian actors in Hollywood.
Director and screenwriter Anesh Chaganty (aneesh chaganty) has heard of it completely, look at this name like an Indian name, a Cha wiki, it is indeed Indian, but he was born in the United States since he was a child, counting as a second-generation immigrant, and he is a post-90s, born in 1991, just turned 27 this year, made a global hit .... People are more popular than dead!
Directed by Anish Chaganti
The filming of "Network Mystery Trail" took only 13 days, which is the speed of light in the modern film industry, but it was only a small step after filming, and the subsequent post-production took a full 3 years, I guess he may have to take some other work to support himself, what an inspirational story of struggle.
The reason why it took only 13 days to shoot is because the film is a special form of expression, the film lasts 102 minutes, most of the time is to show another "screen", computer, mobile phone, and TV broadcast screen, after watching it we discussed with each other, think this film is too flattering, you can't see any money in the range, the most commonly used tool may not be the camera, but the "screen recording software".
The great thing about the movie is "ingenuity", which cannot be forced to spend how much money.
This kind of ingenuity began to convey from the first second, and the director only took 6 minutes to explain the situation of the family, father David, wife Pam, daughter Margot, all in the form of computer screens, from the time Margot entered kindergarten.
Speaking of Margo entering high school, his wife died of lymphoma in the past ten years, the Internet can be said to be the family tree of modern people, every important moment is scattered on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter (please make up the domestic same level of applications), including how David checked the treatment on Google, how to fight the disease with his wife, hope came and went and finally passed away, so a large amount of information was integrated in 6 minutes, breaking the previous film grammar conventions.
The story quickly enters, one day after class, Margot and her father have a facetime, but since then, the daughter has not heard anything, and the phone has all received a voicemail.
Dad began to contact everyone who could think of, but things were getting more and more strange, the daughter was supposed to go to piano lessons, but the teacher said that she had dropped out of school half a year ago, the schedule showed that she was going to the event, the daughter did not participate, David at first thought that it was just his daughter playing, but it seemed that things were far more than that.
In desperation, David had no choice but to call the police, and a female police officer named Rosemary called back and said that she had been assigned to be responsible for the disappearance of David's daughter.
"Network Mystery Trail" still has a more deliberate sense of design, such as observing the characters through the camera, most people should not usually open the camera, here I feel as if the director is standing behind the camera.
Then, like the decryption game we used to play, there are several clues in a closed room, and it takes them all to get out of the room. The joint is that important information has been disclosed to you, but you have turned a blind eye. For example, the following shot implies the information of the later reversal, but the male protagonist could not have detected it at that time. The more reasonable the foreshadowing buried in the front, the more wonderful the revealed behind.
It should be said that "Network Mystery Trace" is a variant of the pseudo-documentary form, but the camera is invisible, and there is no photographer carrying a machine, in most of the pseudo-documentaries, the photographer's distress is a commonly used scare point, such as the recent "Kunchi rock" and the classic "Death Video".
But whether it is screen recording, camera, live TV camera or mobile phone selfie in "Network Mystery Trail", it is completely neutral and does not participate in the narrative. Even in some very intense scenes, the camera has not moved, which has produced a sense of horror of watching a sudden accident on live broadcast, which seems extremely real.
But this sense of realism is carefully constructed, according to the editor said that at most each shot has more than 30 layers, no wonder cut for 3 years, it should be said that the editor encountered more difficulty than the traditional work, because the traditional far, medium, near, special shots are all wooden, purely with editing to control the rhythm of the story.
I think the most powerful scene is david learns that his daughter is not dead there, imagine how it would be if it was an ordinary drama film, probably a close-up of the father with tears in the corners of his eyes, a firm look, etc., but this time the director let the protagonist even have a face exposed, but the TV station shot three cars at a high altitude to make a U-turn, and a father's emotion of never giving up was fully conveyed.
I must say it again, it's wonderful!
Don't look at this section for less than a minute, but I guess the director and editor must have been conceived for a long time, trying various combination schemes, and the uplift of the music is just stuck on the sentence "There is a storm on Monday", suggesting that the daughter still has hope, this scene is really not a second away, what acting skills can the three cars have? But they are now like the embodiment of fatherly love.
This story is not based on real events, there is no novel base, but the script can be said to be very round, I did not find any obvious loopholes, I guess some classmates may not understand too much how the father found the police tricksters, here is a brief explanation of my understanding:
The main point is the "fish_n_chips" who chatted with his daughter, he used a girl as his avatar before, but David found that this girl was an actress, the kind that specialized in shooting print material, I used to use this kind of character public material in the advertising agency, David thus knew that "her" avatar did not match the identity, and the police told David that the fish_n_chips was a waiter in Pittsburgh, which ruled out the suspicion.
I guess foreigners may use their own avatars on the Internet, even if they use other people's, they will also use a star and the like, they will not use this kind of "commercial material", the most important thing is that David has drawn the conclusion that the police lied, and the logic can basically make sense.
If there is a bug, it may be how the father can enter his daughter's computer so easily, and the girl of this age must have designed the password strictly not to let adults see.....
There are a large number of works in the history of film that show the Internet, but the attitude towards the Internet is mostly negative, privacy leaks, digital flooding, human alienation, artificial intelligence crimes and so on, as if the Internet is a bottomless beast, sooner or later to devour humans, and "Network Mystery Trail" does the opposite, singing praises to the network.
Director Anish Chaganti, who previously worked at Google, said the film was made to show audiences that the web could also be used to do good. David, an ordinary father, relied only on the Internet to find the clues of his daughter and achieve salvation.
With the same two kitchen knives, you can't say which one is good and which one is evil, mainly depending on whose hand he holds.
I have always been a "progressist", although there are many hidden dangers in the online world, it makes information flatter and more efficient, and there are always new problems, but that is the price that progress must bear. If there is no network, David can only stupidly wait at home for the news of the police, it is the network that gives him strength, otherwise he is useless no matter how much fatherly love.
How careful I am to avoid not to use key plot spoilers, in short, I highly recommend everyone to watch, I give the overall score of 8.5. (MoviePort website has below)
In two months, I will enter this year's inventory month, and I am not ready to take stock of the introduction of bad films, but will set up a "non-theatrical film", and I will definitely put this one in. (I heard that the film side is introducing, I don't know if it can be done, really introduced I want to go to the theater to make up the ticket)
"Internet Mystery Trail" subverts the previous film norms, is a work that belongs to the new era, full of youthful atmosphere, which is not only a problem of good storytelling, but may even be a revolution, and in a few years, the traditional film textbook may be rewritten.
Just now by the news of the ig e-sports competition to win the screen, looking at the young students so excited, although I am not a game fan, but I can also experience the joy of the team I supported in the end. Playing games was considered unprofessional by adults when I was a child, and now I can win glory for my country in top competitions.
It's nice to be young! Shout an ig bull to follow the wind, pretending to be a teenager.