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(The author is Yunzi, special commentator of "Litchi News", film critic, executive producer, director of Jiangsu Film and Television Critics Society; this article is an exclusive manuscript of "Litchi Network" and its "Litchi News" mobile client, please indicate the source when reprinting.) ）
For a long time, no world war-themed film masterpieces have appeared. So, when the French film Goodbye to Heaven recreates miles of trenches, bullet holes, barbed wire, smoke, wreckage and corpses in an epic way, it's hard not to be blown away. The high-altitude shot through a blood-colored wasteland, a military dog in khaki uniform, and a lifeless slaughter scene, brought a message to the exhausted French soldiers in the trenches: truce.
Is this good news? "Goodbye in Heaven" gives a surprising answer. In war, the last to die before the armistice is far more tragic than the first to die at the time of the war. Just as peace was approaching, French Lieutenant Pradel, disgusted by the armistice order, sent two young soldiers in broad daylight to reconnoiter the German enemy camp, which not only killed them, but also triggered another terrible and vicious battle. In the rain of bullets, Albert was buried by a shell, and his young friend Edward dug him out, but he himself was blown away. When he woke up, his jaw was gone.
Albert and Edward are a strange combination, the former a conservative middle-aged man and the latter a romantic artist. Albert furrowed his brows worriedly and fought desperately for survival, and Edward's expressive blue eyes peeked out of a mask painted with a figure-eight beard to construct this fascinating, bitter story.
"Goodbye from Heaven" is a drastic refinement of Pierre-Lemaët's original novel, but the film is still full of huge historical details, pinpointing the characters' feelings of pain and resentment, even if the plot is driven by huge coincidences, and the relationship between the characters has been rectified, but it has lost its charming magic - in the cruel fate of Albert and Edward, there is no lack of funny and humorous life. In such a grand film, the over-dramatic story flow and exquisite and luxurious scenes are irrelevant, what is important is that every time Edward changes his mask, we can penetrate his extreme loneliness and entanglement.
Also an anti-war film, "Goodbye to Heaven" has long ceased to revolve around the war itself like "No War on the Western Front", and its lethality is more hidden and full of irony - when the returned soldiers endure the torture of hunger and poverty, France spends thousands of dollars to commemorate the fallen soldiers. It's a fairly serious subject, but as a director, Albert Dupont Thiel refuses to indulge in it, instead injecting elements of magical realism into the film, Edward seems to have the ghostly physique of the male protagonist of The Phantom of the Opera, but his encounter is more likely to make the audience empathize, and it is regrettable that he would rather "die" and fight the patriarchy unyieldingly.
Duponte, who directs and stars (who plays Albert), adopts the visual tone more common in French cinema in his visual style, adding a more serious tragic atmosphere than "Angel Amelie" and faster in narrative rhythm than "The Long Marriage". If the character portrayal is thin, this brush-and-stroke audiovisual style may cause aesthetic fatigue, but in "Goodbye in Heaven", there are enough solid characters and stories to keep the audience excited. In addition to the two male protagonists, Lieutenant Pradel, who is the villain, is particularly brilliant, he cheated the French government with the contract of burying the fallen soldiers, made huge profits, and even married made a young lady of the Edwardian family, Madeleine- the war maniac is still the winner of life after the war, which is the most real and complete horror.
It is a "luxurious" work, and even when it presents the killing scenes on the battlefield, the picture is very elaborate. But Dupont terre did not waste these expensive shots, the strong contrast between chiaroscuro and dark, the contrast and conversion of virtual reality, all contain the director's ingenuity on the character and the motivation of behavior, making the charm of the film very different from that of Hollywood commercial war films.
"Goodbye from Heaven" swept five awards at the César Awards for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography, and was one of the most overlooked blockbusters last year. In terms of actor performance, Naville, born in 1986, is particularly outstanding, his role of Edward is a complex role that was pushed into the abyss by the war and refused to "reconcile", and he used "half a face" to play a fascinating role without being nominated for the César Award for Best Supporting Actor, which is a great relic.