The background of the story is set in the middle of the 21st century. After a large-scale meteorite fall, alien creatures came to the earth to reproduce and survive, and they are called monsters by humans. The locals call the area controlled by the monster an infected area, and there are no traces of humans there. The infected area on the balloon is located in most of Mexico, near the southern United States, and is an expanding area. The monster is not as cute as described in "ET", but as its name suggests is a 20-meter-high multi-tentacled behemoth. In front of such a behemoth, human beings seem extremely small. In order to limit the range of monsters' activities, countries surrounding the infected area have built high walls. The tall walls encircled the actions of the monsters and cut off the escape route for the people of the infected country.
A VCR of an American soldier kicked off the movie. This squad is on a mission, and the video shot at night is a bit blurry, and the neighing of monsters in the picture one after another. The squad was attacked by monsters. The huge monsters easily knocked over an off-road jeep with their tentacles. In the chaotic picture, a man without camouflage hugged a motionless woman and shouted "Help". Then the camera turned and the story was officially opened.
The story takes place in Mexico. The heroine Sam, the daughter of an American publishing house tycoon, is trapped in the southern Gulf of Mexico for some reason. The protagonist Andrew is an anonymous reporter of Sam's father's newspaper. He was sent to the infected area to take photos that reflect the local "reality" and brought the boss' daughter Sam back to the United States. They each have their own stories, and they met in this chaotic social reality, one for career, one for hobbies; one with their own broken family, one with a fiance who doesn’t love each other, one man and one woman come together . Love seems inevitable. The two people got on the train bound for the port, not wanting that the train changed the destination on the way, and also changed the two of them. In order to catch the latest boat, the two hurried to the port on foot. Just as Sam was about to leave by boat, Andrew found that Sam's passport was missing. Sam lost the opportunity to board a boat. In desperation, Andrew decided to take Sam across the edge of the infected area, overturned over the huge wall built by the US government, and returned to a safe motherland. Like all heroes to save the United States, Andrew took Sam to the edge of the United States.
The process is thrilling and tortuous, but it always gives people a premonition of success. At the end of the movie, the two temporarily live in an abandoned gas station. Facing the separation, the two people slowly opened their hearts. The goodwill accumulated along the way burst out at this time, and their emotions reached a climax. At the same time, two monsters that met by chance appeared next to the gas station, and the neighing noises one after another cut through the quiet border area, breaking through the constraints of the story. In the end, a U.S. army found Sam and Andrew who had been suffering for a long time. Before being taken into the car by American soldiers, Sam said to Andrew with tears, "I don't want to go", and love broke out of the cocoon. However, the ruthless soldier unquestionably took the two into the jeep, looking flustered. In the scene where the car is driving farther and farther, the movie is over. However, something terrifying happened. The dialogue of the film dubbing made people instantly understand that this is the squad that was attacked by monsters at the beginning of the movie. The end of the story is obvious: Sam and Andrew have suffered misfortune, and their lives are uncertain.
In the heavy closing song of the movie, I began to recollect this story. I was pleasantly surprised by the twists and turns of the ending design of the movie, and marveled at the tremendous inner shock that the movie brought to me. Frankly speaking, "Monster" is just a small episode compared to the internationally renowned sci-fi movie blockbusters. The total production cost of this film, which was completed in three weeks, was only $200,000. The director not only writes the script himself, but also handles the camera himself, even the art and special effects are all handled by himself. The shooting angle is light and gentle, and the whole movie looks more like a documentary. The audience is the witness of the whole incident, quietly watching how human beings struggle on the already unrecognizable earth, as if this is the real life around them. No surprises, no shocks, this is life. There are not many dialogues between the protagonists. Many times the camera just looks at them silently, watching them stare outside, watching them look down their way, watching how they frown in order to get out of trouble. The director took the logic out of the movie, so that people slowly got used to it. This kind of "don't ask why this is the case, this is unchangeable" has penetrated into the minds of the audience, and everyone is slow to connect the upper and lower shots. Slowly relieved. Through the protagonist's perspective, the audience slowly sees the scars of the earth and the gap in the fate of mankind.
Many people criticize the crudeness and cheapness of movies, but I think it is precisely because the director has built a crude movie space that gives people more energy to pay attention to the connotation that the actors want to express in their behavior. Just imagine, if the movie shows a bloodthirsty and ferocious ugly monster when the monster strikes, will the audience's attention stay on the protagonist? I don't think it will.
Gorgeous special effects can bring us the most direct visual experience, allowing us to see clearly the blood vessels of the monster and its hideous face, but let us not see the human world occupied by the monster. It is precisely because there are no such behemoths in our lives that we are astonished at the desperate world described in the movie, where we can hardly imagine what the order of life will be. Although the exquisite and realistic computer production made the audience enthusiastic, it overwhelmed the audience and took away the performance of the actors, leaving the audience broken time to reflect on their inner feelings. In "Monster", the neighing of monsters sometimes sounded, but it did not interrupt people's lives. Even the monster that attacked the protagonist on the mountain road only showed a few tentacles, and was still waiting to show it. Without scary monsters, the audience quietly followed the protagonist’s line of sight to browse the world there. We saw broken cars on mountain roads and scattered corpses lying on the ground. There is no description of the process, just through a lens we know that they were attacked. In order to survive, those who have encountered misfortune risk driving through the infected area, imagining that the high walls of the United States can open an outlet for their lives, but the bloody reality has forever sentenced them to death.
Just like the driver said, "How can life be? It's the same. Anyway, it didn't get any better before." The existence of monsters only adds a death threat to the world, while the indifferent wall in the distance makes longing. The surviving people feel cold. The scary ones are not the monsters whose whereabouts are unknown, the scary ones are the selfish and indifferent souls. Perhaps we can say that what the director is accusing is not of the huge differences between natural species, but of mapping the unequal living conditions between humans. Isn't it the political and economic oppression of Mexico by the United States that caused the tragic fate of the refugees in the film? Isn't it the high wall that cuts off the people and monsters of other countries?
Why should we pursue pleasure? Gorgeous soundtrack, magnificent shots, and exquisite makeup can give us short-term sensory feelings, but they can't touch the deeper parts. On the contrary, in the plain narrative technique, from the bit by bit of subjective feelings, the audience can nurture the feelings that start from the heart. In this kind of calm psychological fluctuations, it suddenly became clear. The director's meditation feast for the soul gradually exudes the fragrance of human beings. After the bombardment of many commercial blockbusters, a small literary and artistic film has actually gained the power to knock on the heart, which is amazing. I only hope that the filmmakers can understand the meaning of the film, capture the excitement in the impetuous modern life, and pass it on to the complex society.
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