Poverty is like a disease, it will be deeply embedded in the genes, from parents to children, it is difficult for anyone to escape. The reason why the film "Going through fire and water" is impressive is that he not only successfully used a modern fable to tell the plight of the bottom of the United States, but also used a satirical method to let people see how difficult it is to break this plight.
Today's people are always shrouded in various sociological terms, such as family of origin, social class, stratification, etc., reminding you all the time that there is indeed a line in reality, this line will separate people into different classes, different identities. Although people of different classes may live under one sky, they have completely different lives, with clear barriers to each other that cannot be crossed.
Even if you work hard, study hard, save money desperately, and want to make yourself or your children cross the class and get promoted through your own efforts, then you will realize how difficult it is to cross the class, the poor are still poor, the rich Still rich, it is difficult to change.
In the film "Going through fire and water", Toby, played by Chris Pine, is a poor man. Not only him, but his parents and grandparents are all poor, and they live a poor life on a Texas farm for generations.
With Toby's generation things got tougher. Because of the economic downturn, Toby lost his job as a natural gas driller and his only source of income. His wife also divorced him, and his beloved child was also taken away by his wife. Even the farms that have been passed down from generation to generation are mortgaged to the bank because of the mother's meager pension. If the money cannot be exchanged at the expiration date, the farm will be taken away by the bank. At this point, the audience can understand that there is nothing left by Toby.
In fact, Toby represents all the underclass people in the United States who have been laid off and left their jobs after the economic crisis, their lives have been destroyed, and they have nowhere to go. After 2008, a large number of people in the United States lost their jobs due to the economic crisis. Most of these people are barely paying their credit cards and various bills with their usual small wages, and they have no extra money to save. Life has no place for them, and once an accident happens, they will be in a desperate situation like Toby. In the film, roadside billboards are used many times to map the plight of this group of people. Most of these billboards say providing emergency loans, or advertising for selling houses, which are the real status quo in the United States after 2008.
And the screenwriter of the film, Tyler Sheridan, hopes to vividly demonstrate the struggles of these underclass Americans through a waiter. In the film, when the waiter found out that Toby's tip was stolen money and needed to be handed over to the police, she strongly refused and told the police that she would not refund the money because she needed it to get her daughter has a place to live.
In fact, Tyler Sheridan was once an American living at the bottom. Before becoming a screenwriter, Taylor Sheridan was an actor who worked in various unknown movies and TV dramas for more than 20 years. The meager salary makes it difficult for him to support his family. He is often forced to give up his family in order to make more movies and earn more money. He can't even watch the children's baseball games.
On the road to screenwriting, Taylor is also a half-way monk and became a talent purely by self-taught. His evaluation of himself is: "I really don't know what it is to write a script, but I have read at least tens of thousands of scripts in my life, and most of them are not very good. So if I avoid the script that The problems that bothered me when I was an actor might just be okay." A simple but wise approach.
And Taylor, who has lived at the bottom for a long time, also gave Taylor a good observation and experience close to the public. In the film "Going through fire and water", in addition to showing the struggles of the underclass in the United States, other issues of brotherhood, domestic violence, the lonely life of the elderly after retirement and racial discrimination are smoothly integrated into the plot, which can always give the audience new insights. surprise.
In addition to the excellent script, the director's use of many large scenes and the costumes of the characters in the play give the film a strong modern western style. In "Going Through Fire and Water", the director used large scenes and aerial shots in many driving scenes to express. The shots are not limited to the protagonist or the interior of a small car, but will use many shots to show the cluttered streets, The endless prairie shows the vast Texas, allowing people to feel the place where western cowboys once galloped. At the same time, the characters in the play are all dressed as cowboys, with cowboy hats, riding boots, a big belt, and a gun. They always use the cowboy colloquial "howdy" to make people feel living in Texas. Si Plain, still preserves the sturdy genes in the descendants of these cowboys.
After "Going through fire and water", Taylor was more ambitious and wrote and directed the film "Hunting the Wind and Valley". In this film, Taylor turns his gaze to the northern border of the United States, focusing on the Native American Indians there. Compared with white people, these indigenous peoples in the United States are more neglected by mainstream society, and various social problems have also been shied away by the government on the grounds of "autonomy", which has become a chronic disease. After the film was completed, along with the previous "Sicario" and "Through Fire and Water," American film critics dubbed the three works written by Taylor Sheridan as the "Frontier Trilogy." With solid scripts and excellent quality, these three films have also helped Taylor Sheridan to build a good reputation. In the future, what kind of works will Taylor, who is good at paying attention to the lives of the underprivileged, bring people to people, it is worth waiting and seeing.
View more about Hell or High Water reviews
