In July 2011, in China where red songs are lingering everywhere, in China where Gen Zheng Miaohong's "The Founding of the Party" is dominating the screen, an American movie more than a year ago was criticized. The form is quietly publicized, solitary and independent, outstanding.
It is the "Strategic Secret Service Team."
At first glance, the translated name thought it was another police action film, but a closer look at the original English name is a different story: unthinkable, unthinkable. Perhaps only those who have seen it can appreciate the cruel meaning of this word, just like the blood-splattered figure on the movie poster with his back to the camera.
Choice: Thrilling or Moral Dilemma?
It is worth mentioning that in 2011, the mainland of China also released another excellent film "The Next Three Days" (The Next Three Days), directed by the famous American director Paul Haggis (written by Paul Haggis in 2004) "Millions of Baby" won the Oscar for Best Picture, and the second year's directorial debut "Crash" again won the honor as a dark horse). This film tells the story of the actor played by Russell Crowe who firmly believes that the wife who is deeply involved in the murder is innocent. After exhausting all the proper methods and nothing can be done, he finally chooses to arrange a prison escape drama, staged a scene of dangerous prison shock. Love, take his wife and go far away. The style of the whole film is sharp and tight, and it is hearty to watch. Although the actor has gone through many hardships, the final choice has no hesitation. The result is also a thrilling, romantic and popular hope. It is quite the chic style of Chinese martial arts novels. As for the legal legitimacy of its approach, it has already been thrown out of the sky by the spectators.
In contrast, the choice in "Strategic Secret Service" is much more tangled.
Former U.S. Special Forces bomb expert Stephen Young was dissatisfied with the U.S. policy towards Arab countries, so as a Muslim, he planned a special terrorist attack. He claimed that three small nuclear bombs were placed in three cities in the United States, which would automatically detonate immediately. Helen Brody, a female agent of the FBI's counter-terrorism department, is responsible for investigating the case. Her team and extremely dangerous negotiator Henry Humphries were ordered to interrogate Stephen. Henry, nicknamed "H", had cruel and harsh methods, and he became more confident with the indulgence of senior government officials. As a result, the torture of this critical confession forced many people into a moral dilemma, unable to escape, and after breaking through the bottom line, they went into unimaginable madness.
Fairness: What should be done?
Professor Michael J. Sandel of Harvard University gave his famous series of open lectures on law "Justice: What Should I Do? "(Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?) ② once assumed a case of "out of control tram": an out of control tram, about to go to a fork in the road, there are five people on the left, and one on the right. Personally, there is no possibility of survival wherever the tram goes. If you are a driver, which side should you choose to turn the steering wheel?
I believe that in this case, most people can make a relatively consistent choice with the help of the principle of "emergency avoidance". The students in the classroom are no exception. Most people choose to sacrifice one person to save the other five. Because the right choice depends on the consequences of your actions, and the consequences of the two actions are obvious. (This is called "consequential moral reasoning theory")
So Professor Sandel changed the conditions and proposed the second situation: Suppose there is only one road in front of the out of control tram, there are five people in front, and there is on the bridge above the road. A fat man, if he can get stuck in front of the car, the car will definitely stop. If you are right behind the fat man and have to make a choice, do you push the fat man down or let five people die?
At this time, the positions of the students on the scene began to diverge and shake like most of the audience. As the situation changed, they began to lean towards To judge the motivation of the behavior itself, not just the consequences of the behavior. So I fell into a moral dilemma: in order to save those five people, can I kill one person? Can homicide be allowed under certain circumstances?
Then, the professor threw out a similar case that was even more entangled: if five seriously injured people are sent to the hospital, they need to transplant several organs to survive; at the same time, there is a relatively healthy patient in the hospital who will definitely be able to get his organs. Save the five people, but he himself will definitely die. If you are that doctor, how should you choose?
In such a dilemma, what is the moral choice? What is the correct approach?
Justice, what is it to do?
Unimaginable: the moral aspect of killing The
situation faced by the "Strategic Secret Service" is far more complicated and dangerous than these few examples. First of all, the US authorities are unable to determine whether the statement made by the former Special Forces bomb expert and now Muslim terrorist Mr. Young is true, that is, whether three nuclear bombs exist? This makes their torture and confession behavior full of contradictions and confusion from beginning to end: Did we exhaust all our principles and end up just because of a joke? Secondly, assuming that nuclear bombs do exist, the possible consequences can be said to be unimaginable if this premise is established. In fact, the U.S. authorities cannot ignore this possibility at all. They cannot afford the lives of thousands of people. This is also the reason why the high-level authorities indulge the "H" who has been trained on the battlefield to force the bomb to fall by any means. This is a war they cannot afford to lose!
H is a highly controversial character in this film. He is not so much an experienced negotiator as a weather-beaten torturer. He knows the harshest methods of lynching, and he is transparent to the weaknesses of human nature, so unless he has undergone special training or has strong willpower, ordinary people can't hide the slightest secret in front of him. It is a pity that both of these points are taken up by Mr. Young, who is one in a million. This is also the reason why H used the last resort that has been criticized.
But H is also a principled person. He is the only person in the film who firmly implements "consequential moral reasoning" to the end. His goal is simple and rude: there are tens of millions of people whose lives are threatened by an unknown person because of one person, so no matter what means are used, as long as these people can be rescued, it is the right choice in the end. Therefore, in his eyes, it is no problem to push the fat man off the bridge and take out the organs of healthy people, as long as the other five people can survive.
Because of the support of this cold faith, H has become the person everyone must rely on in this difficult situation. No matter how cruel his torture is, even if the human rights of the tortured Mr. Young are severely damaged, and even if people around him will jump out to protest from time to time, everything is in vain in the face of the possible consequences of the bomb.
But at the same time, H also knows that although he is not a torture machine, he will not be able to stop sooner or later as the situation deepens. Under such extreme circumstances, the right choice to continue or stop is beyond his control. He is cruel, but he is not a lunatic, so he chose a person who might decide all of this fairly from the beginning-FBI female agent Helen Brody.
Helen graduated from the Law Department of Harvard University, is impartial and has rich practical experience. This role setting has a strong symbolic meaning in this film. In this battlefield without gunpowder smoke, no one can stay aside, so everyone's choices are subtlely mixed with their own tendencies. She is the only one who is not only familiar with the rules of the law, but at the same time upright, compassionate, and forbearing to judge the situation. Isn't she the incarnation of the blindfolded goddess of justice, Thames?
Helen's initial obstruction of H's execution was mostly due to women's unique kindness and justice. She always wanted a humane method to persuade Mr. Young to tell the secret. But as the situation escalated, she gradually realized that the religious extremist in front of her could not be persuaded at all. After he provided false information and killed 53 people, the angry Helen almost turned to her opposite. The knife that enters Yangge's chest is the blade of lynching! But in the end, reason trembled and pulled it out of it.
The turning point in this war should be due to a mistake made by Mr. Young. If he is an extremist religious exterminator, that is not the case, because he still has the only human weakness in his heart, that is his wife and children, so he sent them out of the United States early before acting. But the wise man must have lost his mind. What he didn't expect was that they were stranded because of visa issues.
As a result, the storm began, irreversible.
H said to Young before the final execution: If you want to stop, please tell me now, because what will happen next will be unimaginable.
H strongly demanded that Young and his wife be put on trial in the same room, and threatened to hurt his wife in front of Young. Everyone thought he was just a threat, and I believe that including Yang, at best, it was just harm. But at the moment his wife was about to be taken away, H suddenly took the knife and fell, cutting her throat. She fell to the ground while clutching her neck that was pouring blood in shock.
Young was crazy, the others in the room were angry, and everyone thought H was crazy. He finally broke through the bottom line and explained what is unimaginable: he pushed the fat man off the bridge and dug out the organs of the undead. Whether he can save five people is unknown. And this is just an introduction.
Killing her wife was only the beginning of the collapse of Young's psychological defenses, and he had to rely on his two children to force him to tell the secret. When they were sent into a closed interrogation room where only H was in at the same time, everyone no longer thought it was just a threat, including Yang Ge, of course. So even though he was furious like a beast, he still named the three locations one after another under the constant questioning of Helen.
However, H did not stop because of this, he continued his preparations for torture in an orderly manner in the secret room.
Others started rushing into the interrogation room like crazy, and eventually broke into the door and caught H out. You can imagine the language and attitude of the top US authorities, the military, and Helen, blaming him as a devil. But this man has thrown out a conclusion that is even more powerful than a bomb: there is still a nuclear bomb. Then an extremely dramatic and absurd scene appeared. The attitude of the top American authorities immediately turned to the opposite of 180 degrees, jumping off the moral high ground, and righteously demanding that H continue to interrogate the two children.
As mentioned earlier, H has already seen through the hypocrisy and selfishness of human nature, so he does not believe in the clamor and choice of anyone present, except Helen. Knowing that he was too far from the bottom line, he stopped or continued, he gave the choice to the incarnation of the goddess of justice. When everyone is crazy about the end, the power of how to measure justice is handed over to a third party.
"You can't do this! We are fucking people, if you want to explode, we can't do this!" ("You can't do this! We're fucking human beings. Let the bomb go off! We cannot do this!")
This is Helen's final decision.
Perhaps she pursues "absolutistic moral reasoning", believing that the correct choice depends on a specific moral code, regardless of the consequences. In short, as long as the procedural justice does not matter whether the result is fair or not.
Maybe it was because she was lucky that the fourth bomb was a vain, so as long as she saved the "one person" in front of her first, it would be enough. As for the "five people", it might not be dead, right?
It may also be that her motherhood decisively biased the balance in her heart towards the two children who had lost their mothers at that moment.
In short, she made this choice, and H chose to believe that this decision was fair.
Younger committed suicide, the smoke cleared, and the nuclear bomb was dismantled. But the camera moved to the fourth one hidden in the corner. The ghostly red number counted down to the last moment.
As a result, the old question has not been answered, but the new confusion lies in the mind: who can make the right choice for us?
Helen? government? Supreme Court? Goddess of justice? Or is it, God?
This confusion is like the ending of the film, leaving me helpless and desolate.
July 22, 2011 (
1) Approved films, or "buy-off films", as opposed to the concept of "shared blockbuster films", are a form of China's introduction of foreign films. The former does not use split accounts for distribution in the Mainland. Instead, the distribution company in the Mainland pays a certain fee to the overseas company supplying the film to buy out the mainland distribution rights of the film; while the latter is carried out by all parties involved in the distribution and screening of the film at home and abroad. At the same time, its distribution rights are monopolized by two companies, China Film and Huaxia.
②This is one of the courses with the largest cumulative number of students in Harvard history, and it is also the course with the largest number of participants in a single semester in Harvard history. The British "Guardian" called Professor Michael Sandel "one of the most popular teachers in the world."
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