It's nothing new for a manga-modified movie to want to tie up some mainstream values to add points to itself. In the Marvel series, the Black Panther, who is fighting for racial equality, and the magical captain who is playing the edge of feminism, are all like this. However, when the desire to bind is too strong, and it becomes a kind of urgency to mobilize all resources, then all this becomes too deliberate, and the result will be no better than the slogan of Woo Yusen's slogan " Taiping Wheel is better. This movie is an example.
At the beginning, the director set his own theme direction: women's resistance to men's contempt and dependence, and their search for their own independence. Harley Quinn realized that all her arrogance was due to the clown. When she crashed into the factory where the two fell in love, the picture of the female doctor transforming into Harley in the flashback appeared in parallel, changing the transformation from doctor to Harley. The body contrast has been compared to the second transformation of Harley to an independent woman, and the theme has been fully clarified. In the subsequent films, the director used the main line of "Harry Beats Old Enemies" to convey the theme - from relying on her boyfriend during the clown's girlfriend period, to the current self-independence, Harley used her own strength to achieve that year. Things that can only be done by men. In the prologue of the movie, the director arranged for Harry to be arrogant in the bar, and then quickly let those former enemies hunt down and kill Harry who lost the clown, and they were killed one by one. And Leonis, who was highlighted in Harry's recollection, became the key villain.
However, in this film, the expression of the theme is obviously a bit excessive. At the beginning of Harley's introduction of her life experience and the background of the film, the director even used Harley's confession and animation to explain the first half of her life, rather than narrative. Obviously, the director tried to create a playful atmosphere, so that Harley's non-feminist side of relying on her boyfriend was diluted to the maximum extent. Afterwards, the director hastily arranged the scene of "offending someone as a clown girl, and then responding to her revenge as Harley Quinn again", for fear that his understanding of Harley's contemporary independent female image is not thorough enough. The main storyline against the big boss also constitutes an extension of this expression clue.
It should be said that in theory, this idea is not unworkable, but the problem is that the director's execution is too bad when choosing the expression method and material arrangement. In terms of narration, he excessively wanted to highlight Harley Quinn's independent thought, so he almost completed the narration of the entire film from Harley's subjective perspective. The opening part begins with Harley's self-reported past and the overthrow clown introduced into the title of the movie ushered in a new life. In the introduction of other characters, it also revolves around Harley-everything becomes "After Harley meets other characters", it is completed through the flashback of Harley's memory. And this creates two problems.
First, the narrative logic of the film has been disrupted, from a traditional linear narrative to a non-linear narrative, with too strong jumps. Without the relevant reading foundation of DC comics, it is difficult to form a complete understanding of the characters in it. It is also difficult to grasp the direction of the story.
Second, as the title reflects, Harley Quinn has become the only core of the film, and other characters, whether they are members of the team or the villain of the sandbag, have become the embodiment of Harley's feminist independence. Part of the femininity of the team members is highlighted by Harley's narration introduction, which has become another aspect of Harley's feminism. Halle feminism stepping stone. This kind of single-core operation mode that the whole world revolves around Harley, although it really highlights Harley's femininity, and the technique of forming a supporting role against the protagonist is also very common, but the heat of this film is too much, so that all the characters become Harley's The vassal even lacks the basic integrity of its own role as an individual, not to mention the high-level three-dimensionality. After the jump in narrative logic, the performance of the characters also became intermittent and fragmented. For a film that can only be made well by applying the group portrait technique, it can only be said that it is too much to "take a different approach" to treat all the characters as Harley's subordinates.
The dc movie universe has never been able to handle such multi-character descriptions. Bvs bluntly switches between each character with equal time resources, which is long and clumsy. The skin is scribbled, and the characterization has become a sight of flowers. How to balance the resource allocation of the main and supporting roles, so that the supporting roles become the echo of the protagonist, and have their own independence, so that the two have a good interaction effect, it is the embodiment of the level.
However, compared to the previous work, the characterization of the Birds of Prey team is more serious. Suicide Squad and BVS have their own flaws, but at least they have achieved the general expression of the characters and the basic transmission of the concept of the characters. They are just boring, but they do not confuse the audience. The Birds of Prey team, when the director wanted to give more feminist spiritual ideas, became completely messy, jumping in and out at various time nodes, fragmented, leaving the audience confused and even dizzy.
The essential problem reflected by the director is the inaccurate self-positioning. He has not been able to do the most basic things under this framework, but he has begun to hope for more things. Stylized banter, okay? Of course, this is the consistent characteristic context in the original comics of DC's Suicide Squad and Birds of Prey series, and it is also its precious tone and temperament as an artistic creation. And the film follows this style and turns it into an expression of women's free and easy independent spirit, right? Of course, in "Domino", Tony Scott, with the help of the female killer played by Keira Knightley, also uses a non-linear single-core character perspective to narrate, making everything become the character's memories and monologues, with a lot of timeline jumps And flashback to form a movie, shot cool and chic.
All of this is possible, but only the director of Birds of Prey, not. Obviously, she does not have the ability to control the integration of this complex material under the non-linear narrative, maintain a stylized and convey the spirit, and the supporting roles serve the protagonist without showing a level of guidance.
As a result, the movie has become a kind of twisted existence: I want to reproduce the jokes and stylized black humor of the original work, but from time to time I can't hold back the educational heart that wants to make a big face on the white board.
On top of this, the director has another layer of "oversight": the "experimental exploration" of the dazzling narrative technique itself that goes beyond the scope of his own abilities. One of the purposes of the jumping non-linear narrative is, of course, to make Harley Quinn the only center of the film, so as to concentrate resources and use the joking lines in Harley's narration in the presentation of events and the shaping of supporting roles to advance the characters and events. And Harley's inner strengthening is paralleled, thus highlighting her feminist spirit. But if we look closely at the film, the director's intention is not limited to this. In many rewinding parts of the narrative line, in fact, the appeal of the Halle Center has been completed, but the director still "goes to the next level", so that the time point that has been flashed back is further flashed back earlier, thus making the film narrative more and more become chaotic and complex. For example, in the paragraph that draws out the "Diamond" at the center of the conflict, the director first used the usual "Halley narration" to return the time point to the part where Halle raided the police station. Then, with Harry's sentence "Where is Cain", the timeline jumps back again, jumping back to the earlier Leonis bar, introducing the supporting character Canary, and joining the anti-villain Leo Some of Nice's shaping - if you fail to lure your opponent, you will use violence. What's more, when Leonis communicated with each other, the director even flashed back to the scene of Leonis interrogating someone when he first appeared, making the audience realize that he is closely related to this.
If the director simply wants to complete the narrative around Harley's narration memories, then the last two jumps, especially the flashbacks to the moment when Leonis first appeared, would not make much sense-----Yes There are too many simpler, more orthodox, more accessible narratives. The director did this for nothing more than an experimental narrative exploration and guidance for technical demonstrations----I disrupted the timeline to the point of fragmentation, and now I let you know the target of Leonis' torture before, let me Do you realize that the inner relationship between these two paragraphs is very unconventional?
From a technical point of view, some directors will pursue "narrative efficiency", so as to achieve as much characterization and information as possible in a paragraph. Jiang Tao, the director of "Clockwork City", talked about the importance attached to this point in an interview. This is also a manifestation of the director's directing skills. In this film, the director has obviously been striving to pursue this point, trying to simultaneously complete the revealing of the conflicting "diamond" at the center of the plot, the shaping of the main supporting character canary, and the narration flashback narrative with Harley as the core in one paragraph. The central idea is conveyed and the main villain Leonis is shaped. However, such a fancy technique will undoubtedly test the director's skill level even more. In the hands of the director of "Birds of Prey", this technique not only did not improve the so-called "narrative efficiency", but instead completely broke the narrative line, and the materials and characters were scattered and became a mess.
The director, who was born in New York University, a famous American film school, and whose last work was invested by Jia Zhangke, attracted attention at the Cannes Film Festival. Therefore, this should be an academic director who has enjoyed the masterpieces of various masters in film history and is familiar with various styles. However, the things of the masters can be admired and used for reference, but must not be easily imitated. Once the ability is not enough, the effect of the film is not as neat as a stroke. And this director, obviously still young, can't suppress his desire to "make moves" very well. In the middle of the film, the plot is more than halfway developed, but the introduction of the characters of the members of the Birds of Prey team is constantly flashing back and supplementing. Such a narrative rhythm that is constantly cut and chaotic, obviously makes people see the director's impetuousness of "wanting to be amazed at any time".
And this impetuous air also appeared in the director's way of expressing the theme. Her so-called feminist expression is to make the male characters in the film not have a good person, from the villain Leonis to Harley's friend DOC, from the invisible protagonist Joker to every thug who doesn't deserve a name. All male characters run through the entire film, but their role is simply "appearing everywhere, using all means to bully Harley and other female members of the Birds of Prey team", with a thin face and a dull image----in In a total of less than 5 minutes of appearance time, the old man DOC, who showed a little bit of "feelings for Harry" and "reopening the restaurant", is already the least papery man in the film. Obviously, the director is using every minute and every second to make men bully the female protagonists, and then let Harley and her team completely abuse these men, for fear that the audience will not be able to receive her feminist spirit in any picture. However, at the end, the director tried to arrange a link of "Harley facing Leonis's masculinist ideological blow". It shows Harley's self-determination after finally getting out of the psychology of submissive dependence on men. And this is where the problem arises - before, Harley had a tendency to crush all men, and even her attachment to the clown was quickly annihilated, which made her "getting out of confusion" and "self-determination" at the moment turned into a lack of support. castle in the sky. The director has been trying to convey his feminist spirit, but he has gone too far, and only produced more contradictions.
The more fundamental question is: Is feminism in such a state really appropriate? Is the so-called feminism the complete crushing of women over men? What the director entrusted to this film is showing the limitations and extremes of her and that of the "feminist spirit" in the entire Western world today - this is not equality between men and women, but just an overkill "feminine superiority and inferiority between men", which is not conducive to the ancient times. It's just a throwback to the matriarchal society of the era. Too many feminists today seem to be afraid that their gender will be suppressed, and they are sensitive to everything around them, and everything will be accepted as "insulting women". It is not surprising that such an attitude has been implemented into the film creation, resulting in the excessive desire and excessive force expressed in the theme of this work. Is such a feminist self-confidence, or another kind of lack of self-confidence?
In fact, only in terms of feminist communication, even if it is a linear traditional narrative, it is not impossible to play tricks and see the level. In "Lust and Caution" directed by Ang Lee, he let Wang Jiazhi swing between two kinds of doctrines and ideas. Wang Jiazhi can not only listen to Wang Leehom's nationalist teachings religiously, but also accept Tony Leung's view of "co-prosperity in East Asia". And through the three crucial sex scenes, Ang Lee expressed Wang Jiazhi's true heart—everything she asked for was just pure love. Because of love, she accepts all of Wang Leehom, and because of deeper love, she admires all of Tony Leung. She bears the task that Wang Leehom gave her to assassinate Tony Leung, but this goal is softened in the climax of love and love with Tony Leung. All Wang Jiazhi's behaviors are based on a very simple love angle. In contrast, the men standing on both sides of her became the users of her - Wang Leehom wanted to complete the assassination with the help of Wang Jiazhi's love for him, while Tony Leung escaped with the help of Wang Jiazhi's love. A catastrophe, and at the end personally signed the execution order for Wang Jiazhi. The man took advantage of Wang Jiazhi's love, while Wang Jiazhi, who just wanted to woo, was conflicted between his love for two men and being used. On the sub-line, Lao Wu sacrificed his wife, still chatting and laughing with Tony Leung without being ostentatious, and it also reflected his intention from the side - love is only a part of a man's life, not even the most important thing. part. Ang Lee's idea of "speaking for simple women" reached its peak at the end-Wang Leehom, who was about to be executed, looked at Wang Jiazhi, who was also about to die: Men can never get rid of women's use of love based on their own perspective. The imposition and control of , and derived such a condemnation, "Why do you disobey my orders, don't you love me?" While doing so, men have never been willing to understand more sensual and simple women. Wang Jiazhi's retreat, which dare not look directly, has finally strengthened the misery of women in the use of men "in the name of love".
A similar idea also appeared in Gao Qunshu's underestimated "A Lovely Affair". The heroine played by Yang Ying is in a similar position to Wang Jiazhi. The boyfriend played by Huang Xiaoming tries to get Yang Ying to take advantage of Quan Xiangyu's love to go undercover, but on the other hand, from the perspective of love, he responds to her frequent requests for love and asks her not to empathize. Gao Qunshu made Huang Xiaoming a complex existence: love is part of a man, but career is also another part. And this two-part appeal is imposed on the woman by the man through the control of love. In contrast, Yang Ying is undoubtedly simpler. She is a police officer and has a career part, but in the end she chose a woman's emotional love and stood with the criminal Kwon Sang Woo. At the end, Gao Qunshu made the camera stay on the face of Yang Ying, who had difficulty in childbirth, for a long time, highlighting her pain. This is the pain of the crystallization of love, which symbolizes the ending that Yang Ying's love will not be blessed and only condemned. At the same time, this also constitutes the tragedy of women's sensibility in a patriarchal society dominated by male thinking.
Therefore, whether the theme of feminism can be photographed does not need to be limited to the play of narrative. Traditional narratives can also be brilliant. Playing with narrative and tricks often reflects that the director's qualifications are still shallow and his vision is still low. not working". But in the final analysis, whether it is big ideas, clever tricks, or that sentence, everything needs the director to have that level.
In Birds of Prey, the director tries to express the independent rise of women's rights through Harley Quinn's jokes about the world. But it's a pity that the finished film he shot just made fun of the audience who bought tickets and entered the venue with its fragments after jumping and splitting.
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