☞The nerve endings of teenagers and the utopia of girls, false gods and stars in the eyes of passers-by
The teenager James also killed his own nerve endings after witnessing his mother's suicide: at the age of eight he fryed his own cloud hands, at the age of thirteen he began to play with knives, at the age of fifteen he played with small animals and slept in rows; at the age of seventeen, he was basically determined to be mentally ill , In the school, I feel that I am above ten thousand people, and the big plan of killing in a small corner is not visible, and one person has been darkened to the point of internal injury. If you can't break free from the darkness, you will become one with the darkness. This is probably the Gothic Buddhist system commonly known in the mourning world.
Alyssa, a girl who is also a mourner, followed the familiar smell and smelled this zombie boy. The girl is very gothic, but the girl is not Buddhist: the uninhibited appearance hides the uneasy heart, and the emotions run rampant without clearing up the clues.
Alyssa still has ideals, she knows where she is going, she is going to a utopia made of ten birthday cards. In Utopia, she will not have to face the hostility of the world, nor will she be separated from her father. The arrow is on the line, Alyssa needs a transport that can be dirty and can walk, and James has got a prey close at hand. Although the two have their own ghosts, they hit it off. The end of the journey would have been irrelevant to James, because any point in the process could have been made by him. Out of strategic considerations and life inertia, he chose to be dragged away by Alyssa first. But as the plot progresses, Alyssa detonates James' unimaginable encounter, teasing his nerve endings in different ways: the indefatigable fight against others, the courage to defend himself, the kisses that come and go, not to mention that scene Ask for a murderous accident.
Since then, James is forced to switch constantly in the revolving situation, while Alyssa in the revolving lamp has become vivid and three-dimensional. He didn't expect that the Sisyphus girl who was always trying to wake others up with screams could sometimes face malice so fearlessly, and sometimes she would be vulnerable to asking others for tenderness. Unconsciously, James began to respond to this need, he was busy like a pendulum: I don't dance in principle, but I can't bear to say no to you first. I don't know what you're angry about, I can only send you a bunch of little yellow flowers by the swimming pool; I'm very good at isolating emotions, but I can feel something in my body just about to move.
It wasn't until he actually got his wish that he killed someone, and James stopped swaying, only to find that killing was not as exciting as he was expecting. Without feeling how everyday this is, ordinary people more or less isolate things they don't want to feel.
And James's lack of feeling has reached a state of emotional closure, which makes him unable to empathize with the outside world or even perceive his own danger (the oil pan as a child and the perverted uncle on the road), and can only continue to experience extreme situations to stimulate own senses.
The father who loves him doesn't know how to treat his children. The incompetence of communication and blind obedience have prevented James' inner appeal from being channeled and fed back. Instead, it has strengthened his "go with the flow" way of life and his extreme stimuli. thirst. Then Alyssa appeared. She happened to be an existence who did not respect personal boundaries, and her emotional expression was very strong, so that she could keep squeezing James' personal space and challenge his perception stereotypes during the process of getting along. To reinject the air from the outside into James' empty heart.
Alyssa was overwhelmed by the murder accident, and her departure suddenly swept away this part of the outside air, making James suddenly discover that he had been living in a suffocating vacuum. Killing really can't bring pleasure, and isolating feelings is no longer easy; I didn't protect Alyssa, but Alyssa has been protecting herself and helping herself re-establish a connection with the world.
At this point in the plot, James has begun to face up to the real needs of his heart, and his growth is half completed. The remaining half of the growth lies in how to make choices under the guidance of the heart. On the other side of the story, Alyssa, as always, with a tragic and solemn objection for the sake of opposition, exerted too much force all the way, and occasionally acted as a true hero: she was caught stealing in the store, and finally found an opportunity to escape, and was on the side of the road again. When I met a little girl who was lost from the store, I could only send her back to myself.
After saving others, she began to worry about the boy who saved her but was left behind by herself, worried that he would be afraid or even die, and worried that she would never see him again. Fortunately, everyone returned to the same place at the same time, he raised his head silently, and she would no longer avoid his hand.
In contrast, Alyssa is more calm and confident about the future than James in the face of danger. Because she always has the destination of this journey: the utopia built by the birthday card. She is luckier and stronger than James in this regard.
Before departure, the beautiful imagination created by the birthday cards is the driving force behind Alyssa's life, and they make her believe in the possibility of being loved in a family without love. Although she was full of doubts about herself, she never gave up communicating with the world. After setting off, she panicked several times, but she always yearned for the sublime and beauty of the end; the subtle thing was that these struggles in the process raised her expectations for reunion with her father, which made her more unbearable the closer she got to the end. Disappointment, the more afraid of disappointment, the easier it is to self-hypnotize.
Children think they are the center of the universe, and their parents are the planets around them. A child who lacks love will feel that because there is no light in the center of the universe, the surrounding planets are drifting away. Eight-year-old Alyssa punished herself for her parents' mistakes until she was 17, suspecting that her entire life was a mistake.
Since reuniting with her father, Alyssa has always wanted to gain recognition from her father, and this obsession has made her ignore that she has come to this day by appealing to kindness and love, which are qualities her parents lacked. . It's just that for Alyssa, being a more complete person than her parents wasn't enough to make up for the crippled childhood. The lost and found experience of fatherly love was so strong that she couldn't see the absurdity in front of her, and it was too late to doubt the truth of the matter.
And the father she has always looked up to may have abandoned countless children in her life, and at the last moment, she would shirk responsibility for her own selfish desires. When Alyssa finally realized the reality that her father never really cared about her, the utopia she imagined was completely wiped out, and her ego almost became as light as a feather.
However, the continuation of Alyssa's universe-centric constitution really allowed James to gradually grow into her protector. James, whose nerve endings have become active again, looks so cute. He has released his nature and unlocked his skills. In the later stage, he has a lot of active participation and emotional expression.
What's even more endearing is that the motivation for his behavior has not changed, and it has always been centered on Alyssa's wishes. At the moment when Alyssa was sobbing and so disappointed that she couldn't defend herself, James not only stepped forward to confront Alyssa's father, but was also sonorous and bloody, like a knight. Yeah, no one knows Alyssa better than James, and he's born again.
Although Utopia has collapsed and James will only build huts again, he gave Alyssa a fairy tale epiphany: You are not valuable because you are loved, but you are worthy of being loved in the first place; star, but you have long been the center of my universe. Looking at Alyssa's full and warm face, I guess her heart is like what was sung in the BGM: There will never be another boy for me like you. There will always be what should be, just as what should come will always come. At the tipping point of adulthood, things finally start to get brutal, when a teenager decides to fight all his sins alone and runs on the beach where there seems to be no end in sight. There is wind in my ears, gunshots behind my back, you are hoarse, and I have no turning back. I just turned eighteen and I think I understand what people mean to each other; there is no worse ending, no better gift.
There are two other characters in the plot that gave me a magical sympathy: female police officer Eunice and gas station boy Frodo. Eunice is a character who silently observes everything with an objective perspective and the feelings of the Virgin like the audience. She investigates carefully, and is very humane. Instigation, it is simply the character of God. In most cases, this kind of god-human design will fall from the sky to redeem the world at the last moment, but Eunice's joy from the sky can't impress the two stupid children who are in extreme pain and on the verge of collapse. This arrangement reminds me of Inspector Willoughby in the three billboards of the recent fire (Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Misouri). After that, the few words he left made everyone feel extremely moved, and finally allowed everyone to reconcile with their hearts. This seems to allude to the fact that Jesus must be nailed to the cross before he can redeem the world.
Eunice is in a much more embarrassing situation than Inspector Willoughby. She seems to be ready to be crucified. I can't help but think about how she lied to her boss, fought against the system, and brought a bowl of chicken soup from thousands of miles away. look. But before she came to sacrifice, Alyssa took a shot at her, turning her from god to cannon fodder.
As the only person who sees the overall situation, her value stops at only conveying two important messages: 1. The parents of the children are worried (the parents are not as bad as the children think, and the adults also need the opportunity to correct and grow); 2. James is eighteen years old today (in the worldly sense, James has bid farewell to the identity of a child, and the staged growth has been completed, so the next choice becomes very critical, because he will bear the same price as an adult, his The behavior will also visualize his growth); Eunice is forced to return the choice to the client. Many times, God is false, and fools do not want to be saved. Perhaps the real growth ultimately depends on oneself to clarify the impulses in the heart and decide the current choice.
Frodo, the little brother of the gas station, has achieved the upgrade of the protagonist from a lost boy to a male and female thief with a very passerby role. Frodo's life is in the state before James and Alyssa left, accumulating dissatisfaction with the life in front of him, and no motivation to act, waiting for an external force to push him out of his comfort zone.
When Alyssa appeared in front of him, Frodo's dead fish eyes suddenly had the look of stars, and when he saw the little girl and the grown-up sneering at the beating face in front of him, he seemed to feel that a breakthrough was in front of him; Then James rushed in too, pretending he had a gun, which was pretty punk. Frodo made a quick decision and defected on the spot.
Then Frodo made a series of attempts for the sake of trying, but it seemed absurd and redundant. Pure venting betrays his boredom and lack of purpose. Alyssa wants to be reunited with his father, James wants to accompany Alyssa to experience rebirth, and Frodo, like most ordinary people or most life states, cannot clarify his inner impulses or decide his next choice.
James and Alyssa would, of course, drive off in stolen cars, and Frodo's life-turning point didn't even say goodbye when he lost himself. When that little spark in his heart was fleeting, he turned back into an embarrassed child again, in a dilemma, and could only run away in a panic. We are so helplessly caught in the middle of imaginary opportunities and watching them live the life we want. Hey, but whoever says the story belongs to them, the world is them before us.
I really like the dark humorous element of this show, it is evenly spread on the surface of the whole show like icing sugar, sweet but not greasy, just right. As an audience, my sense of taste usually erupts in three kinds of memes: 1. Single meme: a strong contrast between the front and the back of the story, the original serious part is finally absurd, or the original funny part is given serious meaning. For example, when Alyssa was worried in front of the mirror that she would screw up and confessed her affection for James before the date, she immediately picked up the picture of James sharpening his knife with excitement, and his smile was completely ruined.
For another example, when taking a ride, Alyssa impatiently said that a weirdo like James would only attract another weirdo, and as a result, he really attracted a perverted uncle, and everyone knows what happened next.
A plot is responsible for the laying out of two or more jokes. This kind of meme is like a whack-a-mole. It cuts the repeated symbols into different situations very well, and it can be unexpected every time. It does not break the coherence of the story logic and can create new ones. Comedy effect, it seems that it is not a big deal, but in fact it is extremely terrifying. For example, James opened the locker of the perverted homeowner in order to send flowers to Alyssa. Alyssa said earlier that the house has no signs of regular cleaning, but there are a lot of suspicious items such as bleach and tape in the locker, which is specially used here. When it comes to close-ups and thrilling BGM to remind the audience that this locker is not ordinary.
So you start to get nervous, what is the origin of the homeowner, will he come back halfway, what does the potential psychopath James see, will he solve Alyssa on the spot. . . Then James turned back! came back! However, they just came back and closed the door, which reflects the excellent quality of the three good boys. The BGM closed, and there was the silent jeering of the bleach and tape behind the door.
Later, after James killed the homeowner, Alyssa ordered James to clean up the site, and the bleach came out again. James didn't know where to find the bleach. In this chaotic situation, everything went inexplicably smoothly, and the two little brats, who didn't know the sky and the earth, thought they could escape smoothly.
When the police came to collect evidence, the bleach came online again, and affectionately gave a big brother a stumble. Although no one cared at the time, it also implied that the two children thought they were perfect, but they were full of loopholes.
James hated his father's incompetence in communication since he was a child. Later, he really gave his father a punch, but when he met someone who cared about him but didn't know how to deal with it, he didn't hesitate to choose to avoid the important and force it to be funny. Because this is the only routine he is familiar with. Alyssa really likes James, obviously she is scared to death or amused by the way he works hard for her. Then everyone can't be humorous, because this kind of communication is one-way and ineffective. James, who is trapped by the original pseudo-humor, is doomed to become the person he hates and to lose Alyssa if he does not make up his mind to change and jump out of this terrible cycle.
Following the connotation of this example, the whole play is about the personal growth dilemma caused by the family of origin. What James and Alyssa are doing is to take the audience to keep looking back at the various long lines buried by the family of origin in extreme events. stem. The audience has an absolute information advantage in the single stalks and serial stalks, and the characters in the play must have blind spots. The arrangement of surprises and the superiority of God's perspective shake out a very good and layered burden, such as the previous Alyssa The single meme prepared for a date with James, the level that makes us laugh is: Alyssa is so serious about her confession, and James is actually sharpening her knife and preparing to kill her (surprise) → Alyssa doesn’t even know (the superiority from God’s perspective).
The long-term stalks are buried too deep and too far. This obscurity flattens the symmetry of the information, deprives the audience of the absolute advantage, and transfers the initiative to the characters themselves to a certain extent. The fate that cannot be escaped is a topic that has been carried forward by ancient Greek tragedy. The long-term stalk of this drama takes this tune and painstakingly contributes to the irony that is funny and makes you laugh. For James, one of the most fatalistic long-term stalks is his father's self-amused attitude to life. Disgust with phenomena has never been a weapon to break through, and who says James' attitude to life isn't another form of self-amusement? His delusion of obsession with killing and the code of conduct that follow the trend seem to be different, but in fact, he implements the same set of things more thoroughly. To put it bluntly, James and his father are the difference between general anesthesia and partial anesthesia.
Only when he faces himself and understands the reasons behind his actions can he hope to break the cycle suddenly. Of course, the process of confronting yourself is quite painful, like James having to revisit his mother's death because that was the beginning of everything. The dazed face of his childhood and his father's stupidity flashed back all the clips that James once thought had no meaning, giving him the feeling of being hit by the head. About to burst his chest. But who said that if you accumulate too much, you will kill yourself? Fate's jokes are so hard to laugh at.
Alyssa's core long-term stalk and her birthday card are both good and evil. Before his father appeared, it seemed to be an artifact that gave Alyssa self-esteem and bravery. After his father appeared, it became a curse that sealed Alyssa's sense of worth. Alyssa was abandoned by her father since she was a child, and her mother's self-esteem level is not high (after marrying a scumbag who is plotting against her daughter, she turned a blind eye), but in this oppressive environment, she has developed a courageous personality to go to Kyushu. .
Alyssa's ability to break out of her mother's tragic life from the start was largely dependent on the hope that those ten birthday cards offered her, telling her that she still had the possibility of being loved on the other side of the world. Whenever she was helpless and confused or had to make a major decision, she would take out the birthday card and read it repeatedly, until she could see her father's dazed expression and the truth that the birthday card was sent by her mother - this kind of pairing. The obsession with the birthday card made her get closer to her father's harm while she was farther away from her mother's tragedy. Alyssa can tell James that he doesn't have to conform to others against his will, and can comfort his parents that his grief is not the child's fault, but she herself has a hard time taking off the rose lenses on her birthday card and admitting the value of her independence. Sometimes, cocooning can save or bind yourself, and the bottleneck that restricts you the most is often what you believe the most.
There was also a straw that broke the camel's back: Alyssa's younger brother suddenly appeared. The feeling of déjà vu made Alyssa revisit and interpret the drama she had abandoned in the past: her father did not look innocent, and the plot was not romantic at all. The truth was so obvious long ago, why is it so elusive. This experience is very similar to James, and it really takes the pain of opening the scar to wake people up.
In Alyssa's family, the tragic origin of the child is the parents, and the tragic origin of the woman is the man. Children are the most innocent, but who said that the mother is not the victim at the same time as the perpetrator? Children and women must save themselves before the tragedy continues.
Alyssa's mother failed to save herself. She went from one abusive intimacy to another. The birthday card may also be a memory for her daughter, and she didn't want her to repeat her mistakes; unfortunately, she saved Alyssa For a while, he killed himself, and finally pushed Alyssa farther and farther. And Alyssa grasped this little bit of false comfort, not only punishing herself for her father's mistakes, but also punishing her mother.
It's okay to say that the mourning version of this drama has no guesses, or the West's White Night Walk, but I admire the writer's vision and chicken thief. The core of the story is obviously a tragedy, but it shows the charm of comedy. Thanks to Channel 4 and Netflix for giving us access to such a great work.
View more about The End of the F***ing World reviews
