This film review is from the text of Wei Xidi
(the best film at the European Film Awards this year is Polanski's "Shadow Writer", which also won the best screenwriter, director, art direction, soundtrack, actor and other awards. Post an old article)
I love The Ghost Writer, it's cliché, maybe that's the cliché that I like. Old Polanski felt like a skilled tailor, making a perfectly fitting suit, with tight stitching and precise tailoring. What makes this film unforgettable is that this old tailor maintained a sense of handcraft in the era of mass production, with the last light of classical movies. There are many unforgettable scenes in this movie that take us back to the past movie times.
The interesting part behind the scenes of the film is that the 76-year-old was arrested by Swiss police at the airport last year as he was preparing to accept a lifetime achievement award at the Zurich Film Festival in Switzerland. He was therefore placed under house arrest in his villa in the Alps and wore an electronic bracelet. Although it was later released from custody and the U.S. government’s application for extradition was rejected, post-production on the film was delayed until it appeared at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. However, Polanski's skills are still deep, and winning the Berlin Best Director Award is also a well-deserved award. This episode is actually somewhat similar to the content of the movie. The protagonist in the movie, former British Prime Minister Adam Long, was accused of signing an order to torture Iraqi prisoners of war before the International Court of Justice; as a result, he could only stay in the East Coast of the United States. Island, afraid to return to London for fear of arrest. The film is basically completed by British actors, with veteran superstar Pierce Brosnan playing Adam Long and Ewan McGray playing the "shadow writer" of his autobiography.
The whole film revolves around the word "Ghost". McGray's character doesn't even have a name in the movie, and while his "ex-writer" was found dead on the beach, he's like a "ghost ghost," a full-on stand-in. Soon he too will find himself involved in political intrigue until he finds the last ghost behind all the secrets. People sometimes seem to have a vehicle-mounted positioning system, and they must follow the given prompts to drive down the road. The same goes for the character of McGrey, who doesn't carry any emotional baggage, and like this film, Polanski rejects any lyricism. A thriller is a thriller, cool, composed, accurate, elegant, and masterful.
It's a fact that the subject matter is nothing new, and the original work of Robert Harris (who also wrote the screenplay), such political thrillers, are very common in the West. Taking a critical stance on the Blair government following the United States' involvement in the Iraq War is also a basically unanimous attitude among people in the literary and art circles. The film is a bit like Paul Greengrass's new film "Green Zone", offensive, but not critical in a practical sense. So, the point of this movie is not the meaning of the story, or even the plot itself - of course, the progression of the plot is extremely textbook-like, and in my opinion Polanski did not mix any superfluous scenes. In addition, the rhythm of the film is very calm. In terms of pure viewing experience, the rhythm of a movie is like the rhythm of a poem. The length is longer, the shorter is shorter, and the broken is broken, just like breathing. When I watched "Shadow Writer", I felt that visual movement and emotional occurrence were exactly the same. Especially at the end of the film, I believe that everyone who has seen it has left an impression: the scene of passing notes in the crowd, and the scene of manuscript paper flying all over the street - there is only admiration in my heart: this is the taste of a movie.
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