We can talk about it in terms of family disputes and tragedy, like Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian. In the film, the mother resists her son when he is young, and the best display of this resistance is the mother's muttering: "Mommy was happy before Kevin came along" (Mommy was happy before Kevin came along). This resulted in the son's hatred for his mother, and later the intensified psychological paranoia turned into a school torture. In the end, critics can ask, why did Qiyun become a demon in the end? Is it innate, or is it a matter of upbringing? And then you can add a footnote that this is the tragedy of an independent professional woman stuck at home with her troubled son, a version of the Oedipus complex where the parents are swapped: Qiyun loves father, hates mother .
There is nothing wrong with this interpretation, but I am willing to look at the film from a different angle, not just putting the story at the level of family disputes and school tragedy, but at the level of modern American society. In addition to being the son of Franklin and Eva in the film, Qiyun can also be a symptom of American society. This symptom, from the context of the film, was caused by the return of Eva's generation to the normal American society from the restless youth.
In the flashbacks of the film, we see several turns in Eva's life: first she was a free-spirited hedonist, having fun all over the world, and thus hooking up with her future husband Franklin; then she became pregnant and moved to the city She lived and became a professional woman. After her son was born, her husband was dissatisfied with the space in the city and felt that his son should not grow up in such an environment, so he moved his family to the suburbs, with a middle-class image, while Eva became a middle-class housewife.
Eva was forced to accept this reality and lived in accordance with the laws of mainstream American society, while Qiyun became the restless remnant of her life. This also explains why Qiyun resists Eva no matter what she does. It's not a matter of nature or nurture, it's the return of Eva's suppressed restlessness. Eva tried her best to nurture him and have a good relationship with him. From the perspective of symptoms, she was actually constantly bargaining with her remnants, asking him to follow the laws of the mainstream society. The mother and son's game of golf and dinner is the best expression of their bargaining. Eva wants to use this to create a relationship with each other, but during dinner Qiyun does not hesitate to expose how her mother will act, pretending to be friendly, and pretending to have a good relationship with her son.
But Qiyun didn't take this trick, and he didn't take it to the point where his "revenge" was social: he trapped his classmates in the campus sports field, and killed them one by one. When he talked about why he did this after his arrest, it further showed that this social "revenge" was not related to personal problems such as grudges or mental illness, but emerged out of the needs of American society. He said to the effect that if he was just a good boy with excellent academic performance and a few top grades in the public examination, would the society pay such attention to him? Would you be interested in him? But the truth is that the entire information society needs a demon like him, and the media needs him, so there is him. This is the paradox of Qiyun. He is a symptom of the mainstream society's depression and agitation. At the same time, this suppressed return is also summoned by the society, and is a summoned devil.
On the one hand, American society holds high the nuclear family as the core value, but on the other hand, it holds high the banner of freedom. This contradictory banner has formed the phenomenon of modern American society. The confinement of the nuclear family and the desperate pursuit of freedom form a great contrast. , brought a great rebound, we have seen from many news films, this rebound is devastating, just like what Qiyun did.
As a result, what Eva has to bear is not only the grief of losing her husband and children, but also the scorn and even insults of people around her. "Red" and "Scrub" appear constantly in the play. Whether "red" comes from tomatoes or jams or red oil or actual blood, it represents sin, and isn't Eva's constant scrubbing a symbol of sin? From hedonist to urban digger to suburban middle-class women, Eva symbolizes the transformation of a generation of Americans, and Eva, who is wounded in the play, will be the mother who will give birth to the next generation of American sins. ? I don't know if this will come true, but at least it's the director's good wishes.
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