(Text/Ghost Foot Seven)
In 2010, a [Pirate Dream Space] turned out, not only became the annual hot spot, but also became synonymous with almost all complex narratives and brain-burning blockbusters. However, all genres follow specific rules. From the continuous evolution of the game, the culmination of [Inception] is also on the basis of a large number of previous works, and David Cronenberg's [Sensual Games] is also one of them.
Other Ways
of Inception The story about "dreams" has always been a frequent visitor in film history. As early as the pioneering film period of the 1920s, Dulac's masterpiece [Smiling Lady Buddy] had already begun to play between dreams and reality. The form game of mutual insinuation, coupled with the golden figure plated in Freud's theory, the dream film consciously assumes the sacred task of digging people's inner space. Since entering the last 20 or 30 years, the original traditional themes have undergone some interesting changes. In addition to more fancy techniques and realistic visual effects, the theme of dream movies is inevitably "modernized". The rigidity of modern society and people The tense relationship with people, the excessive development of technology, and the important proposition of modernism-the alienation of people, are increasingly appearing in this already strong surreal movie theme, whether it is Jin Minna The part is recognized as the "original [Inception of Dreams]" [Red Pepper], or a remake of [Vanilla Sky] from Spain, even including [Chumen's World] which is apparently unrelated to dreams (who can say What is the difference between Truman's life and dreams? They all point the contradiction, or the underlying reality of the film, to the most typical representatives of modernization: high-tech, mechanized people, and modern media. These cold systems and machines not only distorted our reality, but also distorted our fantasy.
The 1999 [Sensual Game] held the same worries and reflections. The film builds the story on another typical representative of modern technology-computer games. In addition to the narrative skills, Cronenberg will still relentlessly create modern technology that can create illusions in both the inside and outside of the story. Pushed to the trial bench, both in the game and in reality, the madness of over-indulging in hallucinations led people to blood. Particularly ironic is that in the last scene of the film, facing the muzzle pointing at his black hole, the Asian boy hesitantly asked, "Seriously, are we still in the game?" This question and we look at [ The problem with the last spinning top in Inception is the same, except that Cronenberg has turned to the opposite of warmth. This naked cruelty and fierceness is more telling the audience about the terrible new technology. It It can allow endless venting of emotions, killing and doing evil at will, as long as you press the switch, you can cancel it in one stroke. This is a problem that has caused the exhaustion of countless scholars. The double-edged sword of science and technology not only cuts our bodies because of environmental pollution and overdraft of resources, but also threatens human consciousness because of such high levels of out-of-control development. In the film, as Ted returns to "reality" from the second game (actually the first game), he faces a deeper reality crisis. From physical damage to death, Cronenberg is in this In a layered sense, the virtual world’s backlash against the real world has been demonstrated. Furthermore, when these gamers return to the real reality from the first game, the audience seems to think that the previous deep despair is just A momentary illusion, when it was just a "virtual scene", Cronenberg smashed this illusion again, and for the second time, the internal overflow of alienation will be fully displayed. In fact, compared to the first visible external damage, the deeper distortions of human nature shown on the real level are even more shocking.
Returning to the history of film, it is not unreasonable for us to regard [Sensual Games] as the predecessor of [Pirates of Dreams]. Although it is impossible to confirm whether there are inherited elements in it, the mutual comparison of the two texts themselves has shown a unique interest. Starting from Hollywood movies that are relatively more mainstream and at the same time more conservative in terms of values, what Cronenberg with a unique taste shows is indeed a true "Pirate Dream", a dream of human innocence stolen by the abnormally developed modern technology. .
Reality rift
In stories about dreams in dreams, narrative is always a big issue. Where to start and how to start is directly related to the quality of the whole story and the quality of presentation. The overall story of [Sensual Game] has become more and more adapted to the audience of complex stories. At the beginning of the film, Aliga and Ted were in the press conference of the new play "eXistenZ". The assassin who suddenly rushed out caused chaos on the scene, and Ted and Aliga had to start fleeing. The structure of this layer of the world does not arouse too much suspicion from the audience during the viewing process, even if the weird bone gun and fleshy game drive make people feel awkward, but in the preset future world, any weird The settings have become acceptable. Ted and Aliga entered the second layer of the game in order to test whether the drive is damaged. This layer of the world is more obviously with virtual features, weird characters, scenes with strong sci-fi colors, and jumps. plot. When Ted returned from the game for the first time, his bewildered performance was one of the results that Cronenberg intended to show. It was because the experience in the game was so real that Ted felt huge panic after returning to reality. For the first time, the boundary between reality and virtual has been blurred. And the way the game drive in the movie operates is to connect the data cable to the nervous system through a "socket" on the waist of the person. It has also become a huge symbol of the virtual world manipulating the human spirit. This symbolism is very intuitive, and that ugly distortion. The game drive of the game has formed a weird metaphor, which can almost be regarded as the embodiment of modern technology in the eyes of Cronenberg. It is powerful, everyone has it, and more importantly, it is "living". Therefore, when Aliga and Ted sink into the game after connecting the driver, the relationship between the two living entities-human and the driver becomes a direct reflection of modern society: technology is out of control, and humans can only be at their mercy.
Of course, as the two go deeper and deeper in the game, this sense of crisis intensifies. When Ted inexplicably shot the waiter in a Chinese restaurant, this kind of killing fueled by the virtual world has begun to get out of hand. The audience, or the last antidote that Cronenberg left here, is that we know that these characters are in the game, so we unconsciously adopt an attitude of forgiveness-note that it is precisely this attitude of tolerance. The audience's tolerance for the character and the character's tolerance for their own behavior are eroding the final warning line. In the last part of the film, after Ted and Aliga withdrew from the game, they were involved in an inexplicable war. Faced with a friend who had betrayed him, Aliga shot him mercilessly. Ted asked "If We are not in the game, you really kill people", but Aliga replied indifferently, "He is just a character in the game." For the same reason, Aliga jokingly killed Tai De, then raised his arms and shouted "I won". When we saw this, we were easily deceived by the previous story, thinking that Aliga had indeed confused reality and the game, and killed him in the real world. People, although this does not conflict with the theme of the film, Cronenberg continued to go around in a circle, and when everyone in the game finally returned to the real reality, we, the audience, instantly forgiven Alica for what he just said. Behavior-because it's just a game. These two indulgences inside and outside, Aliga thinks she is in the game and kills at will, and the audience thinks that she is in the game so killing does not exist. Together they constitute a calm before the end, which forms a huge contrast with the final ending. .
Maybe we can also hypothesize, as the boy asked at the end, if they are still in the game, then whether their actions can be understood. In fact, such a question is meaningless. The alternating cycle of reality and game can go on indefinitely. The indisputable thing is that it is precisely because the erased boundary between reality and illusion is distorting our feelings and morals. The dislocation and overlap of the two worlds eventually swallowed humans themselves.
Cyberpunk and Utopia
The term cyberpunk is formed by the combination of cybernetics (cybernetics) and punk (punk). Long before this style was introduced into the movie circle, as a branch of science fiction, it is very important for artificial intelligence and computer technology. The description of the destruction of order brought about is always the main feature of this style, and the dystopian world constructed by cyberpunk is permeated with strong pessimism. This kind of worry about the uncertain future is in cyberpunk. The punk movies are more and more unabated. Beginning with [Blade Runner], "I have seen things that you humans cannot believe" almost expressed this sense of despair to the extreme. All regrets for humans’ limitations in their own intelligence, short life, and weak strength have evolved into An illusion about the power of science and technology that can last forever. It is naturally a very attractive proposition to assume how these eternal time and technology will in turn control mankind.
As mentioned earlier, Cronenberg’s narrative tricks were enough to deceive most of the audience at the time. The real world that has been relieved of the crisis on the surface is still in peril. After establishing all the perfect assumptions, Cronenberg gave the deepest again. Despair. The real-world game designer in the film suddenly foreshadows this crisis after the game experience is completed. This approach that can almost be regarded as an alternative to the author’s appearance is actually outside the entire narrative, the expression of the cyberpunk style background. . In 1990, the main theoretical representative of the cyberpunk school, Bruce Stirling (Bruce Stirling) Sterling) said in response to a question from a reporter from Locus that digital hallucinogens will replace physical hallucinogens. This was only a prediction of bold guesses at the time, but a few years later, Internet addiction has spread all over the world, almost becoming a disease that most people are infected more or less, and Stirling’s own representative novel One of the "Sea of Hearts" is the story of people who are endlessly immersed in psychedelic and finally destroyed. This habit of entrusting people's own consciousness and autonomy to the outside world (whether material or digital) has become a modern social person. The basic behavior, and even enjoy it. In [Sensual Game], one of the necessary conditions for participating in the game designed by Aliga is to install a "socket" on the person that can be connected to the drive-a hole drilled in the waist, connected to the spine. As mentioned earlier, this design exists as a symbolic meaning of the relationship between technology and humans. On the other hand, because Aliga is popular as the "video game queen", people who install "sockets" on their bodies are everywhere, so much so. Riga gave a surprised expression when she heard that Ted hadn't installed it. Before they entered the game for the first time, there was a process of installing "outlets" for Ted. Here we can see that the weird game drive is enough to arouse our disgust, and the opposite is Aliga Take care of it. The short appearance of the oiler played by William Dafoe also intensified this disgusting contrast. The oiler installed Ted a "socket" and used a gun-like tool to drive the "socket" into his body. With a very intuitive sense of intrusion, Aliga couldn't wait to connect the drive to Ted's body, which made us feel uncomfortable. Cronenberg strongly hinted at this almost parasitic relationship here. Alica not only regards this drive as a treasure, but is also willing to recommend it to others, connecting everyone in the virtual online digital world. , The visual stimulation and sensory aversion in a synesthetic way reflect our fear of this kind of technological development that is counterproductive to the human world.
Of course, the meaning of cyberpunk itself is constantly expanding. In the famous "Cyber Culture Reader", Prometheus the fire thief, Columbus the discoverer, and the 19-year-old German youth who drove a single plane to break through the blockade and land on Red Square, Both are called "cyberpunks", and they have similar things in common, their pursuit of equality and resistance to authority. At the end of the film, Ted and Aliga killed the game designer because "you should be punished for distorting reality", and then chanted "eliminate the pilgrimage company" and "eliminate the devil Norish (game designer)". From this point of view, they have used the means of being alienated to eliminate the source of alienation. It doesn't matter whether it is right or wrong here. Cyberpunks hope to purify this dirty world, but here, they can't even find a pure method.
The sense of strange taste
David Cronenberg’s unique and strange style in the world film industry has long been known. In [Sensual Games], these strange links are far less than what he showed in his fantasy horror films. It stands out, but still hides his unique bridge in the details. What’s interesting is that, as the opposite of modern media, the problem addressed by the film includes the over-rendering of sensory stimulation in the virtual world that has been over-realized. From the [History of Violence] and [Oriental Promise] from [The Fly], [Naked Lunch] to the previous two years, sex, blood plasma, carrion, bugs, and violence are always indispensable elements in his films.
The most striking thing is that in the second game world in the film, Ted and Aliga order a "special meal" at a Chinese restaurant, a large plate of slimy and disgusting bugs, and Ted complains. "This is really disgusting." While chewing on the game settings, for Cronenberg fans and diehard cult film fans, such heavy-tasting scenes are undoubtedly the most enjoyable setting in the film. There are many similar designs, such as mucus-stained fish in the slaughterhouse and bizarre amphibians in the water. Even game drives like a placenta and bone guns made of animal bones are of special interest to certain movie fans. In the sequence of science fiction movies, such scenes undoubtedly have the same subcultural pleasure as the three-breasted prostitute in "Total Recall" or Jabba the Hutt in "Star Wars". Cronenberg's natural taste gives him a special sensitivity to such strange elements. In other words, Cronenberg itself is one of the leaders of this niche culture. Although this kind of fun may only be appreciated by a very small number of people, Cronenberg himself doesn’t seem to mind. His consistent style over the years has become his personal label, as in [Sensual Game] Like the strong hint of the action of entering the data line, these little tricks of Cronenberg will make his fans smile, and it will be difficult for others to accept. The unpopular appreciative taste has established a relatively pure fan circle. No matter how the subject matter of Cronenberg's works changes, the independent style and cyberpunk spirit will always continue.
[Sensual Game] Released in 1999, although it was nominated for the Golden Bear Award and Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film, its position in film history was far hidden under the landmark work "The Matrix" of the science fiction film released in the same year. . Although there may be people admiring it, such as the "San Francisco Chronicle" declared that "Compared with this dark and sexy science fiction thriller, "The Matrix is a pediatric", [Sensual Games] continues to maintain its low-key identity, for For those fans who love it, perhaps this is a better position.
Originally published in "Watching Movies" in February 2014
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