I always thought that the success of a movie depends on the mutual assistance of the story itself and the expression of the picture, until I saw Bergman's "Masquerade". This film, which is stripped of the story, has climbed to the altar only by relying on screen scheduling and character expression. Ingmar Bergman's virtuosity in using pure images attests to the irrational allure of cinema.
The multiple images that flashed at the beginning, the random jumps, and the loud and sharp background sound quickly pulled people into a state of unbearable horror; and the little boy who appeared later, when he reached out and touched the screen, Tranquility calmed the restless heart. One by one, the sensory nerves are moved, and the mood is free from the screen. Obviously the director didn't want the audience to jump into the story too quickly, pushing people away indifferently.
The feeling of oppression brought by the film does not come from the seriousness of the story itself, but from the constraints of the monotonous picture, which troubles the audience. What kind of story is this? The minimalist picture and the blank background force people to focus on the expressions and body movements of the protagonist. The heroine has been lying quietly on the hospital bed with her beautiful eyes wide open, and all the feedback of the information is reflected by the language and body of another leading female nurse.
An aphasia, a talkative, and an interesting confrontation also constitutes an ingenious balance. The story progresses slowly, the soft light shines on the heroine's face through the transparent window screen, and the gradient of light and dark contrast reveals that time is slowly passing. And the close-up of the scene that is frozen somewhere, frame by frame, pulls some kind of tormented movie-watching emotion.
As the story progresses, the two move to a secluded island; the villa, sunshine, and coast form a warm and peaceful picture. In the day and night, the relationship between the two has changed from strangeness to closeness, from alienation to entanglement. Recuperation is a medical treatment method. It guides the patient to recover by observing the relaxation state of the patient when they are in a good mood, and observes and records the condition at the same time.
But at this moment, the identities of the two have quietly reversed. The female nurse took off her psychological guard after being drunk and confided her secret past to the actress. The observer becomes the observed, and the patient acts as the listener, recording silently. The female nurse's inner pain and crying led to the heroine's first line.
The two people in the room are leaning against each other, and the camera slowly zooms in, magnifying the subtle expressions of the two, forming a strange and coquettish scene. The atmosphere is confusing but wraps people in an indescribable horror. Such a dreamlike scene was denied by the hostess shaking her head the next day, and inadvertently, the nurse opened the actress' private letter, pushing the story to a mysterious end.
The female nurse takes the place of the actress in the scene, and the actress's husband calls out his wife's name to the female nurse. The faces of the two women overlap each other, and the audience can no longer distinguish the boundary between reality and dream from the picture, thus giving birth to doubts about the true identities of the two, and thus the whole story. The inability to obtain clear textual information from the images will cause confusion to the viewer. The emotional logic carried by the film pulls people out of the rational area and throws them into the emotional vortex.
In an episode of the Round Table Pie, it was mentioned that the Japanese love "Yishang", and the fresh fish caught from the sea are brought to the table after simple processing, and the experienced Laotie can pass through a thin slice of fish even if he closes his eyes. Fish texture to identify the type of fish. Without the aid of condiments, just relying on the freshness and sweetness of the food itself, this return to the natural taste of the ingredients is the natural taste.
Bergman's "Masquerade" also has this pure cinematic flavor, a movie made for movies. Although the expression of a movie comes from the creator's thinking, when the movie is created, it has nothing to do with the creator, because how to recognize and interpret it is a puzzle before the audience. At this time, it doesn't matter whether the story is wonderful or not, and how to get the most real answer becomes the only goal.
The charm of movies is that a puzzle often has many solutions, and sometimes the most inexplicable solution is the most suitable solution.
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