In 2015, director Sean Baker used the iPhone 5S to shoot "Orange" and became famous. The subsequent "Florida Paradise" was highly anticipated from the early stage of preparation, and finally lived up to expectations and entered the top ten of the year by many media and film critics. The cost of the new film is still low, the protagonist is also a lower-class American, and the cast has a group of children, the protagonist is a mother and daughter living in a cheap motel.
Director Sean Baker is a director with a very personal style. From the subject matter he chooses to the shooting method of the realistic life flow, he is very personal, and there is a little poetic atmosphere in the images. This movie is better than the story of the tragic core, wrapped in the outer layer of dream candy. The more tragic the story, the more moving the look and feel. The beauty of childhood and the love of blood thicker than water have nothing to do with how rich a family is.
The director is very good at shooting children, and the performances of the child actors are very mature and natural. The children's joyful adventures and carefreeness endow the film with a very infectious youth and vitality. The above two advantages, even if you feel that this movie has some shortcomings, you may be like me, and you will be moved by it instinctively.
At the beginning of the film, the children appear as urchins, watching them idle around in hot summer days, roaming around on adventures and causing trouble. The filming method of "Florida Paradise" is actually more common in European literary films. This kind of life-flow filming method is to film the daily life of the characters in the film. The director will even deliberately ignore the rhythm of the narrative. The capture of emotions and the display of details are greater than the narrative, even greater than the story.
[The director's task was very hard to shoot the bear child]
However, in the play, Sean Baker also has some different advantages. For example, from the beginning to the end of the movie, every dialogue of the characters fits the scene and environment, very life-like, without any didactic or lyrical. dialogue.
In a foul language, every sentence of the actor is the kind of human language we would say in life, and the language is not sloppy or embellished, which also guarantees the quality of the life flow of this movie.
In fact, there is a huge darkness in this story. A single mother is like a big child, without a job, and financially. But in this role, she is not bitter and bitter, but treats life with a normal heart like a child.
Looking at this mother from the perspective of an adult, she smoked marijuana and drank, went to bars to find a man, tried to find a man to rely on, and finally lived by prostitution. Whenever a client came, she would put her daughter in the bathroom, let her stay in the bathtub and take a slow bath, not to come out.
As for the place where they live, the name is as dreamy as Disneyland, and the buildings are also colorful, and the main color is pink, which is full of girls' hearts. But there are all kinds of people who live here.
[William Dafoe plays a warm uncle]
There is a very interesting scene in the film. When Willem Dafoe, the hotel manager, is painting the walls, he sees a strange old man surrounded by a group of children playing. Willem Dafoe rushed over and, after a series of false excuses from the old man, drove him away.
The movie doesn't say anything about the identity of this old man, and the kids have no idea who this guy is or what might happen, but the adult audience must have a good idea in their hearts.
The innocence of children who don't understand the world is often very lethal in adult-oriented movies, such as Roberto Benigni's "Life is Beautiful", Mark Herman's "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" , or Italian director Pifer's Mafia only kills in summer.
Such a movie can easily become dark and heavy in the eyes of an adult audience. For example, at the end of "Florida Paradise", we all know that the mother and daughter are about to be forcibly separated by the Children's Supervision Bureau, and the girl will be sent to a foster home.
This is how the government is. It is right to use material conditions to decide how to raise a child. When the living environment of the biological parents is not conducive to the growth of the child, the government will not consider family affection, love, and personal circumstances. It just chooses the children according to legal procedures. Material security and living environment.
[The mother and daughter are like a big child and a small child]
The title of the film "Florida Park" corresponds to "Disneyland", a place that children yearn for. Although the children in the film live in a very bad place, in the eyes of these ignorant children, this is the paradise, and their Every day is free, like a wild horse.
For them, life is not hard at all, the world of adults did not affect their childhood at all, they not only grow up healthily, but also in the most natural and primitive way.
As an adult audience, we will use our own set of values to define the real lives and emotions of these children, to evaluate their lives, and to decide what is best for them. To a certain extent, we are like the staff of the US Children's Supervision Administration, because the standards of an adult ignore the own situation of a small number of individuals in this group of children.
There are indeed many suffering children who need to be helped, but it does not apply to everyone. Sometimes family is more important than material security. "Florida Paradise" is such a movie that makes people look after the five flavors.
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