During World War II, Italy was a strange one, changing from axis to alliance and from alliance to axis. When the mechanized iron hoofs of Nazi Germany ravaged Eastern and Western Europe, Italy, which was not industrialized, could not even settle down with Ethiopia in the primitive society. Various jokes on the battlefield added a touch of cuteness to the bloody World War II. The film unfolds against such an era background, telling the audience the joys and sorrows of a small town in Sicily through the perspective and subjectivity of an adolescent boy.
The protagonist is a beautiful woman whose husband is a soldier. Under the fascist tricks, she went overseas to work for the country. As a soldier, she lives alone in her husband's mansion, becoming the most beautiful and obscene man in the town. The target, a bunch of small town women poking behind their backs. A 12-year-old boy (the other protagonist of the film), under the action of hormones, directly used her as the catharsis object of his sexual fantasies, expressing all kinds of naturalism. Unexpectedly, the bad news came that the husband was killed in the battle, so there was a lot of trouble in front of the widow, and the adult men in the town who had wives and no wives seized the opportunity to squeeze over. Huang jokes are flying all over the sky, the people's emotions are stirring, and the whole town is not calm. To make matters worse, the government cut off the pension of the martyrs at this time, and the widow could only save herself. Being raped by lawyers for not being able to pay legal fees in a lawsuit; being unable to buy food (1, no money, and 2) being taken advantage of by black market spoilers; Affected by the one-sided public opinion, both the father-in-law and the biological father refused to help... In the end, they could only sell to the local German garrison, which was a process of properly forcing Liang to become a prostitute. The only hormonal boy who truly sympathized with her experience was powerless to help, and went to church again and again to ask the Holy Spirit to bless her.
Sicily was occupied by the U.S. military, and the women in the town finally found an opportunity to vent publicly, beating and criticizing in the street, stripping their clothes and cutting their hair. The masses of the people vented their joy, and the heroine left by train. The twists and turns, the war ended, and her husband came back alive, losing an arm. The ancestral house became a refugee camp, and his wife disappeared. The U.S. military doesn’t care. The local government personnel (or from the fascist period, but they are already anti-communist activists and the United States and the United Kingdom are in the same boat) do not ignore the demands of this former “fascist” soldier, and they beat him with a punch. Flip over the steps of the square, and then walk away. The tragic climax of the chaos is not the end of the film. Guided by the little boy's emotional monologue, the one-armed man boarded the same train that her wife had escaped from the town; soon after, the two reappeared in front of the town's public hand in hand. Like an ellipsis instead of a period.
The heroine's experience is actually experienced by others. The selfishness of the petty citizens is the foundation of populism, and populism loves and hates fascist dictatorship. Love is because fascism usually has the most direct incitement element to anesthetize the audience's emotions, and hate is because the real rule of fascism most violates legitimate human rights. Moderate authority is most likely to be challenged and overthrown by populism, but when a powerful dictatorship develops into a fait accompli surrounded by populism, the mentality of populism against authority will collectively turn to vulnerable groups for balance. The small town has all these social and environmental conditions, the strong men are recruited, the labor force is lacking, the industry is depressed, the world war makes everyone feel insecure, and it is necessary to divert attention from all the negative factors. A beautiful woman naturally becomes the crowd The object of attention and the target of public criticism. The jealousy among adult men is not so much a lustful need as a psychological imbalance after the loss of the overall sense of security in society. On the one hand, they hope that the victory in the battlefield can protect the peace here, on the other hand, they also know the real situation of their own army and are unwilling to do so. Paying more for a war with little hope, playing with a visible low-cost target is the best catharsis to kill boredom. A man is the same as a woman. If you seduce my husband, I will run you on the details of life. Vixen everyone shouts that there is no moral pressure and pleasure. The total energy of the entire town's attack against a single person is huge, and each individual participating in the group fight does not have to do their best, and the target of the attack is also a disaster. There is a saying in China that people who see a coward can't hold back the fire, and they are talking about this kind of ignorance in human nature.
Beautiful appearance is the seed of jealousy, and beauty without protection becomes the object of persecution. This is not some kind of diabolical contradiction. After all the malice is covered with erotic expressions, it will be diluted into a past that has become mild and touchable, and will not block people into hysterical madness. Just a looming scar that tells you what happened in the past. I really admire the director's narrative energy, telling such a tragic story from such a narrow perspective. The subjectivity of the youth hormone boy ties together all the clues in the whole story, combining the cold-blooded politics, the populist frenzy, the helplessness of the little people, and the chaos of betrayal and separation into a classic picture like a puzzle, which is interpreted as a beautiful picture on the stage of time. legend.
The superficial director's analysis of human nature often focuses on curing the irreversible results of tragedy. In order to suppress old wounds, larger wounds must be torn to fight poison. The dilution effect of time usually reverses the process of continuous fermentation, blocking emotions with superimposed contradictions. the exit until the heart breaks completely. Forgiveness is a luxury, sympathy is a poison, only punishment is the final choice, and the former need not be abused by the latter. What is conveyed is a tyrannical conclusion, leading the audience in the direction of obsessive-compulsive disorder, getting into the horns and unable to get out.
The final arrangement of the film is calming, the boy has grown up, and the restlessness of adolescence has become a precious memory in life; the heroine's family is no longer the target of the small town crowd, and there will be a normal future of ordinary life. Italian society is not that kind of intense existence today, chaos and chaos are a blessing. Using time to dilute and wash everything, there is quite a feeling that the green hills are still red in the sunset several times, and the past is like a smoke of ease and relief.
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