"Transcendence" is cruel and bitter, and even after a brief period of warmth, it is desolate.
There are two kinds of good movies, one is to make people see how beautiful life is, and the other is to make people think about how hard life is. "Transcendence" belongs to the latter.
It's also an afterthought, not a movie review.
When I first heard that "Transcendence" was a film about teachers and students, I thought it was probably a film like "Dead Poets Society". Later, I found out that this seems to be an educational film. The reason why I say "seemly" is that it is not very accurate to classify it as an educational film. Of course, it doesn't really matter what genre it belongs to.
It is not so much about teachers and students as it is about parents and children.
The quotations of the French existentialist philosophy writer Albert Camus quoted at the beginning of the film are also the monologue of the hero Henry.
Everyone in the film is desperate.
Henry is the character in the film that resonates with me the most.
He has the gift of being able to understand others, but he shuns emotional communication with others and chooses to be a substitute teacher.
Someone asked what the director was trying to convey. It can be seen as a film that explores and reflects on the current American education system, but the theme of the film as I understand it is - self-help and other-help, existence and nothingness.
In the film, Henry, who has always hoped for self-redemption, was deeply affected by the shadow of his childhood, isolated himself from the outside world, and kept a distance from the things around him. This "outsider" outlook on life is like Camus' Meursault. In fact, while watching the film, I remembered the beginning of "The Outsider" more than once: "Today, my mother died. Maybe it was yesterday, I don't know. (This is tied with The Great Gatsby for the best opening I've ever seen). Henry has also been trying to influence others. He has a wonderful line in the movie:
"Deliberately believe lies, even if you know they are false. Take an example from your daily life: I want to be beautiful, to be happy; I need plastic surgery, for beauty; I need to stay in shape and stand out, Dress in style. Young people of your generation, in this moment - being told that women are prostitutes, bitches, objects to be ostracized, beaten, bullied, humiliated, a 24/7 MLM mental slaughter Makes the rest of our lives under the control of this misconception, it is so strong that it blinds us until we die. So, in order to protect our minds and prevent this stupid idea from seeping into our thought process We need to learn to read, to activate our imagination, to cultivate it, to improve our self-awareness, our belief system. We all need these skills to defend against, to preserve our pure spiritual world.”
Seemingly "detached", the shaky shots, out-of-focus shots and countless flashbacks hint at his inner restlessness and anxiety. His pain stemmed from his own existence, and finally, on a sunny afternoon, he chose to return to human affection.
Others are consciously or unconsciously relying on the existence and understanding of others, longing for salvation from others. For example, a male teacher who cannot find a presence at home or at school stands in front of the protective net on the playground every day looking for attention from others; another example is a female student who has a keen sense of destructive art:
"Transcendence" is cruel and bitter, and even after a brief period of warmth, it is desolate. But Henry, he used a pair of eyes wet with tears to understand that life is different, to tolerate the unbearableness and sins of others, to understand everyone's choices under the predicament, even when he was the most powerless, he still patiently responded to the painful Others explain "It'll all be okay". This is probably the tenderness that can only be possessed by a person who has truly seen the dark night.
Finally, share the tribute in the film - the American writer Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" excerpt (at the end of "The Fall of the House of Usher", Madeleine stood outside the door with blood stains, just like Merry Dies finally eats the crying face cake and falls to the ground bloodstained):
During the whole of a dull, dark soundless day In the autumn of that year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in heaven I had been passing alone on the horse's back Through the Singularly, dreary tract in the country and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on Finally, as night fell, Within the view of melancholy House of Usher I know not how it was But with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit but just a glimpse, some unbearable gloom pervaded my mind I looked upon the scene before me the simple landscape features of the domain Upon the bleak walls, upon the white trunks of decayed trees With the utter depression souls There was an iciness A sinking.sinking A sickening of the heart
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