Don't test humanity

Horacio 2022-01-04 08:02:25

(Written by Yang Shiyang)
This is the Italian version of "Mobile Phone", a desperate story in a confined space, an irreversible human temptation. A dining table, seven friends, three couples, and a man who went to the appointment alone. Everyone ate and chatted, talking and laughing, until someone suggested that since everyone can’t put down their phones, let’s play a game together-put your phones. They are all on the table. From now on, no matter the phone calls and text messages received by anyone, they must be open to everyone. Together, this idea has actually opened a gap in Pandora's Box. The embarrassing thing is that no one seems to be able to refuse. If you refuse, it means that you are really hiding some secrets. But if you participate in this game, almost everyone will know that a solid thing will eventually fall apart.
From the perspective of the movie itself, this "Perfect Stranger" is close to a single scene and a confined space setting. It is like a trial that is more relevant and thrilling to us, just like the jury in "Twelve Angry Men" , It’s just that this time we judge ourselves, convict ourselves, and defend ourselves. To some extent, it is also a parody of murder in a confined space, but the "dead" is between people. Intimacy, there are no corpses here, but there are corpses everywhere, almost without exception, everyone is "killed" in the end.
The secrets hidden by each of the seven friends in "Perfect Strangers" are both dramatic and realistic. Almost every topic is enough to detonate our daily lives. Including the worst extramarital affairs; the most incomprehensible and helpless relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law; the most bloody-virtual games between women and netizens who have never met; the ambiguous-looking-a friend I found for many years turned out to be " "Deep cabinet"...When
everyone entered the game, they were all in a mess, chatting and laughing on the table, and in a rush in private. In order to cover up the ambiguity between himself and the little girl, someone exchanged the same model of mobile phone with a seemingly dull friend and wanted to survive. Unexpectedly, the old friend who had known each other for many years was a gay who has never dared to reveal his true orientation. In the end, Everything is even worse.
"Perfect Stranger" has a wonderful gravitational attraction. The moment everyone puts their mobile phones on the table, the audience knows that they are witnessing a scene where life collapses, but we all want to see, the psychological collapse to the end How far can it be. This is also a "private peeping" in itself. The peeping game set inside the movie story is underway, and the audience outside the screen is also involved in an isomorphic torture. From this perspective, this movie is very similar to the famous "Tourist", and its sense of substitution is enough to draw the audience into a whirlpool.
Compared with the movie format, "Perfect Stranger" may be more like a drama. A fixed scene, one or two limited transitions, completes a seemingly joke but actually cruel anatomy. The lights are warm and the atmosphere is relaxed, but the ringing of the telephones pierces everyone's disguise like a knife. One of the few location scenes has been describing a lunar eclipse that night. Seven friends gathered together, all wanting to see that spectacular and mysterious astronomical phenomenon, but the waning moon unexpectedly became this group on this evening. People-a symbol of life for each of us. They stood on the balcony and talked to each other, "How many moons do you see?" "Are you two?" They were talking about this astronomical wonder, but they were talking about their own lives. How many lives do we have? One or two, or more? Between the folds of life, how many truths and lies are there? Why should we set up multiple lives? Is it just to cover up the lie, or is it the only way to keep life from falling apart?
We long for only one dimension in our own lives, and we also long for the lives of people with whom we have a close relationship without a curtain, but unfortunately, the lives of adults are complicated and mottled. If we are really open to everyone, there is almost nothing. Humans can bear the weight of total transparency. Sometimes, only because the transparent light is too dazzling, we set up the gray drapery. This veil sometimes hides dirt, but more often, it continues life, because there are some dark patches in human nature that have always existed. It cannot be resolved but can only be concealed. As adults, in a sense, each of us is a "pathogen carrier", and the vast majority of people are just trying not to get sick. So, don't test humanity.
The end of the movie is set intriguingly-it tells how the seven people had never started the game and how they ended. They carried secrets as usual and returned to their lives. Some people continue to flirt with the little girl, some people play sex games with their virtual boyfriends, and some people continue to hide their orientation... What kind of life do we want? To live an honest life at the cost of a complete collapse, or to accept a gray life in which "everyone has a secret"?
Everyone is constantly looking at their mobile phones, do you dare to try this game?

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Extended Reading

Perfect Strangers quotes

  • Eva: If I were cheating, I wouldn't have suggested this game.

    Lele: Or you are and you want to be found out. There's this psychological mechanism according to which serial-killers do all they can to get found out.

  • Peppe: I want to be the meaning of my own life.