The Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival gave the film "Parasite" an unparalleled halo. The moment it won the award, it was destined to be discussed by people from various perspectives and angles. The decline of domestic movies is also forcibly compared with "Farewell My Concubine", in order to revive the national self-esteem. In short, there are many wonders.
This wave of discussion gradually reached its climax at the end of July, when the FIRST Youth Film Festival was withdrawn due to "technical reasons". Then on August 6th, after the release of "Parasite" "Raw Meat", the major subtitle groups said that after giving up translation due to copyright reasons, a subtitle group set up some topics on its own public account to give back to its fans, and you can achieve the specified score. However, some netizens who did not answer the question successfully began to accuse the voluntary translation subtitle group of being a "parasite" in anger, sparking a debate about who the subtitle group and the audience are "parasites". Then, recently, when the writer Zhang Xiaohan faced the situation that the toilet was blocked by the storm in Shanghai, combined with the movie Parasite, he expressed a remark on Weibo that "after jumping to the upper class of society, facing emergencies is still no different from the bottom." This is neither. Weibo, which was in line with what the movie wanted to express and was slightly hypocritical, was quickly attacked and ridiculed by various netizens. Later, it was revealed that his works were suspected of plagiarizing other writers. He fell from the upper level of imagination and became a real "parasite in the eyes of everyone." ".
"Parasite" is undoubtedly the hot word in the summer of 2019. It carries not only the film itself, but also the invisible censorship, the inversion of power, the anxiety of the middle class, and the gradual narrowing of the channels for class mobility that are reflected outside the film. social facts.
It is convenient to go downstream, but it is inevitably less interesting. Now, let's take another film in the series of director Bong Joon-ho's work - "Mother" as a starting point, find another way, and try to return to the film itself.
Feng Junhao is known as the "genre master". The concept of genre films originated from the Hollywood film production system in the 1930s. It is a unique film model formed under the studio system that emphasizes efficiency. It has narrative-led, stereotyped characters, and fixed visual images. Features.
As a detective type film, "Mother" is based on who is the real murderer of the girl's murder case. Subdivided down, the whole movie includes four cases. According to the movie's show time, they are the hit-and-run case at the beginning, the murder of a girl, the case of assisted dating behind the girl, and the murder of an old man. These four cases are closely linked and logically linked, and each case provides the possibility for the latter case and becomes the source of all emotions in the film.
Looking back at the title of the movie, "mother" is an identity word. When a woman exists independently, she is never given this identity. When her child appears, she is immediately given the title of "mother". "Mother" is never called by name in the movie. In contrast to this missing subject, her son "Tao Jun" is called all the time. Tao Jun's identity is a bit special. He is a fool, ignorant of world affairs, and dangerous. His mother stares at Tao Jun all the time. Even when his son is urinating on the street, he will take the opportunity to let him finish the medicine. In a sense, Tao Jun is attached to his mother.
Therefore, when Tao Jun may commit a murder case, the mother's first reaction is of course not to believe that her innocent child will commit a crime, and she is bound to embark on the road of finding the real murderer. So, although it seems to revolve around the clues about who the real murderer is, it is actually the mother who is exercising her own rights - as a mother to clear her son's grievances. This ambushes a contradiction in the form of the genre film, and finally this contradiction is triggered in the final case, bringing the mood of the whole film to a climax.
The farther she goes, the closer she gets to the starting point. In her mother's opinion, Tao Jun certainly wouldn't be the real murderer, so she was looking for the so-called "murderer". When the witness that night revealed that the murderer was her son, the clue to the truth had ended. However, the mother's emotions have completely collapsed, and the rejection of this path of "washing grievances" also means that the legitimacy of the role of "mother" has been denied. The mother finally fell into madness.
Rather than saying that the mother is trying to deny the fact of returning to the starting point, it is better to say that she subconsciously refuses, and it is her participation that pushes the child to the opposite side. So, the violence is no longer to protect someone, but out of the paranoia of self-motherhood.
"Crested head, pork belly, leopard tail." These are the three structures necessary for writing articles, and so is film creation. At this point, the truth is revealed, and the emotions of both the film and the audience have reached a climax. However, if it ends in this way, the film will only remain at the level of "good genre". The "leopard tail" that really constitutes Feng Junhao's single film is its classic "open ending".
Every ending is a question, and the answer lies outside the movie. Was the real murderer who stood in the same spot with the police a few minutes ago in Memories of Murder? Why commit such a crime? "Mother" Can the mother dancing in the sunset forget everything, and will Tao Jun suddenly remember the truth at a certain moment? And whether the son can meet his father again in "Parasite". The ending without an answer largely dilutes the excitement, horror, fear and other emotions brought about by the fast pace.
Looking back at this ending, the film narrative structure of genre films is filled with the flesh and blood of the director's attention to social issues. In "Memories of Murder", the political pressure of South Korea in the 1980s is the background of the entire film. Under the curfew policy, every household silently pulls down the doors and windows and echoes with the murdered girl lying quietly in the dark forest; The irritable policeman in "Mother", the marginalized mentally handicapped child, the poor support girl, and the class gap embodied by violence in "Parasite".
These factors and the "open ending" together constitute the social nature of the film, like flowing water and diffuse fog, bridging with the reality with continuous characteristics, Bong Joon-ho's films also have a vitality that exceeds the screen time several times.
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