A spiritual film for Western audiences - "Don't Tell Her"
Today, let's talk about the movie "Don't Tell Her".
Title The Farewell (2019), alias Don't Tell Her / Don't Tell Her / Farewell Wedding.
"Don't Tell Her" is directed by Chinese director Wang Ziyi. It tells the story of a family whose grandmother was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. The children who immigrated to the United States and Japan rushed home to accompany the grandmother in the name of the grandson's wedding.
At the same time, the family agreed to hide the news of the lung cancer diagnosis from the grandmother, so that the grandmother could continue to live without her knowledge. The heroine's eldest granddaughter, Bili, could not agree with this approach, and expressed that she wanted to protect her grandmother's right to know, which resulted in some conflict of values with the family.
The few bright spots in the film are the performances of the heroine Awkwafina and the supporting actress Zhao Shuzhen.
In them, the audience can see the respect and love of the younger generation for the elders and the care and love of the elders for the younger generation. That kind of sincere expression can easily arouse the emotional resonance of the audience. As long as the audience can think of the elderly and children in their own homes, the tear-jerking effect will be achieved.
The whole film of "Don't Tell Her" is filled with a kind of condescending arrogance and an inexplicable sense of superiority. a so-called cultural difference.
The core contradiction of "Don't Tell Her" is whether to tell the truth about grandma's illness. From this setting, it can be seen that the core differences are just cultural differences in the eyes of the banana people.
When a local family's view of life and death is labeled as a Chinese family, the nature is different.
The audience for the film is Western audiences, who gain favor by reinforcing stereotypes. Banana people, who look yellow on the surface, are all white under the skin, and the way of thinking is also stereotyped.
"Don't Tell Her" is to film the stereotype of the mysterious East in the hearts of Westerners again, which has attracted the Western audience's judges to nod again and again, saying that the director is too right.
"Don't Tell Her" scored 89 points on Metascore, and received a freshness of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes. It can explain the problem very well, everyone should pay attention, even if it is a blockbuster, it is a movie prepared for the Oscars, not a movie prepared for the Chinese audience.
The purpose of the Oscars is to encourage the development of American films. They don't even like streaming media, let alone accept oriental values. Only those who conform to academic values are likely to win.
The film has pinpointed the force point of Western audiences, and after a vigorous operation, the audience feels very useful. Just as we like to watch all kinds of weird and interesting stories about the third brother, Western audiences also like to constantly reinforce the stereotypes in the film. The film just followed the audience's refreshment and slammed it, and the audience naturally felt that it was very well said.
The director's intention to integrate into the West is very obvious, adding a lot of meaningless details to the film, constantly degrading the image of the Chinese people, and licking the lighthouse country through the mouth of the characters.
For example, when Bili first checked into the hotel, the elevator in the newly built hotel was broken, and the infrastructure was in a mess; the lobby manager kept asking questions and emphasized that "America is better", with obvious ideological tendencies; grandma complained about the Japanese granddaughter-in-law, you see, narrow-minded and xenophobic petty citizens; Healing pills have to be purchased from Japan, young and promising doctors have to come back from studying in the UK, and everything that seems advanced is the love of Western society; It is extremely embarrassing to lead the topic to the United States or China.
There is also the issue of casting actors, which is also catering to Western stereotypes.
The actress Awkwafina chosen by the heroine Billy, everyone has seen her appearance. It's not about the looks here, but there are so many yellow-skinned actresses. Do you have to choose one that fits the image of a Chinese in the eyes of Westerners? Small eyes, big face, hunched back and gnawing old.
The actresses in other films are all fair-skinned, beautiful and long-legged. Even if there are not many people in that nation, they must choose the best-looking representative. Awkwafina was chosen when the Chinese female director came here to shoot the mysterious oriental culture. Then why didn't you choose Wang Keying to shoot? If you choose a female actor to represent Asians, would you choose Awkwafina or Wang Keying?
Awkwafina's acting skills are obvious to all, but judging from the film's high evaluation in the Western society, is it because she conforms to the Western society's stereotype of oriental women or because her superb acting skills have conquered the audience?
In fact, in 2018 "Crazy Rich Asians" played the same number of ways. The whole film is full of Western society's stereotypes of the East, and the Western society has received many praises, but after it was released in the mainland, it received a dismal box office.
Every few days, "Don't Tell Her" wants to play the same trick again, really treat the audience as kneeling slaves who have lost their memory for a long time. "Don't Tell Her" was withdrawn after it was released in the mainland, at least it seems to be a little self-aware, even if it is an Oscar hit, it will not work.
The "Joker" of the same period reflects reality with a magical story, while "Don't Tell Her" expresses magic with a seemingly realistic story. Western audiences who have been touched by it may be very useful, but if mainland audiences who are not the target audience still find it useful, there will be a problem.
The characters in "Don't Tell Her" shout that everyone is Chinese, but in fact they are just thinking about the money in everyone's pockets. The four have been confident for so long, but anyone with a bit of brains has seen the foundation of our confidence, plus they have understood Wang's reverse operation for so long, if there are still people who will be fooled by the tricks in "Don't Tell Her" , that's really a problem.
A spiritual film for Western audiences,
Stereotypes riddled with arrogance and prejudice.
This is the distribution center for hardcore movie fans, welcome to pay attention to the public number: Miaokan Film and Television
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