I think most people’s first reaction is, "Why shrink?"
More directly, "What are the benefits of shrinking?"
Scientists will tell you to reduce pollution, reduce human consumption, reduce the burden on the earth, and contribute to environmental protection.
You say, "Oh".
The real estate agency will tell you that you can't afford a single-family villa right now, but if you choose a reduction surgery and go to a customized shrinking city, your current property will greatly appreciate and the single-family villa is within reach.
And because of the shrinkage, the items there have become extremely cheap. A few carats of diamond jewelry is only a few dozen dollars.
Therefore, it is not only your body that shrinks, but also the entire world, especially the material things.
The recent movie "Downsizing" starring Matt Damon tells such an interesting story with an open mind.
The reduced setting is enough to attract the attention of a large number of movie fans.
The online score is also surprising.
After taking a closer look, Fat Brother felt that "Shrinking Life" was not too bad, it was completely watchable, and the worldview was quite interesting.
Fans gave a "half of a good movie" evaluation, believing that the film did a good job before and when it was reduced, but the story after the reduction began to decline, especially the treatment of Asian and African-American characters is touching. Not mindful.
This kind of gap is a sense of disappointment like "Take off your pants, just show me this" as the saying goes.
It is full of gimmicks, and Cass is a big name, but it seems to be misaligned with the movie fans' expectations. The source of this dislocation and misjudgment is still in the world view, or the ideology and theme closure of the film has not been recognized by the fans.
"Shrinking Life" looks small and talks about the midlife crisis of white Americans.
The middle- and lower-class white male protagonist Paul is just before the midlife crisis. His work is neglected, his income is not high, and he still lives in the home where he lived as a child after marriage, and he has no children.
He is anxious but unable to change.
When he learned of the reduction surgery, his first thought was, "This is so interesting."
He saw a whole new world, and he thought that a shrinking world would bring changes to his current life.
Years later, the reduction surgery was mature, and there were multiple reduction communities.
Under the vigorous propaganda, a group of people chose reduction surgery and merged into the shrinking city.
Solve debt problems in an instant, luxurious rooms, no need to worry about food and clothing, and mature urban facilities, most things in the real world can be reduced and obtained.
Paul firmly started his shrinking life.
After the operation, the first news that I got when I opened my eyes was that my wife regretted halfway and decided not to have the operation.
A year later, the two divorced.
Only now did Paul really start a new life.
Paul, who fell to the bottom of the valley, didn't see the changes that this shrinking city could bring to him. He could only spend his time by work. Although he had no worries about food and clothing and a comfortable life, his numb and weak sense of loss always enveloped him.
He had dinner with a middle-aged divorced woman, hoping to find the other half, but he looked like a divorce; the
nightclub sultry girl vented, waking up early the next morning, the empty room made him still only see his life accelerating the fall.
People have shrunk, the world has shrunk, and everything is a spatial change, but in society, the relationship between people and the class gap has not completely changed.
In the film, shrinking is equivalent to avoiding.
But Paul gradually discovered that this shrunken world was no different from the "normal" world, and the stratification still existed.
The appearance of the Vietnamese woman Chen Yulan gave Paul a heavy blow, but it also gave him life.
Chen Yulan is a victim of reduction technology. In some countries, reduction surgery is used to exclude dissidents. Chen Yulan was arrested for protesting against the construction of the dam and destroying her home and participating in demonstrations. The authorities "posted" these protesters to the United States with reduction surgery.
Because of the violent transportation, other people died tragically in the mail box. Chen Yulan survived but lost a leg.
In the shrinking city, Chen Yulan still lives at the bottom, and she takes Paul to a land of no owner outside the city's high walls.
Coming to the edge of the city, entering the narrow and dark tunnel, on the other side is another world.
Crowded corridors, inferior facilities, full of abandoned people,
aging beggars;
old women waiting to die;
there are also a large number of low-level people like Chen Yulan who go to the city during the day to clean the rich and collect guests Unwanted food, discarded food left in the restaurant.
It turns out that life can be reduced, but class is expanding.
On the surface of the environmentally friendly and comfortable shrinking city, there are still these forgotten and abandoned people on the fringe of the city.
Looking at the group of rich people in the city, Paul’s neighbor Duzan upstairs, singing every night, he chose to shrink for the sake of business. Make a fortune.
Duzan is shrewd, gaming life, speculator, and downright businessman.
For Paul and most people, shrinking is an escape;
for Duzan, shrinking is a business opportunity.
Paul found that after shrinking, his life didn't seem to have changed much. Duzan and Chen Yulan once again showed him the heavy traces of the society he lived in in the past.
The story accelerates, and Paul's life is facing a turning point again.
At the invitation of the inventor of the reduction surgery, Paul, Chen Yulan, and Duzan came to the first reduced city in Northern Europe.
There are no high walls, no stone forests, the whole city returns to nature, and the relationship between people is closer.
The surface comfort can't restrain the inventor's inner fear. For the doomsday prediction that the world will eventually sink into the rising sea due to the greenhouse effect, scientists have used shrinking technology to establish an underground kingdom in a short time.
In addition to the absence of the sun, this kingdom has everything else available. This Noah's Ark, built for the end of mankind, is the last city to continue human civilization.
Paul was moved again, and he could choose to continue to shrink his life and world.
Duzan ridiculed contemptuously. I don't know that the end of the world is a matter of many years. I will not live there at all. It is not better to have fun in time. What does the flood afterwards have to do with me.
Chen Yulan, who was in love with Paul, said bluntly that this was just another escape.
When the tortoise retracts into the isolated underground world, will he really see a changed life?
Wherever humans go, there will be society, what has changed is space, and what has not changed is rules.
As the film approached the climax of the closed theme, Paul finally made the choice not to escape, and returned to the borderless land of the shrinking city, to provide those who need help with care within his ability, and to light up and fill himself with kindness. Future life.
The key to the story of "Shrinking Life" is to reflect the two worlds at one big time and one big one, the
change and the same. The
visual changes can be discerned at a glance,
but the changes and changes in the world outlook and values are worth pondering.
"Shrinking Life" is filled with the theme of environmental protection. Human beings consume the earth and will eventually eat their own fruits.
There is also a relationship between the sexes, divorced because of shrinking, and true love because of shrinking. The conflict between white men and Asian women in their identities and values The film is worth pondering over and over;
among the many themes, the most prominent is the problem of unequal social resource allocation and occupancy.
If the poor should be reduced, abandoned, and quarantined, then pandora's box will be opened with the reduction operation of environmental protection.
The people in the caged cities are mostly Asians, Africans, Hispanics, and they are absolute low-level immigrants.
White people like Duzan choose to ignore them,
The fact that the inventor of the reduction technique enters the underground life is actually equivalent to acquiescing to this exile life and abandoning it.
In the end, only the white Paul, who was infected by Chen Yulan, extended a helping hand.
The poster of "Shrinking Life" wrote the phrase
"We are meant for something bigger" and
"big" has multiple meanings here. At the end, Paul's transformation from abandoning the ego, to saving mankind, to helping the people around him, is The director's mockery of nihilistic heroism, in addition, he gave "hypocrisy" a blank look.
Environmental protection is the face of the film, the society is the inside, and the core is the choice of life value.
Life can keep shrinking, but good intentions need to keep zooming in.
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