Perhaps due to the identity of the New York independent artists, the works of the Savedi brothers have always had a distinctive bohemian style, rough and soft. Their roles are also marginal figures in society. Such as the thieves in this film, the street addicts in "God Knows" and so on. The wide streets and cramped shabby rooms are the soil for these characters to survive, and the dark night and sunny day can be their cover. The special text and form make the works of the two brothers rough, true and romantic, and at the same time full of primitive vitality.
Connie, the protagonist of "Good Times", after his younger brother was arrested, tried his best to rescue him, but was repeatedly blocked by mistakes, and has since fallen into an escape made of messy hemp. night. The story itself is not complicated, and there is no obvious value output. The compact plot forces the protagonist to constantly solve the problem, and falls into another dilemma when it seems like a bright future. In the drama, this arrangement can create suspense for the audience during the first viewing, but it is very common. Compared with the wild privacy and warmth of the winter sun in the previous work "God Knows", it is a bit boring. In the communication between the protagonist and the prisoner rescued by mistake, the little black girl and other various characters, there is also a lack of tension because of the lack of real thrills and agility. But the mediocrity of the relationship between the characters did not prevent the Safdie brothers from making a slightly flat story interesting. At the same time, it also brought a sexy and charming Robert Pattinson to the audience to a certain extent.
When the brothers got in the car and prepared to escape, pink smoke filled the car cabin. This was the first time the iconic bright colors appeared in the film. At the beginning of the flight, the neon color is a psychedelic and ambiguous signal, which is deeply rooted in this night like a burst, anxious mood and expanding danger. The camera frequently falls on the protagonist’s face to capture subtle emotions, while the light puts the characters’ faces in the shadows, thus creating a sense of secrecy that you want to talk about. This kind of concealment, on the one hand In line with the type of text, the madness and caution of a crime story complements lies. On the other hand, it also makes the body language of the characters magnified. This undoubtedly narrows the distance between the audience and the film, and it also has a natural advantage in the shaping of the characters. Of course, the magnification of body language is not the sole function of light.
Darkness envelops everything around it in ambiguity and obscurity. The close-up shot closely followed the protagonist without relaxing. The occasional aerial shots emphasized a sense of space as time goes by quickly. The nervous and anxious atmosphere continued from the beginning to the end, like a bulging balloon, waiting for the moment it was pierced by a needle to make a scary sound.
The long night will eventually end. The screams of women, the barking of dogs, the shouts of police, the sound of car horns, and the various noises of the streets in the morning are amplified one by one, and then gradually disappear into a melody. Connie's gaze in the police car was dull, and his absent-minded eyes seemed to belong to the seemingly unending night. The almost uninterrupted dialogue was replaced by the soundtrack, the rhythm became relaxed, and the daylight filled the corners. The coquettish neon light disappeared, and the day descended with the handcuffs.
The good time may not be a mature masterpiece, but it is the continuation and refinement of the aesthetic style of the Saferdi brothers. The shaking shots, the electronic soundtrack, and the changing colors in the thick night make the visual style and the protagonist's temperament perfect fit. , And the simple core of the story, the story unfolding around the protagonist’s actions, makes the character no longer just a simple narrative center, but the soul element of the audiovisual language. The protagonist’s temperament is the temperament of the film. In the director's interview. It is said that the script of this film is tailor-made for Robert Pattinson, and his obvious performance improvement is inseparable from the director's visual expression and the excavation of the actor himself.
In "God Knows", the thrown mobile phone turns into a beautiful shooting star across the night sky, a gleaming hope in the cold street life. The finishing touch of this film lies in the soundtrack of lggy pop, and the relaxing rhythm becomes the end of emotion. Connie did not take away his younger brother in the end, and the title Good Times is undoubtedly an irony. For those who live at the bottom and commit crimes, there is no such thing as a good time.
At the end, warmth appeared, as if to calm down after bursting the balloon, the pink fragments were scattered on the ground, neither cared nor restored. After a night of tension, they had no choice but were forced to accept the "best destination", and this night's escape was not an inevitable part of the huge "escape" constructed with exhaustion and helplessness in life.
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