The MeToo movement that has emerged in the United States in recent years has virtually given women in the film industry more opportunities to play, and is no longer limited to the frequency of female stars appearing on the big screen. With more and more female directors becoming active and making appearances at international film festivals, Kathryn Bigelow and Sofia Coppola can finally relieve the burden of supporting the appearance of American female directors. In the field of writers and directors, Kelly Reichardt has to be mentioned, and now there is another one in the same camp, and she is Alyssa Hitman. The director, who has made just three feature films to date, is a veritable Sundance darling, as all three of her films have premiered at the festival, which focuses on independent production. This year's new work is even more dazzling. After winning the title at Sundance, it made persistent efforts to be shortlisted for the main competition in Berlin, and successfully won the Jury Prize. After Sofia Coppola, another American female director has won the three major European films. A rare breakthrough in the festival.
I had seen Hitman's gay-themed film "Beach Rats" before, and I was impressed by the strong European author style in her works, like the flowing images of desire under the lens of French female director Claire Denis. As for this new work, I learned that it was about abortion, and I thought she suddenly turned to realism, but after reading it, I found out that I guessed wrong. Hitman still follows his own set, and this reality criticized The subject matter is just a carrier of her style.
This work is exactly the same as the Palme d'Or film "April Three Weeks Two Days" by Romanian director Mongi. It tells the story of a teenage girl who hides her family from an unplanned pregnancy and tries to find a doctor for an abortion procedure. Four options in the questionnaire: never, rarely, sometimes, always. Hitman's boldest design is to place the most emotionally powerful scene in the middle of the film rather than at the end, which is beyond my expectations. It is said that when filming this scene, the director did not let the actress do too much preparation, and almost improvised and answered the questions of the social worker, so the expression she showed in the answer was very infectious. Through this seemingly simple question-and-answer process, the director leaked the hidden plot of the heroine's sexual abuse by her ex-boyfriend. On the other hand, it showed the current attitude of American society towards unmarried pregnant women, which was put on post-MeToo Under the background of the times, there is a bit of irony and helplessness.
The whole work looks like the heroine is fighting against this male-dominated society and fighting for her reproductive rights. Except for the social worker questioning scene just mentioned, the rest of her encounters along the way are all male characters. Bringing all kinds of obstacles and "good intentions" to her. However, in my opinion, this is not the real intention of the director. This three-day and two-night abortion journey has weakened a lot of dramatic plots under the stylized treatment of the director. This writing method is completely different from the Hollywood model of operation. Her camera lens always follows the heroine, followed by the back or constantly lingering on her body, hands, face and other parts, and the close-up of the characters that follow makes the narrative turn to the heroine's inner depiction, rather than focusing on the progress of the plot. As a result, the rhythm of the film has become loose, and even in the most heart-wrenching operation scene, there is not much tension, which is completely different from the long-planned political metaphor consciousness of "Three Weeks and Two Days in April".
Hitman focuses on the growth of women, who must learn the survival skills of compromise and rejection in the face of this somewhat unfamiliar urban and social environment. This seems to explain why the director has chosen to shoot young people in all three of his films so far: a girl who is in love ("It Feels Like Love"), a boy who is ashamed to come out ("Beach Mouse"), and a girl who hides her family from going to have an abortion. These three characters have a fledgling jerky, and the process of finding them in an unfamiliar environment is actually the only way to bid farewell to their youth and grow up. In fact, this work cannot be seen purely as a realist work that uses feminism to criticize society, despite its allusions to men's aggression against women, and its confrontational depiction of anti-abortion plots. It can only be said that the abortion story of this ordinary girl is placed in the background of the current era, which can trigger the audience to think about many social issues. and the reason for the acclaim at the Berlin Film Festival.
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