No one knows what we will become in ten years. Maybe we will become rich, maybe we will sell drugs and kill people, no one can predict.
Nietzsche's phrase "when you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares at you" is often used to describe the process of a person's degeneration, but almost no ordinary person with a good heart will really think seriously: Will I? Step into the abyss and embark on the road of drug trafficking and murder. We always habitually think that life is a long road, there are straight roads and detours, but we don’t really care whether we will really walk into the abyss of despair from ordinary life.
Before his 50th birthday, Walter White, the protagonist of "Breaking Bad", was also such an ordinary person. He would never have imagined that such an honest and even cowardly person would leave after 50. On the road to drug production, become a generation of drug lords.
Old White's First Abyss: Midlife Crisis
Mid-life crisis is a proposition that will never go out of style. At first glance, it is a collection of trivial things in life. About money, cheating, family relations, and the workplace, it actually points to a metaphysical ultimate problem in life - to social status, money , The family is solidified, what should we do in the middle-aged period when we can no longer move forward according to the old path of the past? Do you want to keep the status quo for the rest of your life, or leave some things behind and embark on a new path to nowhere?
It was on his 50th birthday that Lao Bai stood at this fork in the road. He is a chemistry wizard. He once co-founded a company with a friend, but his girlfriend at the time betrayed him and married his friend. Lao Bai quit the company and became a high school chemistry teacher. His wife, Skyler, lived a poor ordinary life. He has an old house in disrepair and a cheap car, his eldest son is disabled and needs to use a cane to get around, and his youngest daughter is still in his wife's belly. In order to subsidize his family, he needs to go to a car wash shop part-time as a cashier and car wash after get off work.
The unhappy first half of his life filled Lao Bai's heart with pain, but on his 50th birthday, he was also diagnosed with advanced lung cancer. It is like a bottle of catalyst, amplifying Lao Bai's mid-life crisis into a life-and-death crisis, forcing Lao Bai to make a choice.
What can an honest, underappreciated man do when he is cornered? Hank, Lao Bai's brother-in-law in the Drug Enforcement Bureau, took him to visit an anti-drug scene as a birthday present for Lao Bai. Afterwards, he found one of the small drug dealers, his former student, Jesse Pinkman, and planned to cooperate with him to make drugs by himself. The small fans sold drugs, made a quick money, and left a legacy to his wife's family after his death.
The drama "Breaking Bad" does not focus on Lao Bai's psychological entanglement in the process of transformation (this is what most movies that focus on character performance like to present), but on Lao Bai's choice .
At first, facing the mid-life crisis and cancer, he chose to make drugs for the sake of his family; later, when faced with the drug dealer Xiao Ba who wanted to kill him, he chose to strike first to protect himself. He faces bigger crises time and time again: he wants to kill his drug lord Gallery, the big drug lord Gus, the girl Jane who hinders him from controlling Xiaofan, the thug Mike who wants to wash his hands... He tells himself every time , I killed them to protect myself, to protect my family. But such an excuse, in front of the many crimes he committed, became more and more pale.
Maybe in the beginning, Lao Bai just wanted to prove that he can make a difference without the charity of others, but the abyss is such a thing, and there is no turning back except to continue to fall.
Old White's Second Abyss: Broken Family
Some people say that "Breaking Bad" is an anti-mainstream movie that shows the other side of America's prosperity - the desolation of New Mexico, far from the center. It also exposed some problems with the values of the American right. The core value of traditional American right-wing movies (such as "Forrest Gump") is that no matter how dark the world is, home will always be our last bulwark against the world, and nothing is more important than family unity.
In "Breaking Bad", the family unity that Lao Bai worked hard to maintain is nothing but a ridiculous fantasy. As the plot unfolds, we can see more and more problems in this seemingly harmonious family. .
It seems that his wife Skyler, who always adheres to the bottom line of morality, found out that the company made fake accounts and her sister had a kleptomania, and she was just like a moral guard. Later, she helped Lao Bai launder money and asked the lawyer to find someone to deal with her boss. The disabled son, Walter Jr., was reluctant to use the name and changed his name to Flynn. Drug Enforcement Administration brother-in-law Hank, who hates criminals, smokes illegal cigars and hides the theft from his wife.
Ironically, the last person who wanted to send himself to prison was his brother-in-law Hank. When Hank was killed and Lao Bai was about to run away with his family, the family finally came to the point where they drew their swords to meet each other. It was only at this time that Lao Bai realized that the family he had worked hard to maintain had long since fallen apart, and the reason he used to convince himself that "everything I did was for my family" was just a ridiculous excuse.
At the end of the episode, when he was about to end it all, he finally said to his wife Skyler, "Everything I do... is for myself because I love making drugs and it makes me feel like I'm alive" . As if it was a slap in the face, it hit all the good and hypocritical people, ripped off the moral skin, and told the audience nakedly: "I am not that noble, I am a selfish person."
People who don't do it for themselves will be punished by heaven and earth. But the courage to admit one's selfishness is much more lovely than being shameless without the skin of morality.
Lao Bai said this in the last episode. In the previous 61 episodes, the family he worked so hard to maintain but was already crumbling finally collapsed at this moment. He has always regarded his home as the lamp of redemption in the abyss of his fall. At this moment, he finally admitted that the so-called family is just another abyss in his life.
Laobai's third abyss: self-lost
By today's standards, Lao Bai is a typical "slasher middle-aged", he has a double life, one is the honest husband Walter who is critically ill, and the other is the ruthless drug lord Heisenberg. But that doesn't matter because they are not independently parallel. The important thing is that the old white has no hair.
This very interesting symbol is used in the play to distinguish them. The old white with hair is Walter, he is tangled and kind, even if he makes drugs, he is forced by life. After he was determined to undergo chemotherapy and try to survive, he shaved off his hair and became the fierce Heisenberg in his eyes.
Heisenberg is a ruthless character who kills innocent people just because they threaten his drug business. In order to keep Xiaofan from betraying himself, he even poisoned the child. He played tricks and was addicted to it. After killing the big drug lord Gus, he refused to wash his hands and tried to build his own drug kingdom.
There are two places in "Breaking Bad" that show his changing role. Not long after he started making drugs, in a shop, several young people laughed at his son's disability. He didn't hold back, but walked over to knock the strong man down without fear. At this time, Walter began to be fascinated by his own changes, and Heisenberg was born soon after.
In the fourth season, "Breaking Bad" spent an entire episode of Old Bai slapping a fly in the drug room. The process of fighting flies is a process of inner struggle, and he is not sure whether he should continue to be Heisenberg. Once people's beliefs are not strong, they are bound to collapse. After seeing Hank killed and fleeing for months, he grew his hair back. Heisenberg died, and it was Walter who came back. He bid farewell to his wife and went to the enemy camp alone. He was not a drug lord at this time, but Walter in that store. An ordinary man who was humiliated and came back for revenge.
All of us are trapped in various abyss, not knowing who we are, what we want, and why we exist. For Lao Bai, making drugs is his way of redemption, where he found the answer to life, but too many people die with this unsolved question, and they don't even ask any more questions.
At the end of the episode, Old White dies. He fondly stroked his gas mask and retort vessel as the police car whizzed toward him, then lay on his back, smiling at death. The abyss killed Lao Bai, but it didn't break him to pieces.
(The film review was first published in "ONE One")
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