Last year, a friend met a Russian director who made the famous film "White Tundra" and can be regarded as an internationally renowned director. However, when talking about the filming equipment, the director was amazed that the Chinese filming equipment has surpassed that of Russia for almost 20 years, and can be compared with Hollywood. This friend of mine is very proud of China's leadership.
But what about the quality of Chinese films? I am afraid that it is more than 20 years behind Hollywood, and it can even be said that it is 20 years behind Russian movies? Twenty years ago, science and engineering students became national leaders; over the past 20 years, technological advancement has overwhelmed everything; as a result, the soul was sold in exchange for a bunch of soul-killing technologies. Is this the paradox of China's modernization?
The author does not say this for nothing. Taking out the film "Fool in a Dangerous Building" alone is enough to know the charm of Russian films.
"A Fool in Dangerous Building" echoes Dostoevsky's famous book "The Idiot", but the plot is completely placed in modern Russia. In a small city, Dima Nikitin is an upstanding, down-to-earth plumber. His mother was a nurse and his father was a forklift worker, both retired. He had a wife and a child, and was so poor that he had to share a room with his parents. Therefore, he taught himself architecture knowledge, hoping to change his destiny.
Until an accident changes his trajectory - any accident can only realize its impact through each person's character itself, which is the so-called "character is destiny". Nikitin's character is just integrity, a family heritage of integrity.
(Screenshot 1 of the movie, forgive the author's poor screenshot technique. Nikitin's father-son dialogue, two generations of upright boys inherited from the family)
On the edge of the small town, in a dilapidated residential building, a man with Russian "honorable" tradition is beating his wife , the water pipe burst in the chaos. Nikitin was called to the scene in the middle of the night after the chief engineer of the maintenance team that Nikitin worked for had been drunk for three days - a "glorious" Russian tradition. Wife-beating can break the water pipe, and the fighting nation is so good? NO, it's not that the Russian men's fists are powerful, but the building is full of cracks, and the fragile water pipes will naturally burst when touched. Nikitin looked at the cracks and came to the conclusion that the building was about to collapse!
A 38-year-old dilapidated building houses more than 800 people, and its collapse means an unprecedented catastrophe!
Nikitin knew that his boss, the captain of the municipal maintenance team, Fedotov (Fedo for short), was a corrupt guy. Three years ago, he used paint to erase the traces of cracks, and now naturally he will not admit these cracks. He decided to bypass Fedo and report directly to the mayor. Nikitin gets a chance to meet the mayor through his mother's old relationship, and begins a journey to change his life.
(Screenshot 2 of the movie, the longest shot of the movie, Nikitin went to the hotel for the Mayor's birthday dinner alone, like a long march, which is meaningful)
He was on the 50th birthday of the Mayor Nina Galaganova She was found at the dinner and told about the crisis she was facing. Nina is called "Mom" by people in the city - so you can't judge Nikitin without a conscience just because of the extravagant, chaotic dinner he saw. On the contrary, Nina also came from a poor background, and she also contributed to the prosperity of the city. Of course, she was worried about the safety of 800 people, at least such a crisis would threaten her political future.
She found Fedo, the captain of the maintenance team, and Toya, the captain of the fire brigade, and the two followed Nikitin to check the dangerous building. At the same time, Nina also arranged the work of the police, housing management, municipal administration, and hospital departments. Once it is confirmed that the building is really about to collapse, the hundreds of people must be evacuated first. While the bureaucracy is corrupt, at least it's taken seriously.
(Screenshot 3 of the movie, the chaotic dinner party and the shouting of the pumpers. The dancer in the middle of the picture above is the female mayor)
Nikitin led two people through the chaotic and dangerous building. In this building filled with desperate old people, filled with drug-addicted, promiscuous young people, this is the city of Sodom. But the response from the bureaucracy was a relief to those of us who were "kind" off-screen viewers. No matter how much money Fei embezzles, no matter how corrupt and bureaucratic the city officials are, they still believe that the building is going to collapse, and they are still ready to evacuate those "poor people".
(Screenshot 4 of the movie, the director used Feiduo to express his evaluation of the residents in the building. Although it was out of bureaucratic prejudice, the prejudice was also very accurate)
But the obstacle to be solved is: 800 people were evacuated and let Where do they settle down? In particular, the female mayor learned that the budget deficit is more than 10 million, but it takes more than 20 million to evacuate this group of people. This is a bottomless pit that cannot be filled. Nina first thought that she should create a fire first and use this as an excuse to evacuate people, then the construction team would enter the reinforced building and then let people live in, and finally think of a fundamental solution.
This plan was immediately opposed. Once a major event involving so many people is known, how can 800 people still live in it. The only way is to find them accommodation right away. So Nina called off the evacuation plan and went to visit the real estate businessman late at night (the businessman was a guest at the dinner party just a moment ago), hoping to provide hundreds of houses first. The real estate businessmen who were controlled by gangsters and the powerful naturally refused to agree, so the city's "mother" had nowhere to go.
(Screenshot 5 of the movie, the female mayor Nina scolded her subordinates. I personally think it has many similarities with the classic "Fuhrer's Roar" in "The Fall of the Empire". The head of state is a puppet in some form, the female mayor Nina is also, in fact, very pitiful)
Nina is just a puppet manipulated by many interests. When these interests are offended, it is impossible and unrealistic to sacrifice them to save 800 people. The female mayor must also consider how to protect herself from the bite of various interests. So, Nina compromised, and all the information about this dangerous building was burned. Then, the insider will be silenced, not only Nikitin, not only the responsible person Fei Duo, but even Toya, the fire brigade captain who accompanied them to check the dilapidated building.
If you are inexplicably surprised, it must be that your drawing is broken. When a group of beasts are biting, the weakest accomplice among them is naturally the first to be sacrificed. Fortunately, Fedor found his conscience and prayed that the policemen who were going to kill them (yes, the policemen sent by the police chief) spared the innocent Nikitin. Nikitin panicked and fled home amid the gunfire, desperate to take his wife and children to the end of the world.
(Screenshot 6 of the movie, a sentence from the maintenance team captain Fei Duo saved Nikitin’s life, and later Nikitin himself said that he was wrong about Fei Duo, in fact, he is a good person)
However, just as he was about to escape When he left the city, he returned to the dangerous building again, and the justice in his heart was once again inspired, and he decided to go from house to house to wake up the sleeping people. He returned to the dangerous building and successfully woke up every household, and the panicked people fled downstairs one after another.
The BUT
building did not collapse immediately! It's all like a Nikitin grandstanding joke!
People questioned, asked, and finally beat Nikitin in a group, then threw him downstairs all by himself, and returned to the dilapidated building one after another. This is how the story ends with a helpless humor.
(Screenshot 7 of the movie, everyone beats up Nikitin. It is extremely cold for the hero who saved the world to end up like this)
Could it be that Dima Nikitin, a straight boy, should have this ending: he was almost killed by a black-hearted official , was almost beaten to death by the ignorant crowd, and finally caused the separation of the wives and the family? What about the heroes who can save the world? The righteousness will surely triumph over the evil? It is said that good people must be rewarded? What about a happy reunion and a happy ending?
How to explain a world full of such bizarre paradoxes? Is it the black heart of the official represented by the female mayor, but she really tried hard, did she try to solve all this before her conscience was eaten? What's more, Fedor, who was once black-hearted and corrupt, didn't save Nikitin's life in the end, they were not inherently bad people. Is that the ignorant public? They were as degenerate as maggots in the cesspool, and it was among them that the same depraved officials were born, so to speak, from top to bottom, they were all rotten.
This is a desperate world, so there is such a desperate ending. This can't help but think of the story of Noah's Ark in the Bible. When the world fell beyond salvation, God decided to "destroy from the earth man and beast and insects and birds of the sky". It's just that there is a good man, Noah, who deserves to stay. So God asked Noah to build an ark to preserve the seeds of life that could come back to life after the apocalypse. Noah obeyed God's arrangement, so there is the legend of Noah's Ark.
Wait, isn't Noah a nice guy? Why didn't he ask God not to be so cruel, not to take away the lives of all beings so easily? Even if God didn't listen to him, why didn't Noah deliver the news one by one, every family could build an ark, wouldn't it save more lives? But Noah was silent, even ignoring the ridicule of his family. He only built the ark, only saved the lives of his family, and only saved the species that God chose to leave behind. So, Noah became the ancestor of all the people behind - of course the Bible says so, but do you understand the meaning behind it?
The meaning behind it is that really good people are rewarded.
Is Nikitin a good guy? Maybe, but he was at best a blind "good guy". He can't even see that the real power figure who manipulates the female mayor is Sayabin (Nina's lover), and he can't see that the degenerate people in the dilapidated building are actually not different from the city officials. He sees every unavoidable thing. There are far-reaching backgrounds and intricate reasons behind them - the so-called inevitability of fate.
So he doesn't care about his wife's feelings at all, no matter what his children's future will be, he just ignores everything for what he thinks is "good". This kind of integrity and simplicity is just the child's wishful thinking. So, his wife said, "You are like a child, you know what kind of world you live in!" He self-righteously gave up his responsibility for his wife and children and chose to intervene in this unsolvable problem.
(Screenshot 9 of the movie, Nikitin's wife berates him. Then Nikitin gives up his responsibility for his wife and children.)
Nikitin's reckless intervention also has the exact opposite effect. It first resulted in the killing of two people - even if they were not innocent. Secondly, the lives of 800 people were completely buried in the dangerous building. And, the third result is that black-hearted city officials wipe out evidence ahead of time, making it impossible to even prosecute them after the incident. In the final analysis, Nikitin did nothing good, his "goodness" was a kind of goodness without wisdom and no contingency, and his "goodness" was a kind of self-righteous and wishful thinking.
(Screenshot 11 of the video, Nikitin reported the news to the municipal authority, what the municipal authority really did was to find out all the files about the dangerous building, and then burn it down. The dangerous building really collapsed, and there would only be the dead Feiduo Take responsibility.)
What is the real good? True goodness is an insight into the world and destiny, a deep understanding of sin and desire before changing the world with the power of wisdom. Yes, killing 800 people in dangerous buildings and exterminating human beings in a major flood is indeed a very cruel and beyond humane thing. But when things in the human world are out of control and contradictions are irreversible, any kindness is promoting evil, and any self-righteous intervention is prolonging the suffering of the entire world - this world is not only human!
Disasters, wars, doomsday catastrophe, and even the abyss of hell that is beyond redemption are indeed not satisfactory, and they are indeed not the destination of the beautiful ideals of mankind. But if these things can alert people, inspire people, and awaken people after they appear, then there is nothing wrong with these things, and people can’t replace God and the Creator to conclude that these things are bad. I think that the reason why Noah didn't want to interfere with the direction of fate like Nikitin was because he had insight into the mysteries of the universe, it was because he was a sensible person who opened his eyes.
The mystery of the universe is nothing more than this: If you can't face the abyss of evil, you can never grasp the sword of good. Only by mastering the sword of goodness can one be called a good person and be rewarded.
(Symbol of Wisdom: Manjushri Bodhisattva, the sharp sword waving in his hand represents wisdom)
(End)
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