In the film "The Wind and Wind", I saw director Luca Guadagnino's gushing desire for expression.
He seems to have been suffocated by the previous film "Please call me by your name", so in this movie he desperately went to his opposite side, abandoned his fresh love, made a horror movie, and refused to go inside. In the end , he made a horror film into a serious reality movie.
I say this as if to be ironic, but it is not.
To be precise, I am excited about this movie.
Although I can still see a lot of problems, I am excited about its subversive nature and the exploration of the horror film genre.
Unlike the old version of "The Wind and Wind (1977)", the new version does not focus on audiovisual language. Of course, its audio-visual experience is definitely not bad, but it is not the point.
Guadagnino's ambition or interest lies in the textual level.
He is not to be a simple scary thing, but to incorporate a lot of authorship into the film, including his views on history, religion, politics, witchcraft, feminism, terrorism, etc.
It is naturally quite difficult to pack so many elements into one text. This is also a watershed in the polarization of the film's reputation.
For viewers who simply want to seek audiovisual excitement, this movie is obviously too boring.
But as long as you look closely, through the story about witches on the surface, and see the real problems the director is trying to explore, the more you look, the more you will enjoy it.
(The following text involves a lot of spoilers)
The most superficial story of the film is actually very simple. It tells the story of a reincarnated "true god mother" defeating a "false god mother" and being reborn.
The concept of "mother" comes from the collection of poems and essays by de Quincy, "Sighs from the Depth", which mentions that there were three god mothers before the creation of God: the mother of darkness, the mother of tears, and the mother of sighs. The heroine of the film, Susie, is the reincarnation of the mother of sighs.
She didn't know who she was at first, but she was led to Berlin by a certain force.
It was 1977, during the Cold War. There was a dance academy near the Berlin Wall, controlled by a group of witches who believed in goddesses. This group of witches is divided into two factions due to power struggles. The leader of one faction is Marcus, who claims to be one of the goddesses, who is actually a fake, and the leader of the other faction is the dancer Blanco.
Susie came here and quickly became the lead dancer, but she also discovered the secrets of the witches. It turns out that their purpose of opening a dance academy is to help the witch leader Markus choose girls as a container for renewing his life. The so-called dance is nothing but the ritual of this life-threatening witchcraft.
In the end, Susie's hidden consciousness awakened. In the final ceremony, she revealed her real body and summoned the demon to kill Marcus and his party members, and then erased everyone's memories.
At this point, the goddess of sighs finally returned, and the dance academy restored its former peace, or in other words, will continue its hidden sins.
On the surface, it is such a story.
But below, I'm going to start to extend something.
In my opinion, this movie tries to accommodate at least three levels of expression. Of course, this ambiguity is not rigorous enough, and it is indeed difficult.
The three levels are: two virtues, revolution and feminism.
Among them, the expression of "two virtues" is the simplest and most direct.
The story took place during the Cold War, and it was on the side of the Berlin Wall. In the window at the entrance to the dance academy, there are photos of the teachers, divided into two columns, with Markus on the left and Blanco on the right.
Left and right are the positional relationship and the division of ideology.
So obviously, Markus symbolizes East Germany under the Soviet rule, and Markus’s fate is close to the harbinger of the impending collapse of the Soviet Union; Blanco symbolizes West Germany under American rule, relatively enlightened, and coming from the United States. Susie is connected.
As the film progresses, it is also a dark thread that continuously inserts the terrorist actions created by the left-wing extremist organization "Red Army faction" in Berlin.
In reality, the Red Army faction is anti-American and has secret support from East Germany.
In the film, the psychologist Joseph said, “For Patricia (the former lead dancer), Mrs. Markus and Mrs. Mainhoff are equally important in her life." Mainhoff is One of the founders of the Red Army faction made this level of counterpoint more clear. It can even be deduced that Marcus's use of the godmother's name to satisfy his selfish desires is actually the same as the Red Army faction's use of communism to commit terrorism. The two are essentially the same.
So what does Susie stand for?
A nascent Germany refers specifically to Germany that recovered with the aid of the American Marshall Plan after World War II.
So Susie is from the United States, and her mother was seriously ill, which coincides with the fact that the United States was deeply entangled in the Vietnam War and its reputation was discredited.
In the end, Susie destroyed Markus and Blanco survived. In reality, it was West Germany who took over East Germany legally and merged into a brand new Germany.
Susie then found Joseph, told him the truth about the murder of his wife in the concentration camp, and told him, "We need someone to confess, and someone to be ashamed, but that person is not you." Then he erased his memory.
This symbolizes the newly born Germany, hoping that people can completely get rid of the shadow of Nazi memory and start again.
Guadagnino is a fan of German history. The whole film was selected in 1977, which is also a very sad year in German history, known as the "German Autumn".
From this perspective, the end of the film tends to be brighter. The terrorist actions of the Red Army were disintegrated and the hostages were rescued; the crisis of the dance academy was also lifted, and the godmother descended again.
This is a story with a beautiful ending. The director told us: everything is over, forget it and move on.
But if we look at this story from another angle, it won't be so beautiful.
Then we enter the second level of text interpretation, the key word is "revolution". It does not seem to be accurate to say that it is a revolution. It should be said that it is a matter of the change of power of a dynasty that is about to collapse.
Now, let us close the door and stop looking at the Berlin Wall. Regardless of whether the Red Army is right or wrong, we only look at the internal affairs of the dance academy.
People here, whether witches or dancers, seem to be indifferent to the outside world.
Then we can actually think of it this way: the dance academy itself is a miniature model of society, it has its own system and its own mode of operation.
At the beginning of the second act of the film, there is a nearly three-minute long shot of the internal elections of the witches. The candidates are Marcus and Blanco, the leaders of the two factions.
Note that this is not a two-party system, nor a representative system. These witches do not represent anyone's rights, and the dancers are just crowds who don't know the truth. Patricia and Oga, the only ones who have figured out the truth, were also dealt with early and became sacrifices.
Their election was completely internal, and they went through the process, and in the end Markus won 10 to 7 and continued to run the dance academy.
Marcus should have been alive for a long time. This is definitely not the first time she has been in office, and of course it will not be the first time her life has been renewed. Her rise and fall are just like the rise and fall of an empire, requiring sacrifices to the people's blood and pretending to be in the name of the people.
What are the three god mothers?
Is it freedom, equality, fraternity?
Maybe it is.
In any case, what Markus faked was in the name of those lofty ideals to legitimize his rule.
As a dissident within the party, Blanco was defeated in the new round of elections.
In fact, she had already begun to doubt the identity of Makos. In a conversation with another witch, she once said, "If Makos was really one of the three goddesses, we would not have fallen to this point. "
Yes, if Makos was as noble as she preached, the empire would not be so decayed, full of abscesses.
Well, along this line of thought, let's talk about what "dance" is.
Let me just add that the choreography of the film is very exciting, and it has a fatal attraction that makes people afraid to watch it and can't stop it.
So what does it represent?
In my opinion, it has a dual meaning: one meaning symbolizes the ruler's control of the people; the other meaning is the people's resistance to the ruler.
These two meanings can also be vaguely seen from the name of the dance.
The whole film only involves two dances, one is called "Appearing Again" and the other is called "People's Dance". Obviously, the former is control and the latter is resistance.
Corresponding to the film, about 56 minutes or so, Susie danced "Appearing Again" for the first time, and at this time she had a telepathy with Markus under the floor. The so-called "reappearance" means the resurrection of the decadent system that Markus symbolizes, and this dance is tantamount to a bowing and worshipping of those in power.
Just as Blanco and Susie talked, when it comes to dancing, the feeling is "like being struck by a bolt of lightning, like making love."
It’s no coincidence that in Victor Kleppler’s book "The Language of the Third Reich", it was recorded that Lenny witnessed Hitler’s speech for the first time. She mentioned, “That feeling is like lightning. It’s like an oracle, which I will never forget."
Yes, dancing is also a kind of language, a set of words used by rulers to control the people, thereby framing all beliefs and behaviors.
That constantly twisting dance posture, which seems free, is actually a prescribed movement, just like the arms raised by the people of the Nazi Empire when they shout "Hi, Hitler". So natural and so religious.
So what is "Dance of the People"?
It was a resistance led by Blanco, or a revolution. But Blanco is relatively gentle. She wants to use dance instead of bloody sacrifices to let the decadent empire breathe.
As the witches said at a party, "Blanco has already embarked on that new method, an unprecedented method."
This method is to change the tradition of blood sacrifice to achieve a gradual improvement.
Unfortunately, this method ultimately failed. The reason was Susie's betrayal. It was she who awakened Sara and interrupted the dance, and the plan went bankrupt. So everything had to go back to the old way, and the bloody ceremony at the end of the film was staged again.
So the question is, why did Susie do this? What is her relationship with Blanco?
In fact, the relationship between Susie and Blanco is the relationship between practitioners and theorists in a revolution.
Blanco is Susie's mentor and the founder of the entire dance theory, but the person who actually dances is Susie. Blanco can only guide Susie on the theoretical level, but cannot prevent Susie from using theory as a weapon to arm her actions.
Blanco told Susie, "If you want to learn how to dance, you have to learn French."
This sentence seems inexplicable. But as long as you understand the revolutionary enlightenment significance of the "French Revolution" to the whole of Europe, you can understand the deep meaning behind this sentence.
That was a theoretical guidance, and it was Blanco that taught the true meaning of "revolution."
And Blanco has repeatedly reminded Susie that the most important action in "Dance of the People" is "jumping." If the floor represents the dark reality and the decadent Marcus, then jumping is obviously a kind of break-away, a kind of resistance.
Finally, under the guidance of Blanco, after passing through the enlightenment of the dream again and again, Susie finally awakened.
However, must the people's awakening be a good thing?
The film clearly gives a pessimistic answer.
Susie finally betrayed Blanco and led the revolution on a bloody journey again.
In the ceremony that was supposed to be the coronation of Marcus, Susie summoned the demon, or violence itself, to kill the previous person in power, liquidated all her comrades, and became the new king herself.
Is she really the mother of sighs?
do not know.
The only thing we know is that she replaced Marcus and became a new generation of rulers in the name of the goddess as the legitimacy of the regime.
Since then, the dark history will continue, everything is just new violence replacing the old violence, nothing has changed.
Susie finally erased the memory of the psychologist Joseph, which is no different from the ruler who ordered the intellectuals to shut up after seizing power.
Then there is one more question. Why did Mrs. Tanner, a supporter of Markus, survive?
It's very simple, because she is the only one who truly supports Marcus and the system it represents. So after Makos died, she held the body and wept bitterly.
For the new generation of rulers, this kind of "faithfulness" is also needed instead of speculators standing in line.
From this perspective, this story will become extremely dark.
It is a fable of totalitarianism, full of conspiracy and violence, and even desperate.
Well, finally, let’s look at the third level of expression, which is the evolution of feminism.
This film makes no secret of its feminist tendencies. Almost all the important roles in the film are women, even the 82-year-old male psychiatrist Joseph played by Tilda Swinton.
With regard to feminism, Guadagnino obviously has his own views.
Let me mention an important prop: hooks.
What is the shape of that hook? Yes, ribs.
This is very clear. The Bible says that a woman is a rib of a man, which is interpreted by the patriarchal society as a woman's dependence on a man.
In the film, the hook symbolizing the rib became a weapon used by the witches to resist.
Especially in that scene of molesting male police officers, the witches hypnotized two male police officers, took off their guns, and used hooks to fiddle with their genitals for fun.
This is the initial stage of feminism. It is anti-discrimination against men. The essence is a kind of overcorrection by a disadvantaged group in fighting for their own power.
And the entire dance academy is like an experimental ground for feminism.
Further development, to the final ceremony. Joseph, the only important male character in the film, was hypnotized and brought to the scene as a witness to the coronation ceremony of feminism.
And just when he was led to the dance academy by the vision of his wife, the witch said something to him, roughly saying: You could have saved your wife from the persecution of the Nazis, but you missed the opportunity; when those girls asked for help At your time, you didn't think the witches they were talking about were true, but instead said they were delusions. Now those girls are about to die. It's all your fault!
This is the second stage of feminism. It is believed that women need men's protection, and the current disadvantaged situation is all because of men's indifference and arrogance, so they should fight for power from men.
This seems to be a kind of powerful feminist rights. In essence, she still imagines herself as a victim in a patriarchal society, and still fails to abandon patriarchal thinking and strive for complete equality.
From this to the end of the film, the true feminist spokesperson Susie completely awakened. She erased Joseph’s memories of his wife and all the girls who were victimized, and said to him the sentence mentioned above: “We need someone to confess our sins, and also Someone needs to be ashamed, but that person is not you."
This sentence is the real declaration of feminism.
It tells all men: Abandon your hypocritical sympathy, and don't think of female victims as narcissistically that they have failed to fulfill their mission as a flower protector. True equality between men and women means that everyone is human, no one is stronger, no one is weaker, and no group of people naturally looks up or sympathizes with another group. This is true equality.
At this point, the three-layer more complete ideology of the film is basically finished.
There are also two interesting branches to chat briefly.
One about the "mother-daughter relationship".
There are three god mothers in the film, and in reality, for Susie, there are also three mothers. One is an American mother, one is Markus, and the other is Blanco.
From this perspective, the film actually tells a story about how a woman can break free from her mother's influence and gain independence.
And these three mothers also each represent a kind of abnormal maternal love.
American mothers are indifferent, dying, and don’t care about whether or not there is or not; Markus is a snatching type, even resurrecting himself at the expense of his daughter; while Blanco’s persuasive temptation is a soft control, which is Let you surrender to me from a spiritual level.
Of course, in the end, Susie awakened, cut off the relationship with the three mothers from the heart, and became an independent woman herself.
Another branch line is about the "relationship between politics and art."
To put it bluntly, in a high-pressure political environment, how should artists deal with themselves.
There is an interesting phenomenon. Between the two factions of Witches, the Machus faction is basically administrative staff. For example, Tanner is similar to a teaching director, and Van Digast is the dormitory administrator; on the other hand, the Blanco faction They are all responsible for the art itself. Blanco is the soul of the dance company, Butach is the technical instructor, and Belfort is the designer of dance costumes.
These two schools happen to be able to deal with politics and art. Of course, everyone knows that politics has the upper hand, and art is nothing but a tribute to politics, just as dance is only a coronation ceremony for a king.
But in this process, as an artist, Blanco still has his own artistic persistence, and finally even empathized with Susie, hoping that she could escape the final sacrifice.
At this time, Markus yelled the questionable words to Blanco: "All this is not vanity, and it is not art!"
Yes, you artists have no dignity in the first place, but they are just my stepping stones.
From this perspective, it is also very interesting.
Ok, this article is already too long, and it's almost time to finish writing this article.
If you ask me to score, I can give this movie a score of 7.5.
Although Guadagnino still hasn't dealt with the fusion of complex texts, which has caused ambiguity between one and the other, and even a sense of fragmentation of the text, I still applaud his brave attempt, which is more terrifying than those who stick to stereotypes. The film is much stronger.
Especially after filming "Please call me by your name" and became famous, Guadagnino did not stop in his comfort zone, but walked forward bravely.
I don't know whether he broke through or returned to himself this time. In any case, "The Wind and Wind" will definitely become an extremely important work in his creative career.
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