After the 1990s is the era of globalization, and the distance between everyone and the surrounding world has been greatly shortened. Far away is no longer an unreachable and unknown existence, and the entire earth is closely linked. However, the world at your fingertips is not intimate, and the languages and faces of aliens still create prejudice and even hostility in the crowd. The estrangement and conflicts that have been staged countless times in the past history will continue for a long time, and the turmoil in some regions is even about to come. The 1994 Macedonian film "Heavy Rain is Coming" describes a part of the world - a story against the backdrop of the violent conflict-ridden Republic of Macedonia.
Since the Republic of Macedonia became independent, the country has been full of contradictions, inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflicts have continued, and the people have gradually fallen into a cycle of hatred and revenge, controlled by the logic of blood for blood. Unrest has become the norm in this country, and it is bound to spread to the outside world and affect the whole world. The film tells the story of hatred and conflict, warmth and understanding in this land. It is divided into three stories: "words", "faces" and "pictures": a young monk in Macedonia protects a Muslim girl who is being hunted down; a woman in a London photography magazine. The editor and her husband are suddenly attacked by a terrorist in public; a Macedonian photographer who has been away from home for many years returns to his hometown to find that the ethnic conflicts in his hometown are fierce. The three stories follow each other in chronological order, but return to the beginning of the first story at the end of the film, forming an impossible time loop.
Speech: Diaphragm and Comprehension
There is such a story in the Bible. In ancient times, human beings wanted to work together to build a tower of Babel that led directly to heaven. God was disturbed by this, so he made human beings speak different languages. efforts failed.
Speaking different languages is indeed a big barrier to understanding each other, however, there is a deeper separation between people.
In the film, Brother Corey made a silent vow to increase his piety by not speaking. He and Samina, a Muslim girl who suddenly appeared in his room on the top floor of the church, had a language barrier, but he understood the girl. Desperate panic and panic, sympathy and love. With the help of kind gestures and friendly actions, Corey gained Samina's favor and trust, and at the same time developed a secret love for Samina overnight. The next day, facing the people of the same family who insisted on breaking into the church to search Samina, Corey could understand their language, but the rudeness and cruelty of these people made the young priest feel separated, and these people mechanically repeated a sentence The words, "a tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye", turned a deaf ear to the persuasion of the church elders. Although the words were the same, the door to understanding was closed. So Corey responded with a silent protest, refusing to reveal Samina's whereabouts.
The search was fruitless, but Samina was discovered by the church elders soon after, and the elders expelled Corey from the church and asked him to take Samina away at night. At dawn, Corey and Samina were walking in the wilderness of Macedonia. The monk who had not spoken for two years finally spoke up and declared his promise to the girl. The girl did not understand his language, but at this time, pale and pale. The words of the two are no longer important, and the love that emerges from adversity and communism is enough to make the two break through the barriers between individuals and even between races and understand each other in the depths of their hearts.
At the end of the story, Samina dashed towards Ke Rui despite the obstruction of the clan, and after being shot and fell to the ground, Ke Rui said regretfully, "Forgive me", and Samina made a gesture with a finger between her lips: "No need to explain more." , I understand.
Faces: Disaster in the eyes of the peaceful world
Photojournalism enables people to know the information about the distance more accurately by shooting some scenes and disseminating it on a large scale, and directly appealing to visual images brings touch and impact to the soul, prompting people to take pictures for people who are strangers in the distance. action. The propaganda logo of Project Hope - the photo of "I want to go to school" has influenced history in this way: the helplessness and hope in the eyes of the little girl holding the pen in the photo aroused the sympathy and care of countless people, and made people sincerely Distant out-of-school children donate their strength.
In a series of photojournalism, faces are often important subjects to capture. As an external sign of life, a person's face is the richest reflection of his living state, and the state of his face is also the easiest to be felt and understood by others. Photographs of war-torn areas are often based on human faces: the frustrated and helpless faces of displaced refugees, the dazed and frightened faces of blood-covered children, the distressed faces of bereaved elderly people, and the empty faces of the deceased who have lost their features.
In the story "Face", Anne (Anne), editor of a London photography magazine, will come into contact with photos of war-torn people in her work. For this peaceful cosmopolitan city, these photos seem to come from another world. But in fact, people living in peaceful areas also have depression and confusion in their lives, as well as interference and contradictions between individuals, and the faces in different places may not be different. Correspondingly, the third story of the film has the words "other people in the world live like people here".
Ann's lover, photographer Alexander, determined to bid farewell to civilization, resigned and returned to his hometown of Macedonia. In the taxi, Ann felt the exhaustion, depression and pain on Alexander's face. Afterwards, the plot of An and her husband being attacked in a hotel shows that there are prejudices and conflicts in a civilized and peaceful world. After the terrorist attack, the survivors stuck their heads out in shock, the wounded cried and screamed, An's husband Nick was shot in the face, and the whole face was blurred and unrecognizable. Beside her, she was so terrified that she was overwhelmed. She just looked at the dead Nick and repeated a sentence in a trembling voice: "your face"...
Picture: the display of reality and history
The "picture" of the story provides a panoramic reflection of Macedonia. The story begins with a set of montage pictures, stitching together the majestic mountains and rivers, street scenes and rural scenery of Macedonia, realizing the record of real time and space, giving people a grand and full feeling. At the same time, several subtle plots in the film are reminiscent of the history of Macedonia before independence: the postman inadvertently whistled the melody of the Internationale; the photographer Alexander's first love when he was a boy was a Muslim girl; Keeping basic sanity, presumably because they remember a previous era - once Macedonia belonged to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and there was a period of peace in which racial and religious tensions were weakened and forgotten.
Those days are over, Macedonia in the film, "the air is full of blood": Serbs and Muslims in the country are in fierce conflict, ordinary people accept the logic of hatred, armed with weapons, and cast hostile eyes on outsiders, Even the children were aggressively playing with guns and bullets. People may be friendly friends or even relatives on weekdays, but once a conflict is triggered, they may also raise their weapons mercilessly to those around them.
There are many contrasting scenes in the story. The natural scenery of Macedonia is magnificent, but there is violence and bloodshed in this environment; Alexander and the rest of the family reunite after a long absence. Everyone gathers together happily, but when Alexander is rescued, he will be killed by his tribe. When Samina, the girl, was shot, the tribe shot him; a few tried to find peace, but the muted voice was soon drowned out in a frenzy of hatred. In fact, there are many scenes of this kind of shocking in the film. In the previous stories, there were scenes of a group of uninvited guests breaking into the solemn and sacred church, the pictures of the handsome and holy Brother Corey dealing with several vicious thugs, and the scenes of the elegant and peaceful London hotel suddenly being shot at by gunmen and then chaotic. The picture... The third story seems to wrap up the film.
In the living environment of human beings, good and evil are intertwined, and civilization and barbarism coexist. Therefore, these dislocated and confusing pictures are very real, and they show the real history and reality.
Time does not pass, the circle is not round
The director of "Heavy Rain is Coming" claims to be like the illustrator Escher, creating visual possibilities and allowing the audience to see the impossible world of time. In the film, the three paragraphs can be connected, but the time between the paragraphs is conflicting. At the end of the film, Samina is rescued by Alexander and flees to the church. At this time, Brother Corey is picking tomatoes in the field - just back to the beginning of the film . In this way, as if each story is both past and future, time loops in a trap, unable to move forward.
Correspondingly, a seemingly contradictory phrase appears many times throughout the film, "Time does not pass, and the circle is not round." If time does not pass, and the beginning just happens to return at the end, then the circle should naturally be round.
Perhaps human history is like a calamity that is constantly reincarnated, with hatred and revenge in a cycle, peace gained and lost again and again, and turmoil and darkness will always come back at some point. Eternal suffering seems to have continued, and time seems to be frozen here.
But what is valuable is that existence has never become necessary, and necessity is not considered to be ought. The voices for peace and understanding, though faint, never ceased.
Indeed, peace is a special case, and the history of Macedonia and the history of the whole world is accompanied by conflicts and even wars. But the powerless but firm images of Brother Corey and Alexander in the film claim that estrangement and hatred have never completely completed their rule. Knowing it can't do it" attitude, insist on communication, release goodwill, and pursue the faint glimmer of hope. Although it is just like a spark of fire, the circle that is enough to make the circle of dark reincarnation never draw a circle. These precious individuals convey a vision: after long-term efforts, the long tug-of-war between light and darkness will finally end, so time moves forward.
Therefore, at the end, the priest changed his mind and said that time waits for no one, because circles are not round.
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