2021 has just arrived, and Netflix has presented Kenel Mudluzzo's first masterpiece " Pieces of Woman " ( Pieces of Woman ) after he first entered Hollywood . This Hungarian director, who has long been well-known in major film festivals, has always been known for his technical flow. His last work " Jupiter Holdja " ( Jupiter Holdja ) was also nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 70th Cannes Film Festival. In this "Guardian of Jupiter", Kenel Mudluzzo combines sci-fi genre elements with miraculous religious metaphors, and uses the director's always good at moving long shots to make the whole movie Possess a kind of magical temperament.
In "Fragments of Women" released on Netflix on January 7, Kenel Mudluzzo tried for the first time a female theme that was completely different from the previous works "Guide of Jupiter" and "White God". Using a relatively private and calm lens perspective, it explores the issues of marriage, bereavement, and female grief.
In addition, this film has a gathering of celebrities, produced by Martin Scorsese, "White Widow" Vanessa Kirby has a delicate starring, and even the actress who has been plagued by scandals and gossip all the year round, Shia LaBeouf joined the film. The film starred in the role of her husband. In short, the highlights of "Fragment of Woman" are enough to make the audience watch this movie with great curiosity and expectation.
mist
The shadow filled with pain
At the beginning of the film, the gloomy and dark tones filled the river in the mist-filled Boston city. Sean, who was in charge of building the bridge, hoped that his daughter who was about to be born would be the first to walk on the tower bridge that was about to be built. .
On the other hand, his wife Martha is struggling to cope with people’s kind "consolation" to her about to give birth. Obviously Martha is not already "healthy" physically and mentally prepared for the birth, but is deeply trapped in the mother's control and surroundings. Under the eyes of society. This deep sense of distance with others makes Martha tend to live internally, and the daughter who is about to be born becomes her subconsciously loved and anticipated inner support.
Therefore, the pain and self-attachment that belonged to Martha have coexisted with her like a shadow that could not be dissipated from the beginning, which also made her daughter's death a certain inevitability in accident.
Putting away these shadows of pain, we can't forget the most beautiful time of the whole film, which is Masha's birthing night at home. Although the external pressure always exists, the child has become the biggest vision of Martha and her husband Sean. They are in love with this vision at the same time, but their mood is extremely complicated. The more they yearn for each other and their children. Deep love, the more fear, fear of all possible accidents of the new birth.
Director Kenel Mudluzzo cleverly used a long lens to present the whole process of Martha's birth. The delicate motion of the lens captures every moment. Under the long lens, there is Shaun’s worried eyes and Martha's crazy look. The anticipation and fear of Martha and Sean are entangled and comforted by each other's bodies.
And all this came to an abrupt end with the death of the child. We saw that it was because Martha insisted on refusing to go to the hospital to give birth to the child, and that the child eventually died. We also saw that the couple cruelly took the innocent midwife to court. For a while, the midwife became the couple and even the whole society in order to get rid of the pain. A scapegoat for responsibility. The existence of any wound always requires someone to be blamed. People are least willing to blame themselves.
We deeply understand that the underlying reason for Martha's refusal to go to the hospital is that she completely internalized the child into her own product. She shuts out her mother, friends, and everything in the external society. It is Martha's self-protection and self-enclosure. His dedication led to the death of his daughter. And the daughter's death completely tore the invisible scar hidden in Martha's heart, and the pain started from her body.
The child is dead, but the milk is still secreting, seeping out of her clothes. Under the sassy workplace dress is the diaper that shelters the torn vagina. The pain in the body reminds every moment of the fact that Masha's daughter was born but died.
Crushed ice
Destruction under the undercurrent
As the winter is approaching, the bridge that Sean is responsible for has already been built. There are countless broken ice floating on the river. As time goes by, the broken ice evolves into larger and denser ice blocks on the surface of the river, the surface water of the river. Already unable to flow, thick and stiff snow accumulates on the side of the road. The director uses natural things that constantly evolve to show the flow of time. At the same time, it symbolizes Martha's inner heart that not only can't be resolved, but is more solid.
The pain of losing her daughter made Martha choose to completely close her heart. She was nervously confronting her mother and other people. She chose to donate her child's organs to the hospital for medical research. All destruction was to escape the pain.
Even her once-loved husband was turned away by her. In fact, the most fragile and sad thing in the whole film is how the relationship between her and her husband, Sean, is destroyed step by step. The space in the home is not as warm as it was at the beginning. The dead flowers and plants piled up in the sink bowls and flower pots are used as some details to hint the direction of the family.
The role of the two in the interior of the car is also intriguing. The window glass shows the suffocation of Martha and Sean getting along, and the outside of the window glass reflects the outline of the city and the crowd. This lens setting implies that they are between the husband and wife. Some of the deep-seated social problems.
In the role of Sean, it can be seen that the director and screenwriter are trying to take some significant male social issues into consideration. Sean has always been looked down upon by Martha's wealthy mother because of his education and background. He does not have the superior social status that men should "have". At this level, it not only involves class conflicts but also social prejudices faced by men.
However, the film does not describe this contradiction in detail. Throughout the film, the female social issues involved in the role of Martha have not been paid too much attention, so it is not in the traditional sense. Feminist film. The film presents more attention to the problem of how to forget and resolve personal injuries.
Personal pain is implicated in all kinds of relationships, showing a certain kind of infringement and transmission of pain. If Martha's pain is a long-awaited heartbreak, then the pain of her husband Sean is more derived from Martha's transmission. Sean's tears and redemption couldn't bring Martha back to the new relationship, and helplessly he was brought into the abyss step by step.
He picked up the habit of drinking and smoking again, sold vehicles, and had a grumpy temper. When Sean tried to regain the old friendship with Martha through sex, the physical contact between the two under the moving camera was more like an offense between two incompatible individuals. Sean's final restoration failed. The relationship between the two ended completely when Sean went to the airport in tears.
Fine snow
Re-face the pain in memory
In the third stage of the film, the narrative quietly shifted from the relationship between Martha and her husband to the relationship between Martha and her mother. The mother-daughter relationship will not be repeated here. In the end, her mother ordered Martha to return to the trial court to face the memory. In the courtroom, Martha still deceived herself and everyone, told lies, and placed the responsibility of the child's death on the midwife. However, at this stage, Martha's mood has changed slightly.
After her husband left, Xixue replaced the hard ice and came to Martha. Her heart gradually softened. She did not go there for the first time until she washed the photos of her husband when she gave birth to her daughter. Faced with the daughter who had lived for one minute, the photo left the eternal moments of her and her daughter. The frozen memories finally melted away. In the end, she spilled her daughter's ashes into the river, and she reached some kind of reconciliation with herself.
In this film, we can see a lot of detailed arrangements, as well as metaphors of abstract concepts, such as the gradually built bridge, and Masha's transformation of her thoughts of her daughter into the care of the roots and sprouts of the apple tree. These detailed arrangements are deliberately setting off Martha's painful memories.
However, the slightly deliberate details make Martha's pain accompanied by a sense of deliberate hypocrisy. Therefore, Kenel Mudluzzo still has a lot of room for improvement in the choice and setting of film imagery. . In terms of plot, it seems that all plots are serving Martha’s pain, although from the perspective of some plots and character relationships throughout the film, it can be seen that the director deliberately concealed some hidden social problems through some plots. The relationship with the character's plight, but it is only a superficial taste, which also makes Masha's pain too thin and personal.
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