I never thought that one day I would be afraid of liberation

Allison 2022-01-01 08:02:11

When will the news of victory make you uneasy?

Alice and Munz hid on the ship and heard the news of the German surrender on the radio. This long-awaited moment should have come with joy, but suddenly became serious. Alice blurted out: I never thought about it. , One day I will be afraid of liberation. Can we imagine such a moment?

At this moment, we begin to have a sense of absurdity. At this moment, right and wrong begin to become blurred. At this moment, we begin to recognize the world again. At this moment, movies are no longer just movies.

For the director, this was originally just a movie, an entertainment film. Movies are naturally classified, and we have to admit this. To put it simply, commercial films focus on the design of bridges and climaxes, and focus on the plot, while art films just want to downplay the plot, deliberately hide the climax, and focus on people's hearts. Commercial films have to arouse your emotions, and artistic films have to move your heart. Two different purposes determine two different shooting methods, and the purpose determines the content and the form. It's not that the same director cannot do both. Spielberg's filming of Jihad and Jaws is only a successful commercial director, but Schindler's list is completely different. But not every director has this ability, or is willing to do so. Van Hoven is more convergent in this film, but his moves are still his own routine, so there is no need to overestimate this film. It's a good entertainment film.

The Internet has repeatedly praised the screenwriter and devalued the director. In fact, after closer inspection, the plot is old-fashioned and suspense is insufficient. The first half is lust, and the second half is Infernal Affairs. And when the old lawyer took out the architectural drawings of the German command with a smile on his face, I clearly saw Michael snickering in the escape. The most impressive thing about the whole film is the creation of the atmosphere of the enemy-occupied area during World War II. At this point, the film is more successful and the style is relatively uniform. This should be the director's skill. As for the actors, you might as well praise one more, she/they deserve it.

But even so, we can still see the good intentions of the creators. The director obviously not only wants to tell a good story, he also wants to reflect. The Dutch's disdain for Jews from time to time in the film; the deafening sentence "I never thought that one day I would be afraid of liberation"; the black humorous scene of the execution of Montz; after the victory of the war, the scene was full of people everywhere. The thugs and the cruel treatment of the spies faintly contrast with the order and elegance of the German army (of course the Germans are cruel in elegance and tyrannical in order); at the end, Alice and her family enter the farm, the closed manor is heavily guarded and armed The personnel patrolled around, and there was a faint battle siren in the distance, and the door slowly closed; even directly using Alice’s mouth to say, "When is this big?" But these few words quickly drowned in the plot and scene.

We believe in the sincerity of a film that claims to have been in preparation for nearly two decades. Even with this kind of superficial reflection and slightly far-fetched rhetoric, we can still see its overall ideological tendency. They reflect on the war itself, and reflect on human nature itself, the cruelty and dehumanization of war. People are in war. The humbleness and impermanence of fate. For the belligerents, the war will be won or lost, and for the people, everyone in the war will be a loser. War is a hearse to the cemetery.

Looking back at the country, this is the saddest thing. In the face of war, what are we left besides anger, self-improvement, and forgiveness? The result of not knowing how to reflect is confusion of values ​​and loss of beliefs. Perhaps the sad thing is not not being unable to reflect. After all, we have "The Devil Is Coming", and the sad thing may be that we cannot tolerate such reflection. Is it official intolerance or is it not accepted by the public? The latter is even more desperate.

I think of reading a passage from Wei Junyi’s memoirs in his later years, "Sorrowful Records": After joining the party, I found that I often struggled between being a party member and being a good person. There are good and evil, right and wrong in this world, but it is often not as simple as we think. Maybe only God can judge, but God just watches silently and doesn't say anything.

Let us return to the world and always remember that scene: the handsome guy drove Alice to see the lawyer, sat in the back seat and walked across the street, the SS with live ammunition blew the whistle, Alice lifted the skirt,... …At that moment, the world returned to normal and human beings became human again. At that moment, we understood why God created the world.

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Extended Reading

Black Book quotes

  • Rachel Stein aka Ellis de Vries: I never knew this would happen. To fear the liberation...

  • Gerben Kuipers: We will kill that girl! However, wherever, whenever.