After seven years, the Greek genius director Ougs Lansmos returned to the Venice International Film Festival with his new work "Favorite". When I first heard that Lance Moss's new work was shortlisted for the main competition in Venice, I couldn't help but feel a little dazed.
Looking at the creative process of director Lance Moss, it is not difficult to see that since the filming of the world-renowned "Dog Tooth", this genius director has quietly entered a period of creative creation. Although he was dormant for four years after filming "Alps," he has successively released "Lobster", "Death of the Sacred Deer" and "Favorite" which has just completed its premiere in Venice since 2015.
Lance Moss, who is known for his absurdity, weirdness and dystopia, his vision and thinking have always been extreme and weird. From "Dog Tooth" to "Lobster" on the right track, only with the first few works, he has formed an obvious personal style.
What is a little surprising is that the method of "Death of the Sacred Deer", which was shortlisted for the main competition unit of Cannes in 2017, is still familiar. So, what kind of face is this "Favorite" this year to greet movie fans?
At least for the moment, "Favorite" is the easiest to understand of all Lance Moss' works and the most friendly to moviegoers. The overall rhythm of the film is very well controlled. The joyous places make people laugh endlessly, the dark places make people creepy, seemingly crude but vulgar and humorous.
Compared with previous works, Lansmoss can be said to have gone from a rough and vigorous creation to a mature control of audiovisual language. Nowadays, he is more familiar with the audience's movie-watching psychology, regardless of pros and cons, at least he is more and more confident in the ups and downs of the plot. However, there are many fans who sigh. The later works of Lance Moss, despite violence, irony, and thoughts about the structure of social groups, lack some pioneering exploration and avant-garde enthusiasm.
1. A gorgeous robe full of lice
What kind of movie is the best? Probably, turnip greens have their own loves. Everyone will have their own favorite movie style and genre. But if it is said that the most lively film type, it must not escape the female court drama.
Although there are only three women in the main role in the movie Beloved, it is a high-class social group portrait drama about the old age of Queen Anne, the last monarch of the Stuart dynasty of the British Empire, with these three women as the main axis.
The film is divided into eight sections, capturing the so-called madness and conspiracy of the upper class in the Victorian palace. Lance Moss presents the character's psychological space under fluid desire in an extremely absurd black comedy style, showing the sadness that is concealed by ecstasy and banter.
Queen Anne (played by Olivia Coleman) in her later years is described in the film as a sickly and lonely woman hiding in the castle, venting her black hole-like emptiness and loneliness through appetite and sexual desire. She swallowed the cake frantically, but placed a wooden bucket that could vomit at any time by her side; she threw the blood orange on the naked man, splashing the blood-like color to satisfy her deformed sexual pleasure.
Queen Anne, who has been destined to lose power since her enthronement, always wears a perverted smile in the film. She bred seventeen rabbits, implying her seventeen children who died unfortunately. In this crazy and distorted court life, the best friend (and same-sex lover) who met in the micro-time, the Duchess of Marlborough (played by Rachel Vichy), is the only seemingly true emotional sustenance.
The nameless queen indulges in absurd games, willingly surrendering power to the Duchess of Marlborough, but turning a blind eye to her own plight. This distorted and balanced relationship is broken by Abigail (Emma Stone), the duchess's distant cousin. The same-sex relationship between the duchess and the queen is not only a guarantee of their status, but also accidentally became the secret of Abigail's superiority.
From the term "bitch" which has a strong descriptive nature, it bursts to the hearty ending. "The Beloved" can be said to be refreshing all the way to the end, exuding a certain obscene, blurred beauty, dirty and breathtaking. , The three women's gladiatorial fight, pulled and pulled by their respective forces, like three slippery and sticky snakes, condensing the conflict into the purest state.
Olivia Coleman's interpretation of Queen Anne is extremely perverse and neurotic, pretentiously indulging in a childlike temper, but finally lost in a distressing epiphany. At that moment, she was running wildly on the corridor of the palace, her eyes wide open with loss and fear written in them.
Abigail exhausted all his agencies and won the favor for a while, but in the end he just made clothes for the forces behind him. And the most beloved in the film is probably the Duchess of Marlborough, who is unapologetic in the face of her own desires, frank and straightforward like a firm cynicism follower, but still fell from the tightrope of "power" and "profit". .
Uncovering the scars of every vicious conspiracy is ridiculous. Everyone has their own fatal weakness, but everything has nothing to do with men. Behind the purely politicized behavior of feminism, these female roles bloom and collapse in their own way, forming a gradually dislocated relationship map. Who is the ruler of whose? Who is his darling?
2. People walking on a tightrope
The battle for favor in the court has always been a war without gunpowder, and loyalty is a particularly interesting concept. Are you loyal to the king, loyal to power, or loyal to your own desires? In the film, Lance Moss integrates this micro-personal relationship into the macro-political background of the last monarch of the Stuart dynasty in Great Britain.
In my opinion, the term "beloved" is originally an exclusive term at the top of social power. It uses false feelings to exchange the favor of the ruler, exchanges love for power, and exchanges power for benefits. These are the creatures of this class. Chain process.
On the surface, there are as many magnificent revelry and bliss, but secretly, there are as many filth hidden by the noise. The real tears in the movie are the power of the Duke of Marlborough behind the Duchess, the power dynamics of Masham behind Al Gaby, and the triangular relationship established by the old nobles represented by the queen.
In the relationship of human group portraits, the dynamic change of power has always been the motif of Lance Moss' image expression. It can be seen in almost all his films, the state of original power being shaken, threatened, and transferred. Discussions about patriarchy, jurisdiction, kingship, and other powers that have ruling groups have always been the topics of most interest to Lance Moss.
The authoritarian patriarchy in the films "Death of the Sacred Deer" and "Dog's Tooth" is gradually shaken within the exclusive group of the family; and what "Alps" and "Lobster" present are the breaches of high-level jurisdiction in extreme societies. Li; Today's "Favorite" puts the framework on the real historical royal power, showing the power swing in the precarious wind and rain.
The swing of the center of gravity of the three female characters presents a map of the dynamic transformation of power in the film. The seemingly perverse and irritable Queen Anne is actually powerless to struggle in the face of fragile destiny and the passing of power.
The duchess, who seems to have a deep affection for the queen, is actually using her status as an old Tory nobleman to secretly communicate with the Whig Party and act as a double-faced party for her own benefit; the seemingly poor maid, Al Gaby, actually preserved it. The evil intentions secretly cultivate new political forces in the clan.
The interweaving of power, lust, and human nature is the most pleasing drama in court political drama. The essence of black absurdity lies in irony, and behind the perverse banter is lament. Driven by desire, they use their claws to dig out a place for survival in the cracks, thinking that power can be their darling, but they don't know that they are the darling of power.
Lance Moss kept the film’s greatest dramatic tension until the last scene of the film. A pair of slender hands gently massaged the legs, and the angle of the camera was cleverly turned into a posture of oral sex, and the power trade continued until death. It was precisely this moment that Lance Most's slammed irony was both evil and disgusting, and it was even more tragic.
3. Smile gracefully when stabbing a knife in the back
The core thread of the complicated court black absurd drama lies in the reasonable extension of the relationship between the characters on the narrative line. Unlike Quentin and David Russell, Lansmos's original personal style did not include this high degree of control over the plot and the actors. This time, director Lance Moss obviously made a compromise for "Favorite", put away his edge, and became more mainstream.
But in terms of audiovisual language, Lansmos's new work is better than any previous work, and the highly unified style fully serves the theme. The visual presentation is magnificent and grandiose Victorian style, with maroon panelling full of inlays and tapestries, showing a subtle elegance in the geometric composition.
The photographer Robbie Ryan, who first collaborated with him, broke the conventional photographic balance structure and alternated intertextuality between exaggeration and minimalism, allowing the audience to see the changes in the character's psychological trajectory through a twisted fisheye lens. The dexterous wide-angle long lens follows the footsteps of the characters, wandering between the wooden stairs, the corridor where the footsteps can be heard, and the huge living room. The lens draws a sense of disorientation in the flow.
The only thing that makes people uncomfortable is that the film’s auditory presentation is excessive, from Handel, which sounded at the beginning, to classic excerpts from Bach, Vivaldi, and Schubert, and then from Olivier Messian and Luc ·For modern electronic music like Ferrari, the overspread high intensity can cause auditory unpleasantness.
Author | Peter Pan; Public Number | Seeing Death in Movies
Edit | Riding a Rooftop Boy; please indicate the source for reprinting
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