Today we will talk about the American drama "Devil's Land".
The title of the film is Lovecraft Country (2020), also known as Lovecraft Country (Hong Kong) / Escape from the Deadly Village (Taiwan) / Lovecraft Country.
HBO Yellow Storm has launched a new drama "Devil's Land" in August 2020. The new drama has attracted countless Cthulhus with the bloody and bloody opening 1 minute and a glimpse of President Ke (Cthulhu). The eyes of literature lovers.
Fans are excited to think about another series produced by a big factory dedicated to Cthulhu. This means that Cthulhu culture has taken a big step in the process of film and television.
"Devil's Land" is adapted from a fantasy novel written by Matt Ruff in 2016.
The story of the novel is based on the story of a group of black comrades saying "no" to white privileges during the implementation of the "Jim Crow Act" in the United States in the 1950s. During their fantasy adventure, this group of people encountered various strange events, including the Cthulhu element.
Let's briefly introduce the four aspects of Cthulhu culture, the translation of the drama, the background of the story, and the content of the story.
【Cthulhu Culture】
Cthulhu culture is a niche culture entangled with fantasy and science fiction. Very few people have a deep understanding of it. There are slightly more people who know the fur, and the vast majority of people who have never heard of it.
American writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft (August 20, 1890-March 15, 1937) had a short and low-key life, but he wrote a short story in the 1930s. "The Call of Cthulhu" proposes the image of "Cthulhu", the classic evil god, and created a series of novels. After Lovecraft's death, people discovered the value of Cthulhu and began to create a second time, further enriching Cthulhu's worldview. Lovecraft is also regarded as one of the most influential horror novelists of the 20th century.
In this way, Cthulhu became a "Cthulhu system", and all fans worked together to create perfect content and formed a set of overhead legend system.
Many classic images of Cthulhu successfully broke the circle and became the "Cthulhu Mythos" (Cthulhu Mythos) in the mouths of fans.
The "Cthulhu Mythology" has its own set of world views.
There are a variety of powerful and indescribable deities outside of human cognition. After the protagonist realizes the existence of these deities through exploration and research, they will often be unable to maintain their sanity and produce "Cthulhu despair." People will desperately find that all the creations and achievements of mankind have been completely denied, and the world does not operate on the basis of mankind at all.
The classic image of Cthulhu is the indescribable octopus monster, "He has a vaguely human outline, but has a head like an octopus with many tentacles, and his body is like a jelly covered with scales. Huge paws, and a pair of long and narrow wings behind it...It has a bloated and fat body...It is dripping with mucus, and its huge green body staggers out of the dark opening and enters people's field of vision... .. It's like a mountain walk in the leisure of heaven and earth."
Mystery and despair is a characteristic of Cthulhu, including the Q version of Cthulhu's image used on the cover of my circle of friends.
Cthulhu can be embedded in various systems.
Explained from the perspective of science fiction, human beings are like looking up at high-dimensional space creatures from three-dimensional space, and looking up at higher civilizations from lower civilizations. "The Lord knows it, the Lord doesn't care." A simple analogy is like how humans treat ants. The ant spells out two letters "SB" in front of you. You might pour a pot of hot water into the ant's nest, and the ant spells out two letters "NB" in front of you. Maybe he laughed, and then poured another pot of hot water. You don't care.
To explain it from a theological point of view, it's like the gods of different systems gather together. The believers are just footnotes in the talk of the gods. You don't know which god will be pinched to death one day.
The diversity of Cthulhu makes it vigorous, and derivative works emerge in endlessly. Any work with "Cthulhu despair" can be regarded as Cthulhu literature in a broad sense.
[Translated name of the drama]
The original English name of "Devil's Land" was "Lovecraft Country", and its free translation became "Devil's Land". If transliteration is adopted, the direct translation into "Lovecraft Country" would be more in line with the original meaning.
Lovecraft refers to Howard Philip Lovecraft, the creator of the Cthulhu system. If it is only translated as a devil, it will weaken the image of the evil god, and it will not be able to express the original purpose.
The novel uses a series of short stories to show the protagonist's various adventure activities, which can be said to be very Cthulhu.
[Story time background]
The background of the era of "Devil's Land" is the period during which the "Jim Crow Act" was implemented.
"Jim Crow laws" is the law that implements the apartheid system in the United States.
Between 1876 and 1965, the southern states of the United States and border states implemented a system of segregation for people of color. The law stipulates that public facilities must be compulsory for segregated use, and segregated from transportation, marriage, education, restaurants, entertainment, housing, etc., basically covering all aspects of clothing, food, housing, and transportation.
On the surface, segregation follows the principle of equality, and apartheid is interpreted as not violating the right of equal protection guaranteed by the Constitution. However, in actual implementation, the content that blacks can enjoy is obviously poor, and the discriminatory meaning is obvious.
A lot of space was spent in the play describing the situation of apartheid.
The audience can intuitively see the discriminatory treatment suffered by blacks.
[Content performance]
Lovecraft created the Cthulhu system with obvious white supremacy, which is also a point that he will be criticized in the future.
"Devil's Land" uses Cthulhu elements and tells a story of equal rights and superiority of blacks, which illustrates the infinite possibilities of the Cthulhu system.
At the beginning of the story, the black male protagonist Atticus Black (Atticus Black) travels across the continental United States to find his father who has been missing for many years. Accompanying him are his girlfriend Letitia and uncle George.
In an era when racial discrimination prevailed, the three blacks had to travel through areas with different policies. The whole process was like a big adventure. Although they hold the "Green Book", they still can't stop the white supremacists who hate them and stare at them.
On the surface, Atticus and his team are challenging various monsters and ghosts, and various fantasy and science fiction stories are interspersed during the adventure.
In the bones, "Devil's Land" is using the actions of the black people to show the BLM thoughts.
How to make these unexcellent blacks challenged by a large crowd of white people is the focus of this drama.
In fact, the method is also very simple, that is, different buffs to Atticus. Don't worry about how people like Atticus suddenly got up suddenly and just got up. Asking is the setting.
The soundtrack of Marilyn Manson (Marilyn Manson) appeared many times in the play.
Marilyn Manson takes the visual line, which itself has a strong cult nature, and many songs are famous antichrist pioneers.
Use him as a soundtrack to directly fill up the dramatic effect.
It can be said that "Devil's Land" is a sensual work for black people.
People under the banner of equal rights all think about privileges.
You can’t understand the behavioral motives of Atticus, Liticia and other people. They basically do it wherever they think, and think wherever they do. They can plan their opponents for many years without planning and rules. Things are messing up.
Since in reality, the black brother can't breathe, so the white brother in the play can't breathe; since in reality, the black man longs to become white, let the white man in the play become the black dog's licking dog. Anyway, how can you make your brain happy? As long as the black people have privileges, as for the yellow race, who cares about you?
In "Devil's Land", the audience can see "National Treasure", "Tomb Raider", "Indiana Jones", "Prince of Persia", Parallel Universe, Metamorphosis and other settings at one time. It is simply fantasy, The master of adventure, science fiction, horror, blood and eroticism. Of course it can also be called a hodgepodge.
As the introduction of the novel says, this novel called "Super Stitching Monster" is hailed as "the masterpiece of different bizarre pieces." It contains elements of Cthulhu mythology, black exploitation, horror, fantasy, retro and so on.
However, the "stitching monster" also depends on the craftsmanship.
The "Number One Player" dedicated to fans can still be picked up by many non-fans. If this niche culture of "Devil's Land" wants to be a self-contained system, it is even more difficult.
If you can't tell the story well and focus on piling up various elements to attract attention, the suture monster will naturally not get a good reputation. If you can tell a good story and add a lot of fan favorites, the suture monster will naturally win word of mouth.
BLM in the coat of Cthulhu,
YY fantasizing about privileges changing hands.
This is the distribution center for hardcore movie fans, welcome to pay attention to the official account: Miaokan Film and Television
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