"In Bruges" is definitely a movie with a lot of stamina. Although I am not so impulsive to open the ticketing software to book a flight to Bruges, I still think of the tower with a narrow staircase covered by heavy fog, the riverside room with two single beds, and three paintings in the art gallery from time to time. The bloody paintings, the small tables in the river and the square, Farrell's sad face, and his eyebrows that wriggle 360 degrees like a balloon man dancing in the wind.
"In Bruges" is also a movie that is difficult to define. There are blood plasma and amputated limbs, shootings, murders of children, psychedelics; there are very black humor and uncomfortable jokes that are out of bounds, mocking "suicidal" dwarfs, overweight Americans, and black women; there are religious mappings, gods The city of sex, the painting with the theme of "punishment" , the priest who was shot, the holy blood preserved in the church; there are also black and black, chasing and fleeing, there are tragic fatalism, emotions and emotions, father-son relationship, and even a little space Let's have a romantic plot.
These overly rich genre elements, as well as the cleverness and bookbags hidden in the lines, make "In Bruges" like a collection of four or five films, firmly hooking and amplifying the emotions of the audience. Jumping between tragedy, comedy and even farce, the film brings a very novel and slightly fragmented experience, just like Ray wanders between sadness and anger, the audience is also forced to switch between emotions , crying and crying. Laughing is sometimes not suitable for the scale of bloody scenes, and sometimes feels secret guilt for being amused by politically incorrect jokes.
MacDonald, who was born in the theater, is a master at manipulating language and emotions. The lines in his plays are notoriously interesting and full of musicality. He often uses the character's pitch changes and constant repetition to create a confrontation between back and forth. For example, Ken and Ray talked about a previous manslaughter experience. Ken gave an example of the possibility that the lolipop man he killed by mistake (a job that guides children to cross the road) would be karate, which became a pure self-defense behavior. The two had such a conversation:
Ray: You said he was a lolipop man ?!
Ken: He was a lolipop man.
Ray: What's a lolipop man doing on fucking karate?!
Ken: I'm just saying.
Ray: How old is he?
Ken: 50.
Ray: What's a 50 years old lolipop man doing in fuckin karate ?! What was he a Chinese lolipop man ?!
After reading MacDonald’s playbooks and scripts, he further discovered that he really likes to use "?!" , a punctuation mark full of exclamation and irony. In this conversation, Ray relentlessly dismantled Ken's inappropriate imagination by raising the tone and repeating what Ken had just said, which was quite a Japanese spit.
There are many such clips in "In Bruges", such as Ray shouting "That's for John Lennon, Yankee fucking cunt!" after beating (what he thought) Americans in the restaurant, or pretending to be on a date. The ridicule of the child abuse case in Belgium, these embarrassing humor on topics of death and tragedy, and a bunch of jokes full of stereotypes that have been rendered incredibly funny, constitute the dialogue in MacDonald's pen, which always makes people laugh on the spot. When he came out, he immediately wondered if he was unkind.
Although it is undeniably funny, this large period of politically incorrect humor has also attracted a lot of criticism for "In Bruges." It is true that these jokes will make some people feel uncomfortable and offended. However, as the protagonist author Catullan in MacDonald’s "Pillow Man" asked, "Just because there are really children killed in the real world, you don’t allow me to be here. The book says that the child was killed?” Similarly, the storyteller is just telling the story. He does not have to be responsible for the discomfort of all the audience. And the dark side of our hearts is left for us to reflect on ourselves after laughing.
Another element of "In Bruges" that has been criticized is excessive blood and violence. MacDonald’s setting the protagonist as a killer has alleviated some of the causelessness of violence to a certain extent , but it was not until the later "Three Billboards" that he found Flannery O'Connor, the omnipotent endorsement of violence. The key truly rationalizes violence and the advocacy of violence, and has produced a work that does not separate or twist. This is a very exciting and gratifying later story.
In addition to subtle dialogue, MacDonald is also a master of character writing. Although the matching form of Buddy film is too common, MacDonald can use sufficient screen time to show the state and psychology of the characters in detail, so that a pair of killers like Ken and Ray, who are a little off-line, have become the screen. After the uncle holding a potted plant and talking tuberculosis in a suit, he is a popular killer image spokesperson.
Ken, who looked like a less aspiring lecturer at the University of Science and Technology, started serious sightseeing as soon as he got off the train. The identity of the killer tourist is inherently interesting, and Ken's unsmiling and perseverance to check in each scenic spot makes him even more incompatible and funny. Ray, who was impatient, curled his eyebrows as soon as he touched the land of Bruges and started complaining that it was a "shithole". When he saw the movie set, he was as happy as a kid jumping up and down.
The first level of description when the two characters first arrived is already quite hierarchical. As for further observation of the mental state of the two people, after revealing Ray’s heart knot and Ken’s real mission, we can see Ken’s empathy and entanglement, and Ray’s pain, which is similar to the two. The relationship between master and apprentice, father and son, and playmate.
Harry, the killer boss, lived only in letters and phone calls for the first two-thirds of the plot. But this does not mean that his character development has been delayed. The dirty words in the letter and the aggressive tone on the phone are all shaping the image of a violent and principled villain. When his face appeared in the frame along the phone line, Harry immediately contributed a scene of throwing the phone and soothing the child, adding the thickness of his character as a gang boss and a loving father. When he arrives in Bruges, we can also see more of his principles, his more human emotions, and his idiotic nature of drawing out a map in a tense pursuit.
MacDonald’s previous plays are often labelled in the dark. Father-killing, mother-killing, child killing and suicide are recurring themes, and the characters are often in moral dilemmas. In "In Bruges", each character also faces a moral problem with no correct answer, makes an inevitable choice, and pays the necessary price.
Ray accidentally shot and killed a little boy who was praying during his first mission. The boy who was still in a kneeling position held a piece of paper in his hand, listing three sins that he asked God to forgive: easy to get angry, not good at math, and easy to sad. Ray, who made a big mistake, has since carried the curse of fatalism, and the three sins of the little boy began to grow as a part of Ray. Let him kill one person but he killed two. Of course, this is bad math. Throughout the film, Ray is angry and sad, extremely emotional and extremely insecure, and finally attempts to seek salvation by suicide.
What Ray may not realize is that there is another curse on him, and the fulfillment of this curse is the inevitable result of the chain effect of his own behavior. Two reckless fights caused him to be dragged back by the gravitational force of fate when he was about to leave Bruges, and he was finally trapped in the place he hated the most on earth. I believe that Ray died at the end of the film. He died in Bruges, where he hated the most, making this self-made fate chain a beautiful closed loop.
Ken also experienced some entanglement when faced with moral choices, and was finally shaken by Ray's will to die. Ken may believe that when a person is willing to use death to make up for his mistakes, he is not guilty of death. Ken who came to the conclusion must be very satisfied with himself, so when he had to pay the corresponding price behind this firm choice, he hardly hesitated. The unspent coins in his pocket became open money. They clanged and fell on the slate floor. Ken realized that Ray might be right, and those buildings could be seen on the ground.
Harry is the most determined of the three to face the moral dilemma. He has established a complete moral system, so he has personally pursued and killed his subordinates, and he did not hesitate to execute himself. But the most ironic thing is that he himself is innocent by his standards, but the entire "In Bruges" script is laying the groundwork for this last powerful reversal, and Harry can only bring his noble smile. Jiuquan.
Outside of the theater, McDonald finally had visual tools other than the stage and the spotlight, and he used soft light and faded oil-like colors to restore a divine Bruges. This story is no longer just dark, but darkness and tenderness coexist, blood and soft river water, life-threatening pursuit and slow cruise, gunshots and the brainwashed piano theme song, all appear on this huge stage at the same time superior.
There is such a painting in the art museum visited by Ken and Ray. The judge handed a piece of paper to the skeleton representing the god of death. It was his last debt in the world. In the end, the three people paid the price for their actions and choices. Ken dropped gold coins, Ray fell into the dreamy snow on the set, and Harry’s London home under the Christmas tree, piled up and never be Opened gift. No one can escape on Judgment Day. We can only pray that when the punishment comes, we can be in a perfect place, in Bruges .
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