Broaden Your Horizon

Vincenza 2022-01-11 08:01:29

The cover title of the latest issue of "New Weekly" is "The Carnival of Bad Films". This topic is actually very interesting and fits the current domestic movie-watching environment. Under this proposition, the celebrities in the film critics jointly wrote articles, from "The King of Bad Films" Ed Wood's "Outer Space Ninth Project" to Hu Jinquan's "Legend of the Mountains", each expressing their opinions, it can be described as a hundred schools of thought. After reading it, I really gained a lot of knowledge and a lot of thinking. But I still think that the criteria for bad movies are still difficult to define. Instead of trying hard to set standards for bad movies, it is better to talk about what is not bad movies.
It is said that Hollywood screenwriters have an unwritten screenwriting guideline: Let the audience learn a piece of knowledge for each movie. I don't know if this is true or not. In fact, in popular terms, it is a qualified work. It should be regarded as opening a door for you, broadening your horizons, and enriching your life. According to one of the most commonly used phrases when writing IELTS essays, it is "Broaden your horizon and enrich your knowledge". It may be an awareness of a sport that you don’t know (such as the recent "Broken Wind", the "Fast Wind" of the past few years, "Ice-Frozen 168 Hours", etc.), or it may be about a history that you are not familiar with enough. Supplements (such as "1942", "Escape from Tehran", "Ningliang Sea Battle", etc., may also be a portrayal of a character that we are familiar with but lacks detailed understanding (such as "The Imitation Game", "The King's Speech", "The Theory of Everything" ", etc.), it is also possible that it is a movie that can trigger our thinking on one thing and look at some problems from another angle, and will gain something. "Railway Labor" is just such a movie.
This film was released in the UK in January last year. I remember that posters of this movie could be seen on the outside of many buses in the UK. It stands to reason that the combination of the Oscar actor and the Oscar queen should make the film popular. But as far as I feel, it did not attract too many people's attention and attention at the time, nor did it trigger a wide range of reports and discussions. Later, I found the resources of this film from the Internet and downloaded it. It was even a 720p mkv file, but it was kept on the hard drive and never opened. Even before I went to the film archive to watch the film today, I didn't know what the film was about.
I miss the British elements after the beginning of the film. The typical British railway station platform, the layout of the seats in the carriage, the beauty of the Scottish Highlands, the names of Inverness, Bristol, Manchester, and even the way out on the railway station wall make me double. Feeling cordial. But this is not a tourist scenery film that only uses scenery.
Adapting from a true story is actually a double-edged sword. The good thing is that it can be used as a guarantee for the rationality of the story without too much plot damage. Many stories look fake because they are made up rather than true. Some plots are often set up to deliberately promote the plot without letting the story flow by itself. At the same time, the limitation of the adaptation of the truth is that it is the truth, and the duration of the film cannot satisfy all the trivial life. No matter how subtle the choice is, it is difficult to balance. The relationship line between Collin Firth and Nicole Kidman is indeed too fast and sudden, and the story of the need to walk into each other's heart, from the first meeting, it is inevitable that the two of them will be anticlimactic on the relationship line.
The rhythm of the film is not very fast, and the photography is great. The composition of many shots has a strong sense of oppression for the male protagonist. You will feel uncomfortable at the position where the protagonist appears in the frame and suffer internally. The use of many panoramic views makes people feel the depression and desolation spontaneously.
The last scene actually touched me. For me, the premise of being moved is to be persuaded emotionally. I feel that this is the true expression of the characters, not tears for the sake of tears. For a person who has tortured you and wanted to kill you, he can finally embrace each other at that moment and become the best friend for a lifetime. This is really incredible, but whether the result is credible depends on the director. ability. The emotions of the film are piled up step by step, in fact, it can still be felt. The exchange of roles in different eras in the same scene can actually explain many problems and find reasons for many conflicts. Hiroyuki Sanada's performance is in place, and the setting of the atonement can convince the audience here. The changes in Colin Firth's attitude are also cumulative. When those historical photos appeared at the end, they were as moved and shocked as the real photos at the end of "Escape from Tehran", which added weight to the sublimation of the film's theme and the rationality of emotions.
A role played by two people will inevitably bear risks. The uneven distribution of the scenes and the crisscrossing of time will inevitably affect the audience's acceptance. As far as I can think, the two films do better in this regard, one is "Infernal Affairs" and the other is "Once Upon a Time in America." However, the second part of "Infernal Affairs" is for the two protagonists independently, so I don't feel that Edison Chen and Shawn Yue appearing briefly in the first part are a bit embarrassing. And "Once Upon a Time in America" ​​is nearly four hours long, and the role duration is five to five minutes. In fact, the problem is not big, and the young actors are very brilliant. However, the film uses two actors to play the protagonist in less than 120 minutes, which is not smooth. After all, when Colin Firth appears, who wants to see other men?
Going back to the theme of the film, it doesn't actually talk about forgiveness at the beginning. So much so that in the first half of the film I thought the film was about "after-effects of the war." At a certain point in the war, he couldn't let him go. The arc of the protagonist lies in how he finally overcomes it, similar to " Assembly number". But when the theme of forgiveness finally appeared, there was a new kind of favor.
There may be more and better war films ahead of it than the connotation than the thinking than the scene than the actors. But telling such a story from such a perspective, you will feel broaden your horizon. At this point, the success of "Iwo Jima's Family Letter" and "Father's Flag" is also at this point, when Hiroyuki Sanada knelt down in tears When holding Colin Firth with guilt, you think he is pitiful but also respectable, so you will wonder if he is also a victim of war? Does the trauma caused by the war also need a lifetime to make up? Otherwise he would not stay in that land. The faces of those demons in the war, why can you treat him as an ordinary person and sympathize with him today? Are you willing to try to empathize even if the crimes they commit are heinous? This series of questions can all be thought of through this telegram.
In this era, films that can bring speculation should be qualified works.

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Extended Reading

The Railway Man quotes

  • Nagase: That's what I saw. So many murdered. So I will speak. I make pilgrimages. I work for... reconciliation. I will not let them forget the tragedy of war.

    Eric: The what?

    Nagase: The tragedy of war.

    Eric: No, this wasn't a tragedy. This was a crime. You're not tragic. You're a criminal. You were an intelligent, educated man, and you did nothing.

    Nagase: I tried to make amends.

    Eric: You're living off this.

    [indicating the war museum]

    Eric: You're a criminal and a liar.

  • Young Takeshi Nagase: You have no honor. Your army's defeated. You surrendered like dogs. Look at you, you should be ashamed to be alive. If my army was defeated, I would take my life to save my honor.

    Young Eric: You'll get your chance. Any day now.