"Thank you, stranger, for allowing me to fulfill the last duty of a father."
Do you still remember 5 years ago when you were swiped by a short film of a zombie?
It is said to be a zombie, but in the film there is neither the sourness of eating raw brainflowers nor the invigoration of spraying headshots. Instead , it makes people look like snots and tears.
The short film talks about a father who is about to become a zombie , with the last remaining faith, trying his best to protect his infant daughter.
The tears came after the father became a zombie— he tied his hands, carried his daughter, and guided himself to send her daughter to a safe area with a wooden stick with entrails.
This short film, filmed by Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke , is called "Walk Forward."
A total of US$3,800 was invested and it took two days to complete the shooting.
Subsequently, "Going With Loads" participated in 17 film festivals and even reached the finals of the Australian Short Film Festival.
It also got 11 million views on a non-existent video site .
But the most important thing is that this short film has received constant praise, and it has successfully attracted the attention of Netflix.
After reading it, the Netflix leaders found Ben and Yolanda with red eyes, and immediately said that we want to invest! We want to make a movie!
As a result, this 7-minute "Walk Forward" became a 105-minute [Walk Forward].
If you increase the amount without increasing the price, there will be no less tears that should be shed.
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It's heavy enough to be called fatherly
In all fairness, it is a miracle that "Moving Forward with Loads" has been photographed for almost a century with an ancient theme like "zombies" .
What zombies have we never seen?
Can run, can fly, mutated, funny, warm, ugly, handsome, rugged, bladed, velvet rope, chained, eyebrow thorn... …
But there is always one theme in zombie movies, which is the contradiction between humans and zombies in the general environment.
In zombie films, human beings are always hungry for food and clothing, hiding in Tibet, and deliberately trying to survive.
The theme of "Walking Forward" has changed. It is the contradiction between "human body" and "zombie body" in a small environment.
The already-infected father "Andy" doesn't need to fight wits with zombies, but fights against the virus in his body.
"Going Forward with Heavy Loads" named this kind of struggle "father's love" .
In the movie version, the body stretched to 105 minutes, and the struggle was more delicate.
Opening the film, Andy found suspected zombies in a shipwreck, but did not tell his wife.
The wife was bitten by a zombie in order to find a razor for Andy and boarded the shipwreck, which directly led to a series of subsequent tragedies.
This is Andy's pot.
So Andy is always reluctant to follow his wife's advice and abandon her.
Of course there is an element of love here, but there is also a sense of guilt , so Andy can only use companionship to try to remedy his mistakes.
Unfortunately, it didn't work.
After personally solving the zombie wife, watching the infant child , Andy felt more and more guilty, and "protecting her" became the only reason to live.
In fact, speaking of "guilt" seems to be dispelling the elements of "paternal love".
But I happen to think that guilt is the source of Andy's father's love.
The feeling of guilt precipitates and turns into a debt to the daughter, and the debt will try to make up, and making up becomes a responsibility, and this responsibility actually manifests itself as the love of the father.
Otherwise, Andy knew that he was not far from death and his daughter could not survive independently, so he could shoot and kill his daughter and commit suicide.
This is also paternal love.
In [Mist] , the father thought he was in a desperate situation and shot a group of companions, including his son.
In [Walk Forward], there is also a family whose father became infected with the virus and chose to kill himself and his family.
But Andy can't . The tragedy is caused by him. Since he can't save his wife, he must at least let his daughter survive.
Just as the title says "to move forward with a heavy load", this "heavy" puts a tragic color on Andy's father's love, and also adds a heroic splendor.
Especially when you look at Martin Freeman's small body that can collapse with the wind, you can feel the tenacity and greatness of the father's love under the blessing of the "bearing".
It's like an elegy.
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Where to settle in the last days
The short film shows the "effect", and the focus of the film is the "cause".
In addition to the "cause" of Andy's guilt, the film also added other characters and "causes" of the side plot.
Unlike in the short film, the father clearly knows the location of the "safe zone". In the movie, Andy doesn't know where there are zombies or where it is safe . He just wants to find someone who can entrust his children as soon as possible.
In the process of Andy's search, four people were met, and the film used these four people to outline a complete doomsday picture.
The first grandma represents the situation of vulnerable human beings.
The grandmother lived alone in the sanitation and was helpless. Like Andy, she was as dying ill and could hardly protect herself.
The second middle-aged man is a powerful representative with resources.
He is healthy, strong, and he controls a natural gas mine, so he has no worries about food and clothing.
But under the apocalypse, he was fully aware of his own advantages, so he took the mountain as the king, snatched other people's wives, and used kidnapping as a bait for zombies.
Andy's daughter stayed there, in fact , it can survive, and even live very well.
But Andy made a choice for her daughter: she can't let her grow up in the hands of such a person.
This comes from the father's instinct to protect the child.
The third is the father who shot himself.
He didn't have the "responsibility" that Andy shouldered, and chose the simplest and most effective way of breaking in the zombie world.
It may also be the easiest decision most ordinary people make.
Obviously, none of these three people can raise their daughter well for Andy.
It is the fourth person to take over Andy's daughter.
The fourth person is an indigenous girl who has always accompanied Andy. After Andy became a zombie, the indigenous girl used the collected internal organs to lead herself to send her daughter to the primitive indigenous tribe.
This kind of "civilized backlash has burned modern society, but primitive tribes are the last piece of pure land" is very meaningful.
[Busan Tour] vividly showed that the more "civilized" people are, they might be more terrifying than zombies.
When the zombie Andy successfully arrived in the tribe, the indigenous children sprayed Andy's wife's perfume in front of Andy.
Andy, who smelled the perfume, calmed down, as if he heard his wife say to him, "You did it."
And the words that Andy left on her daughter's belly are also different from those in the short film.
In the short film, the father left his daughter's name, and Andy wrote "thank you".
"Thank you, stranger, for allowing me to fulfill the last duty of a father."
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From short films to movies
Before filming the short film " Going Forward with Loads ", Ben and Yolanda rushed to make movies.
However, it is not easy for two unknown men to make movies. They can only use the "curve to save the country" to attract investment first with short films.
After the investment was put in place, the two went to Australia non-stop, forming a team while writing scripts.
The focus of the script is the same as that of the short film, but the focus is on the role of father "Andy".
The most important thing about Andy is that he cannot be an old-fashioned "hero incarnation", that is, "I want to win, I have big muscles, and I am a heroic guy". We also hope to create an ordinary father who will make mistakes, timid, and hesitant. Such a talent is closer to reality and the audience will feel more empathetic.
The joining of Martin Freeman was a surprise.
Ben and Yolanda didn't even plan to invite such a big star to join, but the short film was so famous that Martin came after the news of making the movie came out .
After Martin joined, he also participated in the script creation process, but later proved that it was useless to write Martin's lines in the script.
Because Martin loves improvisation when performing.
Martin never acted in the same way, but kept trying new ways. He gave us many choices.
It can be seen that Chao Ye's acting skills largely make up for the somewhat lengthy sense of rhythm in the film.
This is also a major drawback of short films adapted from movies.
Because the final suspense has been revealed , everyone knows that Andy will turn into a zombie, and carry his daughter step by step to safety with a wooden stick.
During the viewing process, the audience's expectations are greatly reduced, and the shock of the last scene will also be marked with a big discount.
And under the theme of warmth, it is impossible to stimulate people with bloody scenes or create a little horror in a sudden, and there are too few conflict points, which leads to the overall trend of the film to be mediocre.
But as a zombie film featuring warmth, it is already moving enough in the creation of feelings.
Chao Ye's performance and the setting of Andy's script both portray a desperate father to flesh and blood.
Maybe not as shocking as the short film, but the softness can still be clearly felt.
So the question is, which one do you prefer, short film or movie?
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Text: Han Gege
The article comes from WeChat public account: movie detoxification
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