James McAvoy is always associated with Professor X. He also reminds people of the boy who touched the duckweed with his hand in "Atonement" and the cute killer who turned the bullet in "Wanted". I can't help but watch his performance like this, watch him wander among the good and bad things in the human center, and watch him interpret people better.
However, "Split" explores the boundaries of human nature, what is human nature, what is inhuman, what is human potential, and how people understand people and understand people who are different from themselves.
Different personalities use the same body as the carrier. Are they the same individual or different? What are they? What is a person? This film failed to give answers, but tried to answer these questions from some levels.
Among the little girls kidnapped, Casey was the first to realize this problem. At first they met Dennis, then Patricia, then Hedwig, a "little boy" who claimed to be nine years old, slurred, and ducking on the ground.
Casey realized this first, probably because she was more withdrawn. At the beginning of the film, almost all the information is explained in a single brain, which is very effective and exciting, while the following plot is like an organism with intertwined information, and the plot happens so naturally. The three personalities soon appeared on the stage with the advancement of the plot, and the effectiveness of the plot depends on the persuasive power of James' performance.
The highlight of horror films is the atmosphere. Director Sha Malan uses a lot of close-ups to capture the facial expressions of the characters in this film, and the atmosphere is rendered in the sound of a smile and a breath. The difference between the three personalities is magnified by this close-up: Dennis always frowns and purses his lips and seeks perfection in everything; Patricia smiles softly, but the sauce on the bread can't be wiped but will smash the knife; Hedwig has two eyes. Empty, as if everything has the easiest answer.
James' interpretation of Hedwig makes it difficult for me to attribute the characteristics of the role to the amplification of any characteristics of the actor himself. The way of speaking with some big tongues is not enough to present all the characteristics of Hedwig. His control of facial muscles gave Hedwig a subtle inability to control—control and inability to control are very contradictory, I know. This kind of uncontrollable appearance must be against an adult's face, but if you think carefully about the children you have seen, they do have such characteristics.
The boundaries of different personalities are gradually broken in the performance. The first time he broke the boundary was when Dennis "pretended" Barry (another personality) in front of the psychologist Dr. Fletcher, and the second time was at the end of the film. A plot element made different personalities rob Kevin (the master). .
Dennis' "pretend" can be said to be a play in the play. In other words, James wants to play a role (purely), and this role wants to play another role with an impure purpose. Professional performances are very different from life-level performances, because if actors can only act like they are, then the play in the play is meaningless. James's precise consideration of entering and exiting on the performance level played a role in Dennis, who had a ghost in his heart.
In the end, some factors gave birth to the scary Beast in the trailer. He is to protect his personality and was stimulated to his full potential. The film describes how he loses his humanity and embraces the animal nature. The difference between the beast and the man is that the beast will not have any scruples to achieve its own goals. I marveled at James' strength and his frustration. At that moment, as a spectator, I wanted to give this guy an anesthesia gun.
"Split" is not the kind of sudden scary film, but I have to talk about the violence in it. The kidnapped girls trembled, but Dennis forced them to take off their clothes to hate their perfect bodies. Violence is the destruction of perfection, and Kevin's personality is obsessed with this. That's why Casey escaped.
And the experience of violence may allow Casey to understand Kevin better. She said that she would deliberately get involved in school and be confined to stay away from everyone. This is actually a manifestation of animality, "sacrificing" things that are not sacrificed for one's own purposes and conforming to the rules of human society. It's not surprising that she can talk to Hedwig that he tells many secrets.
The visual manifestation of violence in this film is intended to be annoying, I will not give an example, it may cause discomfort to some viewers. There are two places of violence that impressed me. The first is that Patricia can't wipe the bread and suddenly throws off the knife and makes a loud noise. The second is that another girl wants to hit Patricia with a chair. Among these, "violence to control violence" embodies a characteristic of violence, which is called violence can only push the distance between people and human nature. After all, your power is still the power of civilized people, and you can't do anything to protect yourself.
The different personalities in the film are walking on the edge of human nature, giving people a sense of creepy, such as Dennis who sprays the little girl, Hedwig who looks at the hand-painted windows in the basement, and Beast who "swallows people alive".
Kevin works at the zoo. Finally, Casey was taken out by the zoo staff, and we barely saw some sunshine in the film. How did he discover his animality? Is it to get along with animals too much, or is it the choice of life to gather together? We don't know, because the shotgun rang. The plot can be said to be between realism and absurdity. The language of the film subtly captures many human-level reactions, especially girls, but the existence of animality is fundamentally absurd. Why did the human society not look for a child in time after discovering that the child was missing? Only "the plot needs" can answer this question. And why Dennis had to buy a bunch of flowers before transforming, why he had to run on the Amtrak track, I still don't understand. Maybe it's the Philly plot, maybe it's the combination of normal life and romantic aesthetics. I just don't understand it even more, just like I don't understand animal nature, and I don't fully understand the border between human nature and animal nature.
And I can only raise the wine glass with water in it, to respect Mr. McAvoy, who is walking on the edge of human nature with a performance. Shamaran is right, there would be no film without him.
View more about Split reviews
