Roy Anderson's "Hard Branches" is a complicated jigsaw puzzle game with the audience. This jigsaw puzzle not only disrupts the sequence of time clues, but also disrupts the continuity of character clues. A scene of a character that appears suddenly is often a small background character in an earlier scene that the audience did not notice before. Therefore, if we try to sort out the deep intentions conveyed by the director in this film, we need to abandon his various attempts in aesthetic style, and restructure the fragmented story into a four-scenes plot puzzle, and link the important ones. Three clues "1943", "Charlie XII" and "Homo sapiens".
Scene 1: Tavern. The first time the tavern scene appeared was the toy salesman as the core. Later, the lame salesman (referred to as the lame salesman) originally went to get a haircut, but when he met a barber who had just become a captain professional, he gave up the haircut. This barber is precisely the captain in the last appointment in "Three Dates with Death". In the tavern, the lame salesman and the melancholy salesman (who was a crying person from the beginning) converge. The second tavern scene was an elderly man and a man sitting in a corner drinking. Then the age changed to 1943. The old man turned back to his youthful and vigorous appearance. Sitting in the middle of the screen, behind was sailors and soldiers. Sing. In the third tavern scene, a soldier who was soaked in the rain was telling his unfortunate experience, and two salesmen were also sitting next to him. This hapless soldier was precisely the man who watched the biological specimens at the beginning of the movie. He also wandered outside the restaurant twice and failed his appointment. In the last bar scene, the bar has begun to close, the clerk is clearing the tables and chairs, and the man sitting in the corner (also appeared in the second bar scene) is confessing his greed. In a short paragraph before (the order of time and space has been reversed), this man was making a phone call in one hand and holding a pistol in the other.
Scene 2: Cafe. This scene only appeared twice, once when Charles XII led an army to fight against the czar in the Great Northern War. The same-sex king drove all the women out of the coffee shop, arrogantly. In the second scene, Charles XII was defeated and ceded half of the country to Russia. The cafe owner questioned the failure of the Battle of Poltava, but only the woman was crying mournfully. The Battle of the Great North was a crucial war in which Sweden was completely decayed. As a result, Sweden was squeezed out of the European powers.
Scene 3: Hotel. The chronological sequence of the encounters of the two toy salesmen was disrupted. Before they moved into the hotel, they experienced an unsuccessful sales promotion. The male salesperson who was promoted was the heart of the first appointment in "Three Meetings with Death" The man who caused the disease. Afterwards, there was an unsuccessful collection, and the female shopkeeper was very afraid of her husband, but in a short passage, the husband smoked at the window, and the female shopkeeper snuggled over. After asking for money, they lost their way into the cafe and ran into Charles XII. Then they returned to the tavern and ran into the unlucky soldier who was complaining about it. Finally they returned to the hotel, but the hotel is the deepest metaphorical part of the film. The melancholic salesman first listened to the songs and appeared to be more melancholy, then had a dream (related to the "Homo sapiens" passage), and became more melancholy after waking up from the dream. The lame salesman was angry at the melancholy salesman, but then apologized. The hotel keeper stopped them from making noise in the corridor and turned off the lights. The next morning, the two salesmen parted ways by the railway.
Scene 4: Outside the restaurant. This scene only appeared twice. For the first time, the unlucky soldier tried to go to the appointment, but neither found anyone nor received a notice of cancellation of the appointment. In the dining room, a table farther away is the son and daughter of the second date in "Three Meetings with Reaper", and a table closer is a fat dance teacher who appeared before the movie and the male student she harassed. The male student left his seat angrily, and the female teacher cried. After the female teacher appeared again, she married a baker and gave birth to a child. In the second restaurant scene, the hapless soldier returned there again, but the people in the restaurant had nothing to do with the characters in the film, and the hapless soldier left in a daze.
"I'm glad to hear that you are fine". This line of dialogue appears repeatedly in the film. The first time it appeared was when a dance teacher harassed a male student, the male student left the classroom, and a female cleaner outside the classroom was talking on the phone, saying only this line. The second time I showed up was the lame salesman in the barbershop. The former captain and the current barber answered the phone and said only this line. For the third time, the female cleaner called at home and said only this line. For the fourth time, the man confessing in the tavern, holding a gun in one hand and making a phone call in the other, said only this line. For the fifth time, the woman who was experimenting with monkeys was on the phone and said only this line.
"Homo sapiens" theory. "Homo sapiens" is the director's intention buried deep in this movie. The so-called "Homo sapiens" is our superiority to monkeys, which is a superiority based on species. The episodic passage of "Homo sapiens" is only the fragment with monkeys as the experimental object, and its core passage is the dream of the melancholic salesman that follows. The salesman in the dream pours some old people in the upper class, while they are enjoying the music from the stove. A group of English-speaking soldiers said that a group of blacks rushed into the stove just to listen to the music from the speakers on the stove. This is an extremely cruel and dehumanizing behavior. The relationship between English-speaking soldiers and blacks can easily be associated with the relationship between the United States and black slaves. For whites, they themselves are "Homo sapiens", while blacks are a lower species.
However, Roy Anderson's drunkenness is not here. Among the group of senior citizens in the upper class, the elderly in the central position stand in the middle, which is the old man who appeared in the second tavern section earlier in the film. As time was put back in 1943, the whole of Europe was in the Second World War. Contacting the old man with a background in World War II and being a high-ranking "sapiens", the old man's Nazi identity can be easily identified. In the tavern in 1943, young old people sat in the middle of the screen, and behind them were smiling soldiers, who then symbolized the victory of Germany. The tavern waitresses who frequently flattered soldiers symbolized Sweden's flattery attitude towards Germany as a "neutral country" during World War II. Roy Anderson regards Sweden's attitude towards World War II as a national failure. This failure is also manifested in the greedy Swedish government bureaucracy symbolized by the penitent men in the tavern, and the weak Swedish army symbolized by the unlucky soldiers.
This film attempts to explain that Sweden was in decline since the defeat of the Great Northern War in 1704, and until World War II, Sweden was in a weak and depressed national state. While listening to the song, the depressed salesman said that he did not want to see his parents in the sky after his death. This was because the post-war generation resisted and denied his parents. The post-war generation, represented by salesmen, was struggling for the economy and life, and running around all day has caused interpersonal indifference and unconventional life. However, Roy Anderson did not give up hope. There are three warm and warm passages in the film, young men and women lying on the beach, two girls blowing bubbles on the balcony, and a baby lying in a swaddling baby. Sweden’s rise is about to rise. Rely on this young generation.
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