What do we want to see in Dolan's work? This is the weekend after watching Dolan's new film "Just the End of the World" in a Toronto movie theater, I kept asking myself this question. Are we looking forward to the 19-year-old genius once again bringing us sensory and visual surprises? Or do you expect him to become a master potential stock after a few years? Or are we looking forward to a painful author-type director once again telling us a private story full of personal touch? Or, a small part of the audience is simply looking forward to feeling their own shadow in his movies, so as to find inner resonance.
The whole "Just the End of the World" is full of slow, sentimental, and depressing lens language, carried on a 97-minute 35mm film. 97 minutes is a comforting number, not 2 hours or even 3 hours of lengthy dialogue, which is full of details of life scenes and character parts. Even the large number of close-ups that have been criticized by film critics may be due to the slightly longer viewing distance. Personally speaking, Xiao Xuan'er does not feel too depressed, but just reflects the fact that we are talking face-to-face in real life. , Anxious dialogue and awkward scene angle of sight.
Perhaps this is also the interpretation of the image extended by the director from his personal experience. This is the way Dolan sees the world. You can choose to accept or resist. Although somewhat deliberate and hypocritical, the focus is out of focus, and the sight between the face and the environment is constantly striving to express the distance between the protagonist Louis and each family member, both near and far. The swing of those curtains, the parts of women’s faces and bodies, these tiny corners, attracted Louis’s gaze, but he did not dare to look at them directly, because 12 years of parting made them familiar with each other, but But it is so strange.
In the trailer of the movie, there is a narration in which Louis, standing alone in the backyard smoking a cigarette, muttered in his heart: "This is just a family dinner, not the end of the world." But in his heart, the feeling is actually the opposite. At this moment, the family dining table has become the end of the world. You are in it, for fear of touching the edge, you can't really get close to everyone. Sitting at the dining table, watching family conversations, you seem to be at the end of the world. This is the feeling and theme that the whole movie constantly delivers to the audience.
From an awkward return to an indifferent escape. Let me talk about the structure of the story first. The film has a short opening. The male protagonist Louis is sitting on the plane heading home. His inner monologue is in the form of narration, explaining the reason and background of his return home. This is also the source of the movie poster. A pair of children's hands covered Louis's eyes. He raised his head slightly, unable to see what was in front of him, and the surrounding area was completely dark. It is as if a person inadvertently will always cover his eyes with his childhood and past, and thus fall into the darkness, unable to move forward and have nowhere to go.
After this, Louis walked out of the airport and embarked on the last part of the journey home. The scene began to cross-edit the scene of the mother preparing food at home. The MV format that came up made people feel the way Dolan views the world very intimately. In the film, there are at least two parts of the intervening music and picture editing, which are used to lengthen the memories and inner feelings of the characters. The memories of the hero Louis about his father and his first love boyfriend are all continued in this way. Liberated out of my thoughts. The film starts from the defocused panorama of Louis entering the house, and then to the close-up shot, to when he walks out of the house alone at four o'clock in the afternoon, the blurring from the close-up to the panorama forms a repeated closed loop. He told about what happened when he returned home again after 12 years and spent less than 12 hours with his family including his mother, elder brother, sister-in-law, and younger sister.
The scenes that restore the appearance of family dialogue and the essential story are all set in a small indoor space. One-to-one, one-to-many dialogues and dramatic quarrels are all very staged. There are no more than 13 scenes in the whole movie. The language of the lens It's also very simplified. As everyone knows, there are a lot of close-up shots of people. Dolan said that when he read Jean-Luc Lagas’s play for the first time, he was moved by the characters: “They are too real and full of humanity.” Dolan said in the interview: “He What pays more attention to is whether the expression of the film conforms to the spirit of the script, and he just hopes to make the film itself operate, let the story unfold at the appropriate node, and let the film tell a story well.".
He said: "When I was preparing to shoot this story, I decided to shoot it close to the face. In the film, the lens is used to show how one person sees another person in life, and in their eyes, they see each other. Think, understand, confirm.". He also admitted that he did not deliberately use close-ups because he wanted to get rid of the sense of drama when shooting, but more because of the needs of the plot. Close-ups can more perfectly express the subtle movements of the face and what it expresses. emotion. Even in the eyes of many people, this is a very clumsy approach, but Dolan insists on using such a lens to present this special family gathering.
Useless communication between people. Louis came and left alone. Even though he was coaxed away by his brother in the end, after his mother and sister cried, they did not dare to face his parting and hid in the basement and backyard. smokes. From the embarrassed look when Louis entered the door to the sweaty back before going out, he didn't really speak much at the end of the day. On the contrary, he experienced a fierce battle. Of course, it was more in his heart. The grumbling of the younger sister, the request of the mother, the unreasonableness of the brother, and the kind advice of the sister-in-law constituted a mutually pulling relationship between the family and Louis.
In addition to listening to the conversations with his family, Louis is also distracted, because he is always looking for opportunities to confide the news that he is terminally ill. Although before he left, he couldn't find a chance to say it, because no one really wanted to listen to what he wanted to say. Even though the sister-in-law of the bystander wanted him to speak out, she interrupted him at a critical time. She said to Louis that you should speak directly to your brother, not me. The family relationship in this film shows the diversity of individuals with very few characters. In 12 years, some things have changed, and some people have also changed. But to a certain extent, nothing has changed. Everyone is still connected by blood, but not by family. Throughout the film, the basic tones of blue and brown, and the high saturation of the rich picture, the emotions between the characters are incomparably weak. Louis who left at dusk, no matter how warm light surrounds him, you can feel it. To the coldness of his heart, this contrast gives people an inexplicable sense of balance.
At the end of the film, a bird that strayed into the room was deliberately introduced. She hit the clock, bumped into the room frequently, and finally fell to the door of the room, at Louis's feet. Louis looked down at it and the back door. The family in the distance, with a chatting smile on their faces, turned and left silently, as if Louis, who had been away from home for 12 years, would never come back, and he was experiencing the fate of this small tit. I tried to find a place to stay in the barrier, but he was wounded all over, dying, and finally died lonely, that's all.
When an adult becomes a child, the child can only become an adult. The film has a lot of family conversations, somewhere between embarrassment and support. Several actors and actresses: Gaspard Ulliel, Marion Cotillard, Léa Seydoux, Vincennes Caso, and Natalie Bay, respectively playing Louis, sister-in-law Catherine and sister Susanna, brother Antoine, and mother. These three generations of drama bones of the old, middle and youth, placed in a closed space, can perform all kinds of dialogues just right. There are speech problems, pauses, difficulties, and reluctances. Each role is in place and makes people feel good. Feeling pleasing, disgusting, or sympathetic.
Compared with the previous non-self-experience film "Lawrence on Both Sides" taken by Dolan, this "Just the End of the World" is more suitable for him to adapt and create. Once again presented in the movie, the single mother's character image and fragile heart, a combination of childishness and strength. Dolan tried hard to show the relationship and status between family members. People can't really communicate and communicate with each other. Whether it is group or individual communication, most of the time it is useless. Despite countless conversations, no one can tell the point.
He said that the protagonist Louis is like a person from another time and space. When he returns 12 years later, in this family where he is, no one is talking to him, and no one intends to listen. Everyone is talking about their own affairs and talking to Louis The complaints and expectations, even accusations, actually the family are waiting for Louis to say something, but they are afraid that he will speak and tell some serious things, and Louis can't say the love for his family. The role of each character is full of different aspects of human nature. They cry, explode, escape, and try to interrupt others and refuse to listen to what others want to say.
People say so many things all day long, but no one listens. All day long it seems that everything is said, but the really important things are missed. How can this feeling be retained in the movie? It was Dolan's proposition for himself. People communicated in a superficial and useless way. They expressed a lot, but ignored the most real feelings. No one really thought about the reason why Louis went home. Only Marion Cotillard's sister-in-law, Catherine, is taking into account the feelings of everyone in the family, especially what Louis is thinking. What is the secret in the silent Louis's heart?
Dolan explained in the interview: "The protagonist Louis, wandering in this world like a ghost, he is outside the family, but he is also the only person who really lives. He fell into the whirlpool of the family and tried to break through. In the end, he had to flee from it.” Dolan said that he decided on the original soundtrack when he was preparing for the film. He said that in the continuous creation, he found that as a director, he should not choose the music he likes, but should choose the music that the character will really hear in life in those films.
This time "Just the End of the World", the opening song "Home is where it hurts" is the same. It is heartbreaking every time I listen to it, so I will share the lyrics with everyone here. Regarding this movie, I believe everyone will have their own feelings after watching it. Even though Dolan chose a clumsy way to express this theme, the family propositions and character emotions to be expressed behind the scenes are even more sad. . When a mother desires a child like a child, the child can only become independent like an adult. Leaving alone may be the best choice to take off the burden.
My home has no door My home has no roof My home has no windows It ain't water proof My home has no handles My home has no keys If you're here to rob me There's nothing to steal A la maison Dans ma maison C 'est là que j'ai peur Home is not a harbour Home home home Is where it hurts My home has no heart My home has no veins If you try to break in It bleeds with no stains My brain has no corridors My walls have no skin You can lose your life here This article is specially written by the public account of [三克电影空间] September 28, 2016 Toronto Xiaoxuaner Ji————————————
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