• The director’s
first look at Zodulowski (hereafter referred to as Zordu for convenience of description), you may be surprised by the weirdness and incomprehension in his movie. Take the first half of "Holy Blood" as an example. The circus, tattooed girls, throwing knives, elephants with bleeding noses, tattoos, etc. are weird and obscure, and people can't help calling "WTF". So we might as well start with his experience and understand his unique expression as the key to unlock his movie world.
Born in 1929 in Tokopia, a small town in Chile, Zordu was influenced by the magical atmosphere of Latin America when he was young. When he became an adult, he mingled with surrealist artists and caught up with the global counter-mainstream movement when he began to create films. Even if the weird elements in his nature are excluded, the experience of the ears and eyes is enough to achieve the rebelliousness and boldness of his works.
Zuodu is not only engaged in artistic creation, but also has extensive experience in a large number of fields. He understands psychoanalysis, Christianity, Zen Buddhism, and is also interested in tarot cards, alchemy and shamanism. His erudition has given his films a broad vision and complexity. The meaning of, also gives the viewer freedom to interpret and associate.
In addition, even if he is engaged in art, he is not limited to movies. In fact, in his nearly fifty years of film creation, he basically has only six important works, namely "Fandor and Lis" and "Mole". ", "Holy Mountain", "Holy Blood", "Dance of Reality" and "Poetry Endless". He wrote poems in his early years, and later studied pantomime and puppet show performances. He wrote novels, wrote comics, and made vinyl records. He is a full crossover artist. Among them, the dramatic element has a profound influence on his films.
But only from the film itself, especially from a technical point of view, Zordu's films do seem rough and not professional enough. For example, the audiovisual language of the film, especially the lens language, is basically nothing to discuss. The interpretation of the film focuses more on the understanding of narrative and symbolism.
Affected by surrealism, symbolism has become an extremely important part of Zuodu's film ideology. Analyzing the deep meaning of things in the film is an important way to understand the film. In addition, this film involves the director's research on religion, psychoanalysis, and politics. Using many theories to analyze the film is also an important part of understanding. This article will focus more on how to understand the film from the perspective of psychoanalysis.
• Psychoanalytic
male protagonist Fenix is the absolute protagonist of the film and the provider of the film’s perspective. He himself is a mentally ill person, so many passages in the film are actually fantasies of the protagonist. In the protagonist’s fantasy, he reunites with his mother who disappeared that year, and is controlled by his mother to kill the woman he likes.
The fact is that the protagonist's parents both died on the same day of his childhood, and his lover, the mute girl, was also taken away, and all the people close to him disappeared in an instant, causing his mental breakdown.
And everything he did as an adult was to make up for the love lost in childhood. He imagined his mother and constructed a mother’s personality in his heart. When he met the tattooed woman who got involved in his parental relationship, the mother’s personality in his heart was completely awakened, and it was this personality that killed the tattoo. Female.
However, when there are two personalities in the human mind, conflicts will inevitably occur. In this film, whenever the male protagonist is tempted by a woman, his mother’s personality will control him to kill the woman. When the two personalities conflict, the male protagonist is always at a disadvantage, which is related to his sensitive and weak personality. Inseparable.
The formation of the protagonist's character is inseparable from his family relationship. The protagonist has a harsh, neurotic, and religiously fanatical mother. He cannot get enough love from her mother, so he is eager to get the love of others as an adult, which leads to loss and paranoia. Similar patterns appeared in the films "Citizen Kane" and "Mentally Ill". Below I will carefully compare this film and "Mentally Ill".
The hero's father is like the other extreme of his mother. He is indulgent and shameless, which triggered their family tragedy, bought the seeds of contradiction in the protagonist's brain, and led to the hero's mental illness. The male protagonist subconsciously tries to have the same sexual charm as his father, and is restrained by his mother's asceticism. But in the only scene in the film where the father and son communicate, their relationship is very harmonious. The father guides his son how to grow into a man, which provides the male protagonist with the strength to find himself in the future.
• Magical version of "Mentally Ill"
Some people call the film "Fellini's "Mentally Ill" remake", which not only points out the magical style of the film, but also points out that the protagonist of the film has a mental model similar to that of the murderer Bates in "Mentally Ill." But comparing the two, we can still find some differences.
First of all, the psychological structure of the protagonist in the film is more complicated. Not only did he create the personality of his mother, but in his own personality, he subconsciously imitated his father. The imitation of the object of concern is called "identification" in psychoanalysis. Comparing the first half of the male protagonist's father teasing the tattooed girl with the second half of the male protagonist's flirting with the stripper Ruby, we can find that the two are surprisingly similar-the male protagonist is completely imitating his father. He wore the same flying knife suit as his father, dyed his hair the same golden color as his father, and the act of throwing a flying knife was also full of sexuality. And when the male protagonist hypnotized Ruby, the film sounded a melody based on the original soundtrack, which is exactly the melody that sounded when the father hypnotized his mother. Can this be understood as the brain of the male protagonist at this time? After reading this melody, and want to have the ability to conquer women like his father? When the protagonist throws a dart, we can see from his subjective perspective that what he sees is no longer Ruby, but a tattooed woman. The actor is not only controlled by his mother's personality, but in his own personality, he is also imitating his father's behavior. He is caught in the whirlpool of his childhood parents, unable to extricate himself, and completely loses himself and freedom.
Secondly, the two have different causes of mental illness. After killing his mother, Bates dreamed of a mother in order to clear his guilt. The protagonist of this film is to redeem the love lost in childhood. In his childhood, he was weak and helpless in the discord between his parents. He is more innocent than Bates. Therefore, when the protagonist is finally arrested by the police, we will feel more. Heartbroken.
Another difference between the protagonist of the film and Bates is that he has a lover, and it is she who recalls the protagonist's personality and leads him out of his mother's control. Love does have such power. The Austrian poet Rilke once said that love is "to complete one's own world for another person." It was the love for the dumb girl that prompted the protagonist to find himself. Bates lived alone, and was completely swallowed by his mother's personality.
Psychiatric patients have provided a lot of inspiration for the establishment of psychoanalysis, and Freud, the founder of his theory, established a psychological system through the study of pathological psychology. The same is true for the mental patient in this film. Perhaps the fate of the male protagonist is a tragedy, but his experience is enough to enlighten us-whether we are also like him to some extent, seemingly free, but in fact suffer The manipulation of distant childhood, living in the prison of his own heart. This film is like a treatment, it leads the audience to themselves and obtains the truth through the digging of the hero's heart.
•Symbols and metaphors
The film not only has a suspenseful and echoing good story, but the symbols embedded in the story also constitute a complete system and become another dimension of the film's expression.
The core symbols of the film are "hand" and "broken arm". These symbols are like the two magnetic poles of the film, which constitute the core contradiction of the whole film. "Hand" symbolizes reality and freedom. After the father tattooed the protagonist with an eagle, the mute girl made a gesture. She compared her hand to a bird, giving her the meaning of freedom. At the end of the film, after the protagonist is out of the control of his mother, the dumb woman once again makes this action to indicate that she has regained her freedom.
In addition, the film ends with a quote from the Bible psalm: "I raise my hand to you. My heart longs for you, like a dry land hoping for rain. Please let me know the way to go, because my heart looks to you." Hand , Has also become a tool for the protagonist to approach God and obtain God’s guidance.
"Broken arm" represents the mother's restraint on her son. The mother believes in a girl with a broken arm, and eventually her destiny overlaps with that of the girl. When the mother and son perform the "Magic Hand", the mother controls the son's hand. At the end of the movie, the protagonist's hand finally no longer obeyed his mother's control, and instead killed her, he regained his freedom.
Another important group of symbols are the three types of birds-eagles, chickens and swans.
The eagle symbolizes freedom. It is the incarnation of the male protagonist. His father tattooed him with an eagle, and the dumb woman compared her hand to an eagle, establishing a connection between the hand and the eagle, showing the meaning of freedom between the two.
The chicken symbolizes the male protagonist’s fear of his mother. After the mother’s arms were cut off, a chicken pecked at her arm. The male protagonist saw chickens all over the room in the fantasy of fear.
The swan symbolizes a woman. After the male protagonist killed Ruby, he saw a swan flying out of his wound.
Other things in the film also have their own meanings, such as people with disabilities, freaks or dwarfs appear in almost every Zodu's film, which is by no means just to exaggerate horror and weirdness. Zordu has shown the love between the protagonist and the dwarf woman in three movies. He uses this way to express his sympathy, compassion and fraternity-the disabled and the so-called "normal people" have the same soul, but they cannot If they don't live in a body different from ordinary people, what wrong did they make?
In Zordu’s movies, the disabled are endowed with a kind character. One of the protagonist’s childhood friends is the dwarf Aladdin. He injected a trace of humanity and love into the protagonist’s sad childhood. The protagonist grows up in his mind. I imagined him in it. And the protagonist's lover—the symbol of pure love, kindness, and innocence—is also a mute girl.
Two symbols that are not easy to understand in this film are the elephant in the film and the old movie "The Invisible Man".
In the first half of the movie, a dying elephant with a bloody nose appeared. The circus held a grand funeral for him. You can understand it only as an image of death. But if you combine the context, you can interpret some more complex meanings. When the protagonist spied on his parents making love, the movie took a shot of an elephant's nose bleeding, which reminds people of menstruation. Menstruation represents maturity and loss of innocence. Whether the death of the elephant can be understood as the loss of innocence of the protagonist. If understood in this way, the grand funeral after that is the funeral of the protagonist's innocence. In the following plot, the father tattoos the protagonist with an eagle, and the protagonist grows into a man.
But in the second half of the film, after the protagonist kills Ruby, he dreams of an elephant in his childhood and sees blood flowing from his nose like that elephant. Then the mother said: "You can't make up for your sin with a nightmare." Does the elephant have the meaning of sin at this time? I can't explain this clearly.
Another symbol is the 1933 movie "The Invisible Man". The protagonist regards that character as a hero and configures medicine to desire to become an invisible man. This movie tells a story of "crossing the boundary". The protagonist has the ability to be invisible, eager to conquer the world, and ultimately fails. At his deathbed, he said: "I crossed the boundary." Ability? This does not seem to have much to do with the theme of the film. It is also said that the film "The Invisible Man" just wants to show that the protagonist hates himself and desires to disappear.
• The unique expression
symbol has been integrated into the form of the film, and many of the meanings of the film are expressed in a symbolic way.
We can observe the way the characters are created in this film. At the beginning of the film, the tattooed woman saw the protagonist's father, she took off her coat to reveal the tattoo and said, "I'm here." At this time, the tattoo became part of the role of the tattooed woman. In this film, the person is not only his soul, but the appearance of his costume has also become the externalization of the character's soul. Each character has a set of iconic costumes. The protagonist’s magician suit, mother’s religious suit, father’s flying knife suit, tattooed girl’s tattoo, and the iconic black clothes and white makeup of the dumb girl correspond to the character’s character.
Audiences who have watched "Once Upon a Time in America" may remember that at the end of that movie, when the heroine and heroine meet again after many years, the heroine removes her makeup, which symbolizes shedding her disguise and expressing her true self. This film does the opposite. When the heroine is about to see the hero after many years, she puts on makeup instead, which makes me more sure of the symbolic nature of the role of the dumb woman. Her image is everything about her-kindness, beauty, innocence, and no other complicated personality.
Zordu once designed character costumes for his movie "Mole". In his finally stranded masterpiece "Dune", he invited French comics master Mobis to design character costumes. The results are dazzling and feast for the eyes. This kind of formal and symbolic clothing can be traced back to Zuodu's expression habit on the theater stage.
On this basis, Zuodu further deduced that not only the clothing is the externalization of the character's soul, but also the human organs have become a part of the personality. So we saw an amazing scene in this film-after the dumb woman escaped from the tattooed woman, she met a middle-aged man who actually tore off his ears and wanted to give it to the dumb woman (she was deaf and mute) people). A similar scene also appeared in his other film "Holy Mountain".
Not only the costumes, but the actions of the characters in the film are also symbolic. The scene of the protagonist's father throwing a knife is very sexual, but it is not a straightforward sexual display. The mute girl compares the eagle with her hand to express her love for the protagonist. Mother and daughter perform "Magic Hand" to show the mother's control over the son.
The father tattooed the protagonist with an eagle, symbolizing the son's maturity. Someone once pointed out that the protagonist here is not “really” mature, he is only forced to mature under the leadership of his father, rather than truly growing deep in his emotions. I think this has something to do with the way of expression of Zuodu. In his movie "Mole", the director directly used the action of "shaving" to express the protagonist's repentance, rather than carefully paving the reason for his repentance from the emotional logic. This also makes Zordu's film more than rich in meaning, but it seems that there is no full convincing emotionally. But in any case, only by understanding the director's expression methods can we more accurately grasp the meaning of the film.
In addition, some critics have analyzed the meaning of the eagle in Indian civilization, the totem worship represented by the tattooed female, and the American flag held by the father at the elephant’s funeral, and inferred that the film also contains implications for American history and politics at the time. Comment, but this point of view will not be discussed in this article.
Zuodu's famous work "Mole" was initially bleak at the box office when it was released in the United States. It was then photographed by a theater owner and screened at midnight, which gradually sparked a movie-watching boom among intellectual circles. "Mole" also became the first cult movie.
After that, Zordu's movies continued this weird and rebellious style. Some people could not accept it at all, while others were intoxicated in its wildness and incomprehension. But I think that Zuo Duo is not only trying to make a weird and eye-catching film. Behind his bizarre style is his care, sentiment and compassion for the world. It is the matrix he has always adhered to, that is, reflecting on the world. Unbearable strange phenomenon, pursuing spiritual truth and freedom.
View more about Santa Sangre reviews
