There have always been a lot of black humor movies, and almost every one can give people a very special feeling, from "Dallas Buyer" to "Birdman", last year there were "I, Queen of Flowers" and "Square". And "Three Billboards" and other black humorous flying movies.
But the "Cocktail Party" I watched today is still amazing to me.
The film is black and white, and the cultural construction of black and white film is more of a serious feeling.
The leading music and opening scenes of the movie also introduced "This is a tragedy" and "This is a suspenseful movie". For the audience who has been trained in a large number of genres, the director has already begun to control and play with you. Heart. Next, he will break your various thoughts, yelling "Fuck you" continuously in the fierce ridicule of the bourgeois intellectuals.
The heroine of the story is Janet, she is a British Republican, and she was successfully elected to the position of parliament in an election. So she held a celebration banquet and invited friends who had helped her campaign.
Her husband Bill, a typical intellectual, gave up his professorship at Yale University for the sake of his wife's political career. The couple seemed to be happy, but in fact they both cheated!
Gottfried and Apple are a couple who do not trust each other ideologically.
Apple is especially a very hard woman. She is an "angry youth" who does not believe in parliamentary democracy. Not only that, she should be an "angry youth" who has doubts and dissatisfaction with everything.
And Gottfried is a "typical German", or he doesn't open his mouth, he opens up all kinds of "advanced" philosophy, and he also calls himself "life mentor".
These two characters did not really enter this farce in the movie. They are more like the incarnation of the director and the screenwriter in the movie. They constantly push the plot forward to harmonize and smoothen the story. They are also the director and the screenwriter. Tools for intellectuals.
Sarah and Ginny are a pair of Lara with a huge age gap. Ginny is an extreme feminist who believes that "men are all rapists". She is pregnant with triplets, but it happens that she is really a boy.
But Sarah didn't want children very much. From the nuanced performances and sub-text lines of the actors in the movie, it can be seen that the relationship between the two of them is full of love and full of contradictions.
Tom and Marianne are also a couple. The character of the two of them is not portrayed deeply in the film.
We only know that Tom’s purpose for this banquet was to shoot Bill because he discovered the relationship between Marian and Bill. He was in a state of extreme tension as soon as he appeared, and it was his appearance that made the whole movie become Nervous and full of suspense. Marianne is the one who hasn't appeared from beginning to end, but can be said to be the first fuse of this farce, who is at the center of this farce.
In the first half of the movie, I concentrate on creating characters, explaining clearly the ins and outs of things, and explaining the subtle relationships between the characters, which is full of various foreshadowings. The story and mood of the movie are also pushed to a climax step by step.
Everyone gathered together, but Apple opened champagne but accidentally broke the glass. The pregnant Ginny said, "I hope this is not a sign of unwillingness." This sentence is like "breaking the fourth wall" that would appear in a comedy. Obviously But it is not against the peace to tell us that this farce is about to start.
It was also from here that the complicated relationships between the characters were slowly peeled away, and the contradictions continued to escalate.
Bill announced that he had cancer, and the cheerful atmosphere instantly dulled, but this "death message" was like a switch, officially opening the door to black intellectuals.
The atmosphere that should have been very heavy was deviated by Gottfried’s "Philosophy of Life" and a group of people who jumped from Bill’s death to controversy, medical controversy, religious controversy, democratic controversy, and politics, giving people a strange feeling of embarrassment and funny. .
Tom, who was about to kill Bill, panicked instantly when he heard the news and planned to throw away the pistol, but Ginny found him sneaky. Later, under Ginny's constant questioning, he had no choice but to bite the bullet and uncover it in front of everyone. At this time, Bill also planned to tell Janet that he wanted to live with another woman in the last remaining time.
At this moment Tom turned on the ceiling light in the room, and the characters were instantly illuminated and exposed to the strong light, as if their secrets had been revealed. Before that, the lighting of photography was relatively soft, imitating natural light, and the picture looked very soft. At this time, it suddenly became hard light, hitting each actor's face with extremely high contrast, indicating that the conflict is about to be maximum. change.
Since then, the IQs of these intellectuals have dropped rapidly, and Janet, who has cheated on herself, has started to beat Bill out of control. Sarah and Ginny have always known the relationship between Bill and Marianne and the fact that they cheated in their own home has also been revealed. Sarah's very close relationship with Bill at university was also revealed. Ginny's extreme feminist nerves were triggered instantly.
The contradiction between Bill and Janet, the contradiction between Bill and Tom, the contradiction between Sarah and Ginny, all contradictions are staged cross-editing together, it is more exciting than watching "Dunkirk". In these contradictions, the director still does not forget to join the inertial thinking of intellectuals, and is still arguing about money and politics amid constant quarrels and anger. These bourgeois intellectuals live in an ideal spiritual world and in a "civilized" society created by themselves. They are always stern, but once they touch the ground, they will be wiped out. It can be said that the director is very direct and explicit.
These constant accidents have caused my mouth to explode continuously, but when I look at it carefully, I know that there are still holes to fill.
After Janet rescued Bill who was knocked out by Tom, the door rang. At this time, the camera gave several characters surprising close-ups. Janet rushed out. These shots made me confused.
But within a few seconds everything was activated.
Janet rushed to pick up what Tom had brought to open the door, then angrily said "You said you love me, you traitor", and returned to the opening scene of the movie-Janet pointed the gun at the camera (Marian is behind the camera) ).
Haven't understood yet? That is to say, in the first half of the film, the person Janet called and said ambiguous things was not someone else, it was Marianne, Tom's wife and Bill's derailed lover! ! Are you surprised or surprised?
Watching the entire movie is always in a state of wanting to swear. This kind of anti-type unexpected and constant plot is surprisingly exciting. The last time I was in this state was to watch David Fincher’s much criticized "Mind Game" .
"Cocktail Party" is more logically rigorous than "Mind Game", but the overly dramatic plot always inevitably avoids some reality loopholes. The director also handled it very cleverly. He turned these "reality loopholes" into The "stupid" hat hung on the heads of these bourgeois intellectuals.
But do you think there are no shortcomings in this movie?
It is too dramatic. Just like many people criticize "I, Queen of Flowers", the director used a lot of very obvious symbols and foreshadowing. It is different from the way that usual comedy directly breaks the fourth wall. It breaks the fourth wall indirectly. Although it feels a little fresh, the combination of these makes the whole movie feel too strong, and it is easier to be seen as a story, so that the hidden core of the storybook disappears invisible.
"Cocktail Party" is more serious than the former. It is unrealistic to a certain extent. Although the last big accident makes people feel a sense of joy, but it seems to be useless except that it makes the whole story more complete. The atmosphere of the whole movie suddenly became very creative. Is it really effective to expose, criticize and ridicule the real society through such assumed reality?
For the first time in an hour, I continuously exploded all the vulgarity I knew in my life, and the thoughts when I was silent after exploding the vulgarity made me full of vulgarity.
If you don’t understand, you must go to the original movie! Be sure to see the original film!
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