At the end of the movie, the protagonist of the movie, the police detective, entered the huge abandoned wooden house, and when he passed through the dark corridor, he caught a glimpse of a looming figure. When he pulled back the curtains, he finally saw the real protagonist of the movie, the man without a face in the picture blowing in the wind. who is he? The owner of this blank face belongs to a hypnotist who lived in the Meiji period, Hakuru Tojiro. who is he? He is a ghost, a mirror. When watching this movie, you try to identify with the lens in this movie and project yourself into it with your past viewing experience, but in this scene, you stare at yourself from the perspective of the character, removing all features like emptiness in that scene. I saw my reflection on my face. So who are you? Tell me about yourself...
First of all, let us borrow the classification of magical movies/literary genres and divide horror movies into "high horror movies" or "low horror movies". "High horror movies" are those movies that can make the audience clearly feel the threat from others (ghosts, murderers, monsters). A "low horror film" can be a film in which the other threatening the audience has no concrete visible entity (supernatural phenomenon), and the oppression the audience feels comes from the situation presented in the film.
If the film "X Sanji" is measured in this way, it undoubtedly belongs to the category of "low horror film". In the movie, the long and medium shots keeping a distance from the characters watch everything silently in a bystander attitude. The camera relentlessly threw the characters into their environment, and we watched them wandering through the dim and dilapidated buildings with constant noise. In this extremely depressed world, any wind and grass can make people tense, and any unbelievable evil can become possible.
So, after we have experienced three incredible and meticulous hypnotic murders, our attention has shifted from "what happened here" to "how this is done". As a result, we began to focus on the detective's upper body, followed him to investigate, confronted the hypnotist Mamiya, and finally accepted his transformation. Therefore, after the film ended with an open end, we began to pay attention to the clues in the film, and found that every detail was meticulously designed by the director. The psychological changes in the later stage of the character had already been prepared at the beginning, so there was a "Detective" It's the conspiracy theory of the murderer, so this movie became a model for the "puzzle movie".
But don’t forget, this is still a horror movie-although the horror is relatively low, it still cannot be denied that there can be supernatural phenomena that cannot be explained by the answering logic of puzzle movies. For example, the scene where Mamiya first appeared on a deserted beach by the sea, such as the confrontation between Mamiya and Mamiya in a cage: Seeing Mamiya's defeat, an instant heavy rain hits the room, and the shadow envelopes the room, and the rain seeps into the room to extinguish the upper part. Fire source. For example, the earthquake before Mamiya escaped from prison. For another example, who are "we"?
The camera relentlessly threw the characters into their environment, and we watched them wandering through the dim and dilapidated buildings with constant noise.
When we followed the camera and witnessed the unconscious murders and the transformation of the police detective's high level from the perspective of a bystander, have we ever wondered who this bystander is? Whose perspective are we following? have no idea.
The only certainty is that the images presented in "X Sanji" are definitely not the usual Hollywood movies that are stitched into the narrative without being noticed by the audience. The camera's movement, tremor, and even the wandering away from the characters seem to be making conscious movements. This "us" may be a ghost hidden in the movie that we don't see. Therefore, when the image cannot be equated with reality, all our attempts to solve the mystery of the film have failed. Therefore, we need to ask again: "Who are we"?
At this time, the real "magic power" of "X Sanji" finally appeared in front of us-we were hypnotized.
It can be said that "X Sanji" is a very "magic" movie. Hypnosis is not only the theme of the movie, but also a way for the movie to exert its hidden magic in its own characteristics. Therefore, in the process of watching the movie, the effect of "double hypnosis" appears -the hypnosis of Mamiya in the movie and the hypnosis of the audience by the movie itself .
First of all, even though most of the 111 minutes of watching the movie, we watched everything that happened on the screen as "ghosts". But when hypnosis occurs, the front and back shots that are synchronized with the character’s point of view replace the previous long shots, and our eyes begin to be guided by the close-up shots. The attention is the same as the character who is about to enter the hypnotic state, focusing on the trembling fire or flowing Water flow. Under Mamiya's highly inductive language, we feel the fascination brought by hypnosis just like the characters. The whole hypnotic ritual is opened to the viewer through the change of viewpoint. Here, we are not only bystanders, but also participants.
But in fact, we are not only involved in hypnosis when the hypnotic ritual occurs. In fact, hypnosis permeates every corner of the movie. Recurring visual symbols: rhythmic flashing of lights (street lights, signal lights), and continuous regular sound: imperceptible bottom noise (mechanical sound, sound of ocean waves), all appear in a way similar to hypnotic hints. Especially the sound, as these low-frequency, monotonous, regular noises continue, the sound gradually disappears in the audience's hearing domain, becoming a part of the habit, and a source of oppression in the movie.
The structure of the movie also gives the audience a strong hint. In the first half of the movie, the four clues of wife, hypnotized murder scene, hypnotist Mamiya, and police detective high are divided into four paragraphs. They are not carried out in simple cause and effect or time sequence, but interlaced. They seem to be separated from each other, but they are full of connections. The paragraphs are both suggestive to each other and have the same structure as the whole, forming an effect similar to montage. For example, when Mamiya first appeared and entered the teacher's house, he found potential conflicts between the teacher and his wife, hypnotized the teacher, and suggested to the senior department to return home, reveal the problem between the senior department and his wife, and later contacted the senior department and Mamiya. The subsequent transformation forms an isomorphism.
Secondly, we should realize that film as hypnosis is not only embodied in the form of film, but also in the operation of film viewing mechanism. After psychoanalysis was introduced into film research, the isomorphic relationship between film and dreams and mirrors was discovered:
First of all, under the influence of the movie-viewing situation (dark enclosed environment, deprivation of the viewer's other sensory organs, continuous visual and auditory stimulation), the movie-viewing process has become a dream-like psychological regression process. In this process, through the presupposition of the viewer's line of sight through the operation of the film, the viewer will experience two assimilation: identification with the image itself, assimilation with the character, identification with the camera, and assimilation with the point of view. And in this whole process, the screen is like a mirror in the mirror stage-babies in the imaginary stage construct themselves through identification with their own reflection in the mirror, and the viewer in the retrograde stage confuses imagination and reality through the screen (the subject’s Absence and the presence of the photographed image), the position of the omniscient subject is obtained, and the desire to peek is satisfied.
The form of "X Shengzhi": viewpoint changes, visual symbols and environmental sounds create the environment, and the overall suggestive structure of the film is showing the film as hypnosis in a conscious form, which refers to the hypnosis in the film. The isomorphic relationship between the film and the hypnosis/dream is also clearly displayed in front of the viewer. The operation of the film is fully exposed, realizing the reflexiveness of the relationship between the viewer and the viewer.
But in the movie, under the continuous influence of a highly suggestive form, we enter the scene as conscious bystanders, participate in the hypnotic ritual as a role, and move between the two viewpoints. Therefore, in the second half of the movie, the two viewpoints gradually begin to assimilate, and we who hide behind the viewpoint gradually assimilate with the characters, enter the movie as the subject, and are dominated by hypnotism until the last scene: we believe without reason, in Under the influence of the high department, the waiter subconsciously raised the knife...Here, not only the high department's compromise on hypnotism, but also our identification with the hypnotism mechanism of the movie as the hypnotized. At this time, if you are still struggling with the details, omens, reality and illusions in the movie, then you have been controlled by the movie as a hypnotism.
Therefore, the movie is a hypnotism with 24 frames per second, and we are trapped in it and controlled by it.
But is this hypnosis really a heinous "sorcery"?
The name of the movie (CURE) has already told us everything.
In the movie, hypnotism is a treatment that evokes taboo desires deep in the heart. So we saw that a married young teacher sitting alone on a deserted beach showed suspicion when a stranger mentioned his wife, and then, under hypnosis, he killed his wife. Therefore, "evil" does not originate from hypnosis, but from themselves. It was buried deep in their hearts long before they were hypnotized. Hypnosis, awakening the suppressed id, confronts the socially alienated self.
The conflict between self and id is also the theme of director Kiyoshi Kurosawa. In his other film "Self-Viewing Illusion", the stressed protagonist (also played by Yakusho Koji) sees another himself. Unlike the protagonist who suppresses his desires, his clone does not conceal his desires, and only follows the "principle of pleasure." In the end, the protagonist is trapped by desire and dies under the wheel, while the clone releases himself and gets rebirth. If in "Self-Viewing Illusion", as the clone of the self, is liberated by the death of the self, then the way for everyone to be liberated in "X Shengzhi" is to kill others, and this other person restricts their social relations. Symbolic.
Teachers, police officers, and doctors, they are not only public officials, but also play different roles in different social relationships: husbands, colleagues, women. They are trapped in the dual identities defined by the society, and the hypnotic high-pressure society has extremely suppressed the self desires. The split of the self and the suppression of the id made them lose their way in the question of "who are you".
In the process of watching the movie, I had a bad intention to imagine what would be the effect of asking a stranger "Who are you" in Mamiya's way in reality? It is estimated that most people will be at a loss, just like the people in the movie.
The real "I" has been lost in the modern city, and there is nowhere to find it.
So, at the end of the movie, the protagonist of the movie, the police detective, entered the huge abandoned wooden house, and when he passed through the dark corridor, he caught a glimpse of a looming figure. When he pulled back the curtains, he finally saw the real protagonist of the movie, the man without a face in the picture blowing in the wind.
who is he?
The owner of this blank face belongs to a hypnotist who lived in the Meiji period, Hakuru Tojiro.
who is he?
He is a ghost, a mirror, and he is the extremely suppressed self of all people. When Gao Fu looked at this face without a face, when watching this movie, you tried to identify with the lens in this movie based on your past viewing experience and project yourself into it, but in this scene, you saw I saw my own reflection on the face that had all features removed, and it was as empty as this blank face.
So who are you?
Tell me about yourself...
This article was first published on WeChat public account
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