About "The Face of Others" I
haven't watched a movie for more than a month. I wanted to watch a relaxing movie, but I couldn't get rid of the naked seduction of this 1966 Japanese movie, so I spent 124 minutes blending with this movie.
"The Face of Others" is 124 minutes, which is not a short film length. The rhythm of the story is not compact, but there is no urine point throughout. The outline of the story is that after the male protagonist Okuyama was burned and disfigured, he was unwilling to face life, unwilling to face himself, and was wrapped in bandages all day and unwilling to take it off. One day, he found that his wife had also become indifferent to him, and his anger and shame had reached the peak. He finds a doctor and tailors a new face for himself, and the plan for revenge begins.
It may seem like a simple storyline, but the central idea of the film is more than that.
"How much I think there is an open space above my neck, but my face has become an unavoidable window to the soul, which in turn corrodes the soul."
"The mask will completely destroy the morality, name, and status of human beings! Occupation...all Labels will no longer be important, they will feel unfamiliar with each other, alone will be free, and will no longer feel guilty about certain things..."
These lines are what the film really wants to express to the viewers.
For Okuyama, the disfigurement brought him infinite pain. He wants to put out all the lights in the world, or goug out all the eyes. He didn't want this face to be his symbol. Like when the secretary recognized him by the bandage, he was angry. Putting on the mask, he became a new person, he no longer worshipped darkness. He can boldly stare at a woman's thigh, he can boldly get drunk, he can boldly flirt, because he is an unregistered invisible person in the society at this time. He began his revenge, seducing his indifferent wife with a new face, in his words, "We are two strangers preparing for adultery."
For the doctor, Okuyama was his experiment in freedom. It can be seen in the film that he is constantly being watched by his wife while he is having an affair with a nurse. Doctors are not free. Okuyama asked the doctor many times what his purpose was, but the doctor never gave a positive answer. He just kept reminding Okuyama that he had to report everything to himself. The real purpose of a doctor is actually to yearn for the freedom of being an invisible person. He wanted to use the mask to escape his wife's surveillance and escape his identity.
Taking the mask as the starting point, the pursuit of Okuyama and the doctor is not unified. Okuyama just wants revenge on his wife, while the doctor seeks freedom.
Okuyama successfully avenged his wife and seduced her to bed, but he did not expect that his wife had already discovered his true face, and thought that Okuyama was just Okuyama wearing a mask, not that the mask was occupied by Okuyama's heart. She used the woman's makeup as a metaphor, putting on heavy makeup for herself to match her husband's mask. She thought it was her husband's efforts to save the marriage, but when she knew that her husband sold his soul to the mask for revenge, she couldn't accept it. Unable to accept "pretending a mask is real", she left Okuyama disappointed. At this time, Okuyama was desperate. He realized that he was being invaded by a mask and became a real invisible person without self, identity, and mark in society. He began to attack passers-by to try to prove his existence, but he failed.
The doctor seemed to have lost confidence in this "romantic experiment", and he began to realize that "freedom is often a lonely thing, some masks are taken off, some masks are not..." Okuyama's freedom at this time is dangerous . He killed the doctor, and no one could recognize himself wearing a mask. This is the last self-exile, and he has completely reduced himself to a free and lonely person with no identity, no name, and no social attributes wearing the face of others. people.
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