This is not the BBC version of "Room". At first glance, the synopsis is easy to misunderstand. In fact, this is a crime thriller drama. It explores not only how the victim escapes and integrates into the outside world, but also how to find the criminal to reveal the truth. And the intriguing relationship between the victim and the kidnapper, the closer you get to the truth, the more complicated it becomes.
[The following is full of spoilers, do not read it carefully, and bear the consequences at your own risk. ]
[Stockholm Syndrome]
It is not uncommon for serial killers with no humanity to have a large number of fans around the world. This is a mental illness called "Stockholm Syndrome". The patient lives with the kidnappers and develops a certain sense of identity with him. It is also known as "hostage complex". The bank robbery that shocked the world, after being rescued, the hijackers not only defended the kidnappers, but one of the women hostages even fell in love with the robbers, and all this happened in just six days.
A case that is closer to this play is: in 1998, a ten-year-old Austrian girl, Natasha Kampsch, disappeared mysteriously on her way to school, until she narrowly escaped in 2006, thus revealing her life in a cellar for more than eight years. After Kampsch escaped, the kidnapper committed suicide. However, when she heard the news of the kidnapper's death, she burst into tears and then lit a candle for him lying in the morgue. She didn't think she lost many ordinary people because of her captivity. She said: "My childhood was different from other people's, but I don't think I missed anything. I have forgiven him for everything he did. I think he was deeply hurt and twisted as a child. His heart, it made me pity him and sympathize with him, he was the center of my life, so I will feel sorry for his death." Later she even moved back to the house, "Anyway, this place used to be It's my home."
[ A lot
of doubts] The theory and case mentioned above will help to unravel several of the mysteries that haunt Ivy.
1. Why didn't Ivy escape?
On July 5, 2013, Ivy was taken to a mall by kidnappers and had ample time to escape, but she did not choose to do so. The long-term imprisonment has made her fear crowds and become dependent on kidnappers. This is shown in many places in the play. However, there is another point that is not clearly pointed out in the play, only two sentences in the last episode (PS last episode). The amount of information is very large), "Our children should be 3 and a half years old now, you have been crying for a long time" "Take a child to that kind of place", the time is calculated forward, it happened to be 13 years when she was taken to the mall After a while, it was speculated that it was likely that the kidnappers took her that day and abandoned their children somewhere, maybe a shelter. It is very impractical to raise a baby in a shabby basement. She is already struggling to survive, not to mention the baby, whose nutrition cannot be satisfied, and the disease cannot be cured. The reason for taking her to the mall may be that the kidnappers need to buy something.
2. Why did Ivy escape?
She strongly disagreed with the way the kidnappers dealt with the child. "Bringing a child to that kind of place has a father like you". It was a relief for her that the child was taken out of the room. Angry, it made her feel that the kidnappers had no intention of "starting a family" at all, but it was a lie. In addition, the death of the kidnapper's brother in 2009 for helping her escape has made her sober a lot, and the "only advantage" of the kidnapper has been eliminated. Just as Campsie still managed to escape, the vague memory of the outside world, the desire for his family, the once-in-a-lifetime escape opportunity, many factors prompted Ivy to choose to escape.
This is the reason why Ivy escaped in the first episode. It is unknown how many times she had failed to escape before she succeeded. In the last episode, she chose to return to the kidnappers to replace Phoebe and regain her position, as well as to her parents and friends. The disappointment and escape of all kinds of lies, but the relationship between the two is no longer what it used to be. In the outside world, her name is Ivy, she was retrained to eat with a knife and fork, to sleep in bed, to learn to use a touch screen phone, her family and friends and the society demanded her to return to a normal life, just like thirteen Years ago, she was trained to live in the room, and now the new habit has changed her again, and the world will not stop changing because of her. When she put on her old clothes again and saw the past in the closet, she knew that she would never go back.
3. Why doesn't Ivy tell the truth?
In the process of looking for the kidnapper, Ivy always had reservations in the face of police inquiries. Even if Phoebe was kidnapped, she still concealed the past between her and the kidnapper. She had conflicting feelings towards Phoebe and hoped to get it back. The little girl was worried about the kidnappers at the same time, and at the same time wondered whether the little girl was her substitute and whether she had been abandoned by the kidnappers. Ivy hated herself for many years, worried that her family would not forgive her when they knew the truth, she thought the outside world had changed.
Ivy is not a kidnapper's sex slave. The kidnapper said that "perfection takes time" and waited until Ivy became an adult before having sex with him. What he needed was not only sex, but also a desire for home and a longing for love. For thirteen years, he took care of him like a parent. She, documenting her growth, lives in a world with only the two of them, similar to the captive children in "Dog Tooth", but the latter's world presents a utopian scene full of rebellion against reality, while the former It is more realistic, full of distorted sadness and painful despair. In the world of the room, her name is Alison, just like "Spirited Away", she was stripped of her original name, and her memory before the age of thirteen was sealed, but this is not a fairy tale. Until the end, Ivy raised the gun, but didn't want to hurt the kidnapper, he was also her family.
4. Why did the kidnappers kidnap Ivy?
From the cause to the cause, back to the kidnapper's childhood experience, the play does not explain, only through the mouth of a former neighbor that his mother had remarried and gave birth to a half-brother with intellectual disabilities, and he was 16 years old. (1986) when he was kicked out of the house, and it may be later that his younger brother found him to live with him after his mother died in 2002 (the younger brother went to school to find him in 2006). The kidnapper kidnapped Ivy in 2003. It should not be just a coincidence. Ivy is very likely to be his mother's stand-in. The incompleteness of the female role in the growth process has caused his personality defect, so that he has to personally shape and train a female family member. The mother complex was transplanted into her. It can be said that Ivy is a trinity of mother, girlfriend and child.
His mother said that the younger brother was "drinked from a bottle of gin". It can be seen that the mother is an alcoholic, has no sense of responsibility, and lives at the bottom of the society. It is speculated that he has a violent tendency, because the younger brother is mentally handicapped, and looks more complicated than ordinary people. It's easier to get into trouble, and this kind of family is often shown in British films and TV series. Ivy said he would never get his mother's forgiveness. He had been pretending that her mother was alive, boldly speculating that his mother's death had an inseparable relationship with him, and that he should keep in touch while her mother was in the nursing home. Since the kidnapper is an employee of Ivy's school, the police suspect that Ivy already knows the kidnapper, but it is not necessarily true. First, if he already knew it, why not find a reason to kidnap, why not kidnap halfway? Second, it should be after the death of his mother that he began to look for a target candidate, and the time will not exceed a year.
5. Was there any love between Ivy and the kidnapper?
In a 2010 interview with The Guardian, Kempsch rejected the label of Stockholm Syndrome. She explained that the disease has no regard for the rational choices people make in special circumstances. "I think it's natural for you to adjust yourself to identify with the kidnapper, especially if you spend a lot of time with that person. It's about empathy and communication. It's not about being in a crime and seeking normalcy. It's a syndrome. It's a survival strategy." Stockholm Syndrome is a physiologically conditioned reflex that all living things will show some degree of obedience in the face of strong external pressures, especially threats of death. As a result, every animal, including humans, has the potential to be domesticated. Basic needs are a bottom line. There is food and drink, and life can be continued. In the face of violent power, only by bowing your head can you obtain the possibility of continuing life. This may be due to an instinctive reaction.
The relationship between Ivy and the kidnapper cannot be called love. Like a newborn baby, she forms an emotional attachment with the closest adult, in order to maximize the possibility that the surrounding adults will allow her to survive at least, and even make her an ideal parent. After years of domestication or brainwashing by the kidnappers, Ivy gradually formed a defense mechanism for role identification. The kidnappers replaced the original role of parents. He trained her to work, made her obey, and used reward and punishment mechanisms to shape her behavior patterns. as parents teach their children. The two are in an interactive relationship. One is domesticated and the other is dependent, so as to achieve a balanced state of mutual communication. Once the balance is broken, both sides will suffer, and there is no way out. After Ivy fled, she developed an inexplicable trust in the male policeman, and regarded him as a stand-in for the kidnappers, in order to restore the previously broken balance. So she doesn't trust the policewoman, and even sees the policewoman as an obstacle to maintaining balance.
[Suspense until the last moment]
The kidnappers are like the ghosts in "Butterfly Dream". They never showed up in the first four episodes (except for photos and surveillance videos), but they always follow everyone, even to the point of thirteen years of life. The flashbacks of Ivy did not appear. Even if the kidnappers finally revealed their true face in the last episode, they always started the plot with the current timeline. What happened in these thirteen years? Just don't tell the audience, let the audience guess. In fact, fantasy is more exciting than practice. What you are afraid of is not the hideous face of the ghost, but that you have no idea what a ghost looks like. The so-called silent is better than the sound is also the principle.
Ivy's identity has been reversed many times between the victim and the perpetrator, and even was arrested, which greatly increased the complexity of the plot, kept the suspense until the last moment, gave the audience a lot of reserved space, and did not take care of the view. The IQ of the audience is clear, leaving the details for the audience to think for themselves.
The last escape was successful, don't think that the dust is settled, the expression on Ivy's face is a smile, a relief, a daze, or something, everything stopped abruptly in the embrace of the family, as if back to the original point, there is no way out. . Thinking about Kempsch's choice of words and deeds after the kidnapper's death, it seems that there is still drama to be told. However, there is no second season.
Does the outside world mean freedom? The outside world is a relative concept, so is freedom. The outside world in your eyes may be someone else's room.
[Please do not reprint without the author's permission, thank you. 】
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