"It's those beggars again, they have lice and they steal!"
This quote is used by a French citizen in the film to describe illegal immigrants. The first few minutes of the film do describe such a scene to us: this is Calais in the north of France, the port environment is dirty, the crowd is disorderly and noisy, the immigrants are all worn-out clothes, a thick-thread felt hat, full of holes The scarves, they lined up to receive relief food, they were shivering from the cold, and the hot air from the breath turned into a white mist in the cold wind, which lasted for a long time, as if they could smell the odor. However, contrary to my expectations, the film did not focus on laying out the tragic life of these illegal immigrants, nor did it solemnly declare that it stood on the side of the proletariat with the working class working people and the poor as the main body, and did not directly sell and benefit fraternity The left-wing soft dogma calls on the state to give more care to "illegal immigrants" and even simply open the door to immigration policy. Instead, he focused on injecting pen and ink into bilal, the 17-year-old hairy young man with no astrology and a never-ending expression.
Like ordinary illegal immigrants like Zoran, bilal is financially strapped and modestly dressed. But unlike the unkempt look of the others, bilal is clean-cut and well-dressed, not in the slightest objectionable. Later, I learned that he tried his best to escape from the Iraq war zone. The original intention of fleeing to Western Europe was to work and send money to his family to improve his family's life. What a kind child! Countless viewers sighed in their hearts. Indeed, whether or not it is a deliberate beautification by the director, from the perspective of human nature, this hairy young man is essentially an ordinary young man who has suffered and was forced to find a way out. . Through bilal, the director not only subtly borrowed the entire immigrant group, conveying their distress through a weak but not weak young man, but also subtly concealed their bad habits by magnifying this immigrant case. In the specific context formed by multiple artistic processes, the film tactfully asks all French people a very general question: why do we hate immigrants (especially the Middle East) so much? Because of rudeness? Sloppy? steal? And these things can't find the shadow of existence in bilal at all!
Why is that? Click the continue button to follow the story that follows, and the film explores this issue in depth.
Since time immemorial, the root cause of immigration problems is only two words - difference. It is the economic, political and cultural differences between immigrant regions and native countries that lead to different degrees of friction and conflict. For example, the French word Xénophobie, Xéno, means foreign, phobie expresses fear, fear of difference, which reveals the root cause of the immigration problem. However, the Marxist historical materialism tells us that differences, especially differences in physical appearance, exist objectively and are not transferred by people's subjective consciousness. Does it mean that there is really an insurmountable difference between the two? Divide? No, the answer is given in the second half of the film: The only way to make the immigrants and the local population live in harmony is to seek common ground.
"This guy crosses the strait to find his girl, and I can't even cross the street to beg you to come back."
Seeking common ground is finding common ground between the two, which naturally translates into finding two people within the framework of the film. The common ground between the protagonists bilal and simon. Bilal and simon, how to find common ground between these two different countries, different nationalities, and different ages? As the film continues to unfold, the director gives a surprising answer: sports and love (perhaps the French romance is here)
Bilal's football genius is not difficult to see from a few short ball shots in the film's 20 minutes. And echoing it is the swimming medals neatly displayed on the bookshelf in simon's room. Due to the war, Bilal's hometown could not provide him with a place to play football with peace of mind; and simon, the former national 400-meter swimming champion, failed to participate in the Olympic Games for various reasons. Now a swimming coach in a small swimming pool, he heard Billal's dream of going to England to play in Manchester United, Simon has found the first common ground between this young man and himself. He appreciates Billal more and more, and it can even be said that he has the idea of assisting him in crossing the border.
At the 50th minute of the film, when simon learned that bilal went to the UK for a girl, at that moment, Vincent Lindon's expression on his face was very well interpreted. It was a kind of surprise and admiration, envy mixed with a little frustration expression. As for the meaning of this expression, the film begins to tell the story behind this expression before I ask any questions: Simon is a middle-aged man who lives alone. His life is troubled by loneliness, and he is in the gray of mid-life crisis and personal feelings. period. The appearance of this young man must have caused a wave in Simon's heart. So naturally, at 55 minutes of the film Simon is sitting face to face with his wife and the following monologue occurs:
"Do you know why he wants to cross the English Channel? Because then he can be with his girlfriend. He walks from Iraq 4,000 kilometers to come here, and I plan to swim across the strait in the freezing weather.
And I, when you leave, I can’t even cross the street to beg you to come back.”
The desire for love is The second commonality between them. It is also because of his emotional background that Simon has a strong sense of understanding and identification with the young man in front of him, and thus gives birth to the urge to assist him. The slight difference is that in the days after bilal's obsession with his lover was hugely projected on his cowardly feelings, and aroused Simon's willingness to fight, more or less, simon has regarded bilal as himself and mina As a femme, I want to be impulsive and brave again in front of love, directly or indirectly.
Back to the issue of illegal immigration. If immigrants encounter discrimination and exclusion, it is because of the barriers between them and the native people. The estrangement between Simon and his wife is difficult to bridge, isn't the middle-aged him also a love immigrant? If we say that illegal immigrants refer to those who have a gap with the local people and try to cross this gap, then there is a gap between Simon and his wife, and he is an uncompromising illegal immigrant. After all, who dares to say that ethnic boundaries are more distinguishable than psychological barriers? This applies to everyone, and everyone has some kind of estrangement in their hearts, either because of physical appearance or because of personality, so at this point, each of us has become an illegal immigrant. , everyone is marginalized or guarded to varying degrees. After such a consensus, the differences are greatly diluted and even filtered. Since everyone is originally a family, how can we exclude discrimination? Where is the immigration issue? ? ?
"Bilal Karmatt, he is my son." A
short name is enough to touch, perhaps this is what the film wants to express: the immigration issue is actually the same as the contradiction between ordinary people, as long as each other Given enough understanding and communication, it can eventually be resolved beautifully and lead to harmony. In this way, an international issue involving complex political and legal fields was boiled into a pot of warm chicken soup by the romantic French in just 100 minutes.
View more about Welcome reviews
