The absurdity of this narrative technique is just the beginning of all the absurdities of the film. Susie’s pen pal, 12-year-old boy Sam, is doing summer exercises in the Boy Scout camp on the other side of the island. The purpose of military management and field survival training is to let these little guys acquire the skills of wild survival and the self-discipline of independent living. . But Sam, the most outstanding Boy Scout, even burrowed and escaped like Shawshank escaped from prison! He and Susie communicated and conspired. The two 12-year-old guys met on the wild grass not far from Susie's house, carrying their luggage and carrying the tent, and Susie's kitten, and eloped!
The soundtrack is very important in this unexpected movie story, because Wes Anderson never lets the characters directly lyrically or indirectly summarize any life guide. The mood of the film is mainly realized through the soundtrack and scene design. The "Youth Orchestra Guide" in the first act of "Moonrise Kingdom" is the first important reminder of the theme of the movie. Composer Benjamin Britten created this work as a music education for young people. It disassembled, analyzed and reorganized the various instrument units of an orchestra to introduce young people to a rigorous and orderly musical world. As the first soundtrack of the movie, "Guide to Youth Orchestra" reminds the two little protagonists of the problem of how to understand the adult world. It forms a parallel and opposite pattern with the blues episodes of country musician Hank Williams (Hank Williams' episodes always appear in the context of depicting the chaotic adult world): Teenagers peek into the surface of the adult world The strict and orderly contrast of the absurd embarrassment within the adult world.
From the perspective of Susie and Sam, these two problematic children have great dissatisfaction with the world they live in. Fleeing is the first step to self-reliance. They look for the harmony and neatness in the "Youth Orchestra Guide". Each melody is step by step and reasonable and reasonable growth and future. Although "reasonable" is the goal of the exodus, the behavior of exodus itself is full of absurdity: all Susie's luggage is books, toothbrushes, cats, turntables and spare batteries; Sam made earrings from fish hooks and scarabs to Susie; The two 12-year-old children did not hesitate to exchange vows to "get married". From the perspective of Susie and Sam's children, these "ridiculous" are actually taken for granted-they act faithfully and seriously in accordance with their inner desires and yearning for the world, such as the construction of a well-disciplined scout camp to build a tree house more than ten meters high. And the super-complex toilet drainage system, everything in the system they are in is rule-based and reasonable. The so-called "absurdity" actually comes from the judgment of another set of value systems in the outside world. This separation of value system directly leads to the rupture of the children's world and the adult world.
In contrast to this, the adult world, although on the surface reasonable and logically logical, compared to the unconventional but traceable escape of Susie and Sam, the secret inner world of these characters is much more chaotic and contradictory. Laura (Francis McDormand) and the town sheriff Sharp seem to have a detached relationship; lawyer Walter (Bill Murray) holds his fat belly and immerses himself in the personal world regardless of image; Tong Sergeant Ward (Edward Norton) was full of frustration under order and sternness; while the sheriff (Bruce Willie) who looked like a tough guy had a very sensitive and soft heart and was lonely and distressed. The absurdity behind these reasonableness and the decadence under order are not shown through any specific plots, but some behavioral details of these characters and the hidden information revealed by a certain sentence slowly opened one or two doors. The window to their inner world. Prying through the window will help the audience get some vague emotions and feelings, but it is not really sure what happened to make these adults fall into a kind of life predicament that cannot escape. And what actually happens is not really important, because the lonely, confused, and helpless state of confusion is always connected in the adult world.
All of this, the transition between the teenager, the adult, and the two worlds in the film is very subtle hints and reminders through such visual details and soundtrack. In the ridiculous rationality and the rational ridiculous conversion, Wes Anderson completely refused to let the characters say even a clever line, no life aphorisms and rational maxims. The dialogue itself is full of stylized dry humor, all the venting and stretching of emotions are in the music, and all the complicated relationships and patterns are in the picture. This is the success of the real cinematic audiovisual art.
It is from this perspective that I think it is reasonable to understand Susie (Cara Hayward)'s performance. Susie and Sam do not have the "sparks" between the male and female protagonists in ordinary teenage love movies. Even the kiss scene on the beach is more like a serious child playing house rather than admiring each other. But this kind of de-emotional performance based on facts is only suitable for showing the rationality of the absurdity in the children's world. Comparing the triangular relationship between Laura and Walter and Sheriff Sharp, and comparing Scout Head Ward’s command frustration one after another, the latter’s emotional upheaval under the guise of the latter’s efforts is more memorable, which is the true absurdity hidden in reason. .
When these superficial and internal absurdities accumulate to a certain extent, the film must make a breakthrough in the climax of the dramatic conflict. I like the ending of "Moonrise Kingdom". When everyone is immersed in the development of the plot and forgets what the name "Moonrise Kingdom" refers to, it is accidentally fixed on the screen, regardless of storms and seasons. Or the obstacles of reality. How touching is this silent revelation of true feelings!
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