King of Death: Some movie fans once said that the list of films that are most worth collecting each year is the list of best foreign language films declared for Oscars in various countries; although this point of view can only be partially agreed, most of the Olympic bids are indeed very An annual masterpiece worth seeing.
After the "Oscar Best Foreign Language Film" was renamed "Oscar Best International Film", the declarations of various countries were also announced in early October. At that time, we also made a special inventory of the Olympic bids: 94! The most complete list of Olympic bids in the world .
And starting today, we will continue to recommend several good movies in this year’s Olympic bid. Let’s start talking about the "Tall" (also known as the Thin Man) by Russian young director Kontimir Balagov. This film won the best director of a kind of focus at the 72nd Cannes Film Festival and Fabian Prize.
It is worth mentioning that the director Kantemir Balagov, who was born in 1991, is only 28 years old this year. He is both handsome and talented. "Tall" is only his second feature film. Two years ago, his debut "Intimate" was shortlisted in Cannes. Some fans said that his next film is likely to be promoted to the main competition unit of Cannes.
Author | What time is your world
Die in the silence, or struggle in the darkness?
The Russian movie "Tall" throws a Shakespearean proposition to the audience: To be, or not to be. The film focuses on the lives of Soviet soldiers after World War II. Two women who participated in World War II became the focus of the story. And there is no doubt that the director Balagov is not interested in the beautiful totem reconstructed after the war, but directly refers to the loss and hesitation of the individual spirit.
When the war is over, where will the disabled soldiers go? They have suffered the trauma of war, some have broken arms, some are blind, and some are even paralyzed. To them, the post-war reconstruction is just an extremely bright background board, and they are just a still life of the prospect, ignored, abandoned, and even become a burden on the country, completely reduced to a transparent person in a peaceful age.
Martha, the female warrior who returned from the front, is one of the above groups. Not only did she endure the physical pain caused by the war, but also the humiliation that a man had never had before: she provided sexual services to military officers on the front line in order to survive and save her life. This triggered a series of consequences: abortions, repeated abortions, and eventually the uterus was removed, completely losing fertility.
She had a son before, and because her husband died in the battle, she decided to stay on the front line for revenge. This naive decision made her entrust her son to the artillery comrade Iya. Iya grew tall and was injured by a shell in the war. After recovering, she worked as a nurse in a hospital, but she had sequelae in her brain. At the beginning of the film, the symptoms of her brain traumatic sequelae are shown: the body cannot move, the throat makes strange noises, the eyes are dull, and the consciousness is unconscious.
The retired Martha returned to Leningrad, thinking that she could see her beloved son, but what I learned from Iya's mouth was that his son died in her sleep.
In fact, it was an accident that really caused his son's death: Iya and Martha's son quarreled, but suddenly fell ill, and the child was strangled to death by Iya. This is the most brutal scene in the movie. The sudden tragedy is shown in front of the audience, but then, the impact of the tragedy disappears so quickly.
The pain of losing her son did not manifest itself in Marsha as much intensely. The ravages of years of war have already made this woman forget what "pain" is. She is more pathologically numb in the movie, and she seems to be numb to everything. Indifferent, always smiling face can't make people guess.
Compared to the tall and silent Iya, she was more lively and cheerful, with a kind of neurotic nonchalant. She has only one wish: want to have a child. The child represents new life and light, and to her, it is more like a kind of hope for survival.
Leningrad, who has experienced the baptism of World War II, is full of death and silence, and the whole city is barren and ruined everywhere. What is needed at this time is the arrival of new life. Like this city, Martha desperately needs a blood exchange, flushing away the dust and dirt, and transfusing fresh blood.
It's a pity that Martha has forgotten the fact that she can't have children. This is a tragedy of the times, but also a tragedy of women. The film does not intend to explore the root cause of the tragedy, but to reproduce the struggle of women in this "mental catastrophe". They are so confused, at a loss as to what to do, and even have no future, sickness erodes them, and reality tortures them.
In the scene where Iya and Martha meet again, the director directly casts the two in the dark, as if on a silent stage. Under the gaze of the long lens, they are allowed to breathe and breathe in front of the audience; and the extreme lack of light sources seems to imply their later life: darkness, full of silence.
This is also why Martha's desire for fertility has reached the point of becoming obsessed. Since the situation has long been so bad, she will eventually have to find something to support herself.
She decided to let Iya have sex with the hospital leader, hoping to let Iya conceive and indirectly give birth to her children. How easy it is to be conceived in that age of material and mental impoverishment. But she was not discouraged, but immersed herself in fantasy time and time again. The more she yearned for miracles, the more she highlighted her tragedy.
Part of Iya's tragedy also stems from her love for Martha. The deeper she loves, the deeper the pain. When she saw Martha dating her boyfriend, she was heartbroken. The obscure lesbian love has become a bright spot in the movie, but it is also destined to be a fruitless tragedy.
These two women who depend on each other are in a huge wasteland, white snow and cold wind. No one loves them, they can only survive if they hug together for warmth.
The movie very accurately shows us the barrenness of that era, but it blurs or omits the background of that era. It seems that for the director, more important than history is its outline. Leningrad's dilapidated situation after World War II provided the director with a perfect wasteland stage.
And Iya and Martha are the heroines on this stage. The director, born in 1991, had no ambitions to construct a grand historical pattern and explore the roots of suffering and tragedy. Rather, it starts from "people" and shows their mental state under adversity.
Therefore, for this movie, the stage setting is particularly important, in order to highlight the insignificance and humbleness of "people". It also laid the tone of the film: solemn and depressing. The faint yellow tone of the setting sun gives the whole movie a breath of death, but the texture of the overall oil painting can not help but make people mesmerized.
There is no soundtrack in the whole film, and the later dubbing is slightly abrupt, making the whole film extremely quiet. People are like beasts in the dark, whispering, drinking, and having sex. The long night, the expressionless face, the dead silence in the winter, without consciousness, tends to be still.
They were swallowed by the night and kept company with the night.
If the movie itself resembles a sleeping behemoth, there are several lively scenes like birds jumping around beside beasts. Therefore, we can see a soldier with a broken arm learn the way a bird spreads its wings. He yearns for freedom and vitality, which is comforting and pitiful. In my opinion, this should be the most poetic stroke in the movie.
Of course, we will also be moved by the last hug between Iya and Martha. Under the collision of red and green, it intensified into a weak and sad beauty. They are two losers, marginalized people, but in the end they get nothing. Just comforting each other in each other's fantasy, looking helpless and ironic.
But isn't their fantasy spirit worthy of our awe? As a "person", they are fighting against the entire wasteland. They did not give in. All they did was live with a hope.
The last wishful thinking is also my wishful belief: I would rather believe that it is a bright future. Just as I believe in humans, believe in women, and believe in myself.
Author | What time is your world; public number | Seeing death in a movie
Edit | Riding a Rooftop Boy; please indicate the source for reprinting
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