"Montage" is the debut work of South Korean director Jeong Geun-seop. The film was released in 2013 and is considered an old film. It focuses on suspense crimes. It has attracted much attention since its birth and is quite controversial. It is not the external content of the film type and style that arouses the audience's controversy, but some attempts at the structure and form of the story. These attempts have opened up a new perspective for the suspense film, and we have been able to look at a movie from this new perspective.
In terms of suspense and crime, Korean movies are indeed "at a high place". Luo Hongzhen’s "Chaser" and "Yellow Sea" bear the brunt, and Bong Joon-ho's "Memories of Murder" and "Parasite" follow closely. Later, Yang Yushuo's "The Defender" and "Iron Rain" involved ZZ subject matter, but the mysterious bloody smell in the bones is still clearly visible. The special environment creates a special type of movie. The complex realistic social structure gives the movie an opportunity to use the former to design the story and build the story frame. Therefore, the Korean movies we watched in the past, even if they had nothing to do with the real society, were In certain settings and perspectives, in fact, they still draw inspiration from the real society.
For example, the urban framework of Ironworm, the class framework of Parasite .
And the crime frame of this "Montage" .
The beginning of "Montage" gave a very important detail, talking about the issue of timeliness of prosecution , and the film gave a number of years: 15 years .
What does it mean?
From the day the criminal was filed for investigation and until the same day after the fifteenth year, after this time limit, the case will be cancelled. If the murderer or suspect cannot be found within 15 years, or the evidence cannot be held accountable , Then after the statute of limitations, the prisoner will not take any responsibility for the past crimes and get a new life.
Is this setting a bit familiar? Yes, in Bong Joon-ho’s "Memories of Murder", the details of the time limit for prosecution have been run through the movie room until the final time limit is reached, and no criminal can be found. The style of the film is suppressed and desperate. It is adapted from real events and emotionally. It can shock us even more, but it is enough for this kind of story setting to appear once. The second "Memories of Murder" may not be better than the original version, and it will take greater risks.
So when I watched the movie, I expected some differences in "Montage", but also worried that it would not break through.
How does "Montage" use this setting? I'm curious.
The movie begins with a dream.
This dream can be broken down into three fragments.
"A woman is lying on the steering wheel with a black plastic bag over her head, feeling nervous."
"There was a van passing by, and there was a man who called in the car. He glanced at the woman’s car. When he looked forward, he didn’t know what happened. The car braked suddenly, lost control and overturned. On the ground, life in the car is unclear."
"The woman got out of the car and slowly walked into the scene of the car accident. In her absence, she kicked a white crystal shoe that was broken."
Dark scenes, dreams come to an abrupt end.
In fact, there is a lot of information hidden in this dream, but it is difficult to use this information to find potential clues when we first watched a movie, so we first remember these details and wait until later to figure out slowly.
Then, the camera directly showed the woman, and the woman woke up. This is a dream of a woman. There are too many elements in the dream and too trivial. There is no useful information to use for a while, but it is certain that this woman, Have a sad experience.
This is a breakthrough. Movie watching either starts from the event or from the person . Whether it is an event or a person, the amount of information behind it is extremely large and interrelated. If you find a clue, you can go on along the clue, as long as there is no missing detail in the middle, you can reach the end of the story.
As for whether what I said is right, we find the answer in the story.
Later, the police came to communicate with the woman. The details of the "15-year limitation period" I mentioned above appeared during the exchange. It turned out that 15 years ago, a little girl named "Xizhen" disappeared. , And this woman is Xizhen's mother. The suspect has not been traced, and the prosecution will end next week. At that time, even if the prisoner is caught, there will be no conviction.
At that time, police officer Wu Qinghao promised Xizhen's mother that she would catch the prisoner, but now the time limit is about to pass, no matter how big a promise is, it doesn't make sense.
what to do? Race against time.
Seizing this short week, with the determination to bring the murderer to justice, to bring justice to the victim, maybe it will work miracles. It's a coincidence that at this critical juncture, the suspect is revealed. Horse feet-put a bunch of flowers on the scene of the case.
Wuqing Hao seize this clue, first find the monitor, check the license plate , to no avail; then look for pedestrians, check the tachograph , to no avail; finally, he went to several cases live in the past, the collection ruts , still unable to trace Traces of prisoners.
Unexpectedly, Wu Qinghao met the suspect again. This time, he accidentally found the suspect's car. The logo on the car was exactly the same as the one in his memory! The setting of this story is a bit fantasy, but for the sake of drama conflict, I can accept this setting of the movie, but even though he found the suspect's car and also found the suspect, he was eventually lost.
This escape made the suspect completely free from the pursuit, and there was no hope of solving the case. With the arrival of midnight, the case also disappeared. From then on, Wu Qinghao determined to resign and left the police station since then. This lasted 15 o'clock. The abduction case in 2015 was declared over.
But only half an hour has passed since the whole film, what happened after that? After the limitation period for prosecution ends, what kind of story will happen between the victim and the perpetrator?
It must be mentioned that in the chase scene between the police officer Wu Qinghao and the suspect, there is a fragment of a detail that needs to be said: Although Wu Qinghao failed to catch up with the suspect, in a noodle restaurant, the suspect hurriedly pursued When escaping, they did not take the umbrella they brought to the store, and Wu Qinghao and his colleagues did not notice the umbrella. This detail is very important, and I will talk about it later.
The fifteen-year statute of limitations has passed, and it doesn’t matter whether the suspect can be found or not, so obviously the film is not entangled in the details of the statute of limitations. It also wants to tell us something beyond this period.
In 2012, "I Am a Murderer" directed by South Korean director Jeong Byung-gil, tells a story outside the statute of limitations. The film tells the story of a serial homicide case fifteen years ago that had not been solved, and escaped the law after the statute of limitations expired. The sanctioned criminal finally showed up, published an autobiography, and became a star story. Due to the slightly absurd realistic meaning of the film, in 2017, Japan remade the film and named it "Confessions 22 Years Later". The film was released in China in 2019. I believe that friends who have watched this film must still be impressed.
So would "Montage" be such a story line? We then look down.
After the fierce pursuit of the scene, there was a long period of inactivity. Wu Qinghao resigned and the abduction case sank, and no one cared about the victim. Everyone and everything needs an axe to scavenge the ice on the surface and dig out the truth , and the movie desperately needs a turning point to bring the story to life. This vitality is:
Another brand new abduction case.
The same voice, the same address, the same photo clues, the same route planning, and the same modus operandi. Everything is strikingly similar to the abduction case fifteen years ago. The police department first thought of the abduction case that year. Person in charge: Wu Qinghao.
A good show of cats and mice is staged again, this time, everything is sure.
Follow up the phone, search the scene, prepare the money bag, everything is in order.
On the day of the payment, there were a bunch of policemen at the exit of the station. They were useless. The same was true back then, but they were still not caught. Where is the suspect?
Wu Qinghao knew the answer. The suspect drilled under the car, dodged the train, and overturned the fence . Wu Qinghao followed closely. The escape plan fifteen years ago is now being staged again, but this time, he can't escape again.
Raise the thread, close the net, catch the fish. All in one go.
But to everyone's surprise, the suspect in this abduction case turned out to be the grandfather of the missing girl!
Although it is hard to imagine, many clues point to this grandfather, including the recording on the phone and the DNA on the cigarette butt in the phone booth. The abduction case was finally solved.
But there seem to be some details that make people wonder: What is the motive of grandpa abducting his granddaughter, is it money? Then why did he throw the money bag out (during the process of being caught, he struggled to throw the money bag out of the wall), and why did he imitate the details of the abduction of the year, or did the case of the year be what he did?
These details made Wu Qinghao also puzzled. He didn't find a breakthrough until he asked an old friend of the police station to compare the recording of the suspect fifteen years ago and now. It turned out that the new recording looks new, but it is actually a copy of the old recording. , Is a clip played by the new suspect holding a tape recorder. This recording was actually recorded fifteen years ago. And the master of this recording is the grandfather.
Doesn't this mean that this grandpa is actually the suspect fifteen years ago! Yes, this is an unexpected breakthrough, but what about the abduction case fifteen years later, is it still him?
There are others. Whether it is throwing money bags out of the wall or using recordings to imitate crimes, it proves that the real culprit of this abduction case has not been caught yet. This imitated the real culprit of the crime and used the false image to expose the suspects in the past. , Let the perpetrator become a victim, it shows that he hates the perpetrator extremely, and treats him in his own way; imitating the details, disguising the suspect and throwing clues, setting the conditions, and destroying the evidence show that he is familiar with fifteen years ago The details of the case, and know how to commit the crime perfectly.
This person must be someone who knew the suspect and hated him deeply. The first thing Wu Qinghao thought of was not someone else, but Xizhen's mother, the mother of the person involved in the abduction case 15 years ago.
Although there is no clue to this mother, in fact, the movie has some hints in some details, that is, the detail I reminded everyone to pay attention to. The umbrella left in the noodle shop has the name of a company written on it. This detail was arranged into a branch line. In the branch line, Xi Zhen’s mother returned to the noodle shop and got the umbrella. She wanted to ask Wu Qinghao who was still in the police station for help, but he felt hopeless and refused Xi Zhen’s mother’s help. Request, nothing will be done after this matter.
But this clue has not been broken. In fact, Xizhen’s mother has been relying on her own efforts to investigate and screen. This umbrella is only given to the company’s high-quality customers. She screened out many suspects from these people and finally stayed in the suspect’s home. , The suspect was found. She wanted to kill him with her own hands, but she didn't do it in the end, not because she couldn't go down, but because she wanted to double the pain of so many years to the perpetrator.
The victim became the perpetrator, and the dislocation of the identity brought the movie to a second turning point. You may not remember the details at that time, but this dislocation alone is enough to impress you.
It completely spliced the movie into a whole.
Movies are the art of montage, so I don’t need to waste my tongue. "Montage" takes advantage of this to create a dream for us.
The beginning of the movie, the broken scenes , the middle, the chaotic details , and then the end in a hurry , everything is like a rush to achieve the goal in a hurry, but it is all incomplete content. Of course, the fragment itself is complete, but what is missing is the story.
Take the opening chapter as an example. Xizhen's mother's dream has pictures and details, but it lacks something and lacks people. The details of people can only be supplemented by people. Everything that I did later was to fill in the missing details. Wu Qinghao was the man who called, so he needs to tell the details about him. The same is true for the suspect.
This is also the charm of images. The misalignment of the identity between the victim and the perpetrator merely allows such details to repeat itself, making it easier for us to see them and discover them instead of creating them.
This is much like in the movie "The Witness of the Prosecution", even if the details of the story are interpreted before, in the court, all the details must be repeated and retelled again. Why, because there are still omissions in the story, the truth can only be discovered by repeating it. , And only by repeating it, can we fill in the missing details.
In the last scene of the film, Xizhen's mother put a pair of white crystal shoes on the scene where Xizhen was missing. Does this scene look a bit like the scene in the dream at the beginning?
The art of film is the art of montage and the art of repetition.
In the end, what happened to the suspect? Has the real murderer been found? You need to find the answers to these questions in the movies. Movies have montages and text. The truth of the incident is also hidden in this manuscript. You need your insight to discover and supplement it.
I believe you will find the answer after rereading it a few times.
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