"After School Bullying": The calmer, the more angry (Originally published in "Times Forum" No. 137, December 22, 2013) Also known as: After Lucia Leaving (Taiwan) / Lucia After Después de Lucía (2012) http://brucelaiyung.blogspot.hk/ Other school bullying movies may end with the bullied protagonist committing suicide, or the protagonist taking bloody revenge on his classmates. "After Lucia" (After Lucia) presents the breakdown of the laws of social civilization, and the tyranny is not limited to teenagers, but the adult world is also in a state of collapse, corresponding to (not solved) by the law of the jungle. The original title of Lucia should be the heroine Alejandra's deceased mother, and the bullying occurred after Lucia's death; the Chinese translation of the title in Hong Kong refers to the reaction of Alejandra's father Roberto after the bullying. The object of reference is different, but the word "after" is remarkable, which means that the formation of bitter crime is interlocked and continuous. Director Michel Franco is bold and bold, paradoxically using static and withdrawn film language to arouse the audience's emotions. The background of "After School Bullying" is Mexico. After Lucia's death in a car accident, Alejandra and his daughter moved from a small seaside town to inland Mexico City, intending to start a new life. Roberto is a chef, unable to suppress the pain of bereavement, even his daily work is affected. Alejandra sometimes behaves stronger than his father and comes out of the injury faster. But when she came to the new school, she was the fastest to accept her as a few classmates as friends, and later became the villain to bully her. The turning point was that she enjoyed the pleasure of alcohol and sex under the influence of the dual factors of self-selection and peer pressure, but was filmed by her male classmates and circulated to the school through the Internet. It turned out that among the group of friends, the boys immediately regarded her as the object of sexual desire, while the girls attacked her with jealousy. Other students in the school are also happy to find someone who can be ridiculed and violated by everyone, and everyone is not responsible or guilty. In the later stages, what they did to Alejandra was considered a criminal offence, but Alejandra kept hiding from his father and couldn't bear him being hit again. Alejandra, who is completely isolated and helpless, is no longer regarded as a human being after being repeatedly violated, just like the "homo animal" (Homo) referred to by the philosopher Giorgio Agamben Sacer): All members of the student community can attack her at will and not be regarded as a crime, but it is taken for granted-and what she loses will not be regarded as a meaningful "sacrifice"-only owes her not to kill her That's it. Later, Alejandra no longer resisted, no longer shed tears, like a piece of wood, as if humanity had been exploited. In the process of bullying, the system established by adults is completely powerless to prevent the spread of evil. Even if the school has drug testing and tests to try to stop students from taking drugs, this public security system and education itself, in the light of the collective violation of Alejandra by students, can be regarded as ineffective and extremely ironic. Alejandra can only escape. The students didn't know that she was exquisite in swimming, so she had a chance to swim out into the dark sea. She miraculously went ashore, took the long-distance bus back to her hometown, and was nestled in her old residence. Both the sea and the old house have the image of "mother", which is what the protagonist has lost, and is the goal of his desire to return. At this time, the audience didn't know if she would not contact her family for help because of her mental trauma, and the focus of the story shifted to her father Roberto. Alejandra was missing, and the police could not find it on the coast. At this time, I don't know who sent the CD of the sex video that caused the accident to Roberto, so that he can go to school to investigate, knowing that his daughter was bullied. At this time, he was probably desperate for life, thinking that his wife was gone, even his daughter was lost, and his depressed emotions finally broke out, turning violence into violence. The director's emotional manipulation of the audience is fully revealed in the ending: repression first, then explosion. Throughout the play, the director’s techniques are consciously withdrawn and calm. There is no soundtrack to promote emotions. Each shot is still and there is almost no camera movement. The camera is often placed far away from the characters to take a long shot. Let's see the big picture. However, the plot of repeated bullying continues to provoke the audience’s inner resentment and anger. Then the detached film technique is like forcing the audience to witness violence and cannot intervene. This kind of conflict is like double pressure on the audience’s heart. Outbreak of the ending. Therefore, the director used the method of withdrawal, but his intention was not to withdraw, but the opposite. In the case where justice cannot be guaranteed by the system, Roberto's revenge achieved a pleasing effect, and the audience's psychological journey was the same as his first depression. Broke out again. The ending is reminiscent of Austrian director Michael Haneke's "You can afford to play. Don't you play." Haneke is known for "provoking the audience", and is also known for his cold and detached style. However, Haneke's movie is always gloomy in the end, and "After School Bullying" deliberately "suppresses first and then explodes." It was tragedy after all, because Alejandra was about to lose even his father, but under the director's choreography, the audience experienced an emotional purification, separated from the emotional experience of the heroine. If the original intention of the film is to ask the audience to show mercy and love, will the comfort of turning violence against violence cause the film to subvert itself? Or is the final revenge the "main course", and the previous arrangement is not without cunning manipulation?
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