While watching it, I feel that this antique black and white film is not as strong as the previous black and white film, and even feels a bit inferior to the old senseless imitation. The story is a straightforward story of a pair of police officers, father and son hunting down fugitive slaves in the 19th century. The process to confess the past. It’s just that the more you look at it, the more you find that many historical details are very interesting. Obviously, the director just wants to rebuild history with dramas. A large number of scenes and life details include the shaping of characters, which clearly creates a sense of realism that is different from commercial packaging. , You know it is virtual realism, but you are still willing to believe this illusion.
The script deliberately balances the perspective of modern political correctness, presenting the situation of slavery in Romania in the nineteenth century with a black joking but also realistic and cruel view. There are no heroes and no beauties, but the ugliness and goodness of ordinary people. Redemption of the ancient world without miracles is completely unlike the movies of this century, but it actually reflects the reality of this world all the time. (Especially the person who helped arrest the poor slave in the final execution scene.)
However, the director Rade Jude repeatedly emphasized in the interview that he used black and white photography in order to create a type of unrealistic and sense of distance. With regard to Western films, he wanted the audience to know clearly that when it comes to history, it is always the interpretation of the past from modern perspectives. This awareness of interpretation is also a kind of common sense, but it is a bit contrary to my feelings about this film. I thought it was the director's intentional separation from the modern view, but he also emphasized that he was exploring the connection between the modern and the past.
Thinking about it, this is not a contradiction. The director presents this somewhat hidden dark history from a historical critical point of view, but he does not forget to use a human point of view to scavenge the subtleties of social operations, including father and son, class, racial discrimination, and sex. Morality, these are all modern angles, but he does not tell the story in a binary commercial package that pleases the audience, but in the form of a kind of fable presents the immortal dilemma of good and evil of mankind. This film may lack a bit of grandeur or profound civilization and philosophical reflections. A film that is not very cute in modern tastes, but it is also its rare and unique place.
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