Viewing the complete film, it seems that the content of the whole film is easy to summarize: the little boy originally went to New York to find his father, and finally met and reunited with his grandmother. But if you think about it carefully, the series of techniques used by the director Todd Hines in the film, such as the contrast between black and white and color images, the two-line parallel narrative, etc., have made the superficial simplicity deep and vivid. And this profoundness and vividness in audiovisual language and narrative style can be described as a kind of richness and fulfillment for the film itself. The first is in character design. In the first act of the film, the protagonist of the boy Ben is established. With his perspective, we learned of his mother's accidental death and his father's disappearance. After the tragedy of being struck by lightning and causing deafness, we gradually established an identity for this role. From the perspective of some details, in this short period of more than 20 minutes, the creator is trying to enrich and complicate this character image as much as possible. Like clothing, in Ben's flashback, he was wearing a pajamas with an astronaut pattern; when he jumped out of the flashback, the pajamas became a casual yellow short sleeve. This not only shows the inner changes of the characters-from hopeful and optimistic patterns to unreliable monochromatic colors, but also the hobby of Ben has also been enriched on the basis of the previous lines. At the same time, the creator inserted another narrative line during this period, a story led by a little girl. Under the effect of parallel montage, it can be seen that the actions and experiences of the two are surprisingly similar. This not only plays a good role in complementing and supplementing the characterization, but also reminds and influences the audience intentionally or unintentionally: Who is this little girl? What is the relationship between the two? What will happen next? The division of color marks the difference in ages, but this difference not only does not keep us away, but under these doubts, we are more and more grasped in the richer content. In the sound, the silence is even more prominent. The pain of deafness of the two protagonists has become vivid in the hustle and bustle of the outside world. However, the creators made the film more vivid and tasteful even in the seemingly the same pain between the two people. It is not difficult to find that in 1977, the age of our own life, we could clearly hear the sounds around us. We saw Ben searching helplessly on the street and huddling in the station overnight, surrounded by ambient sounds all the time; in contrast, Rose in 1927 was not so lucky. The Rose we see lives in a world without environmental factors, only the rough soundtrack is bothering her. Through the first-person perspective and close-ups of other people’s faces, we can clearly feel The panic of Silk being an "alien", especially when she received scolding, a kind of helplessness that wanted to fight back but couldn't fight back filled her chest. The creator seems to be doing this to highlight Rose’s suffering, while at the same time, Ben has relative security. When it comes to the end, the elderly Rose is reunited with Ben. This ingenious expression has indeed played a role in adding a warm atmosphere to a certain extent. Although the suspense element has been weakened to a certain extent, the "love" that I want to show in the end has been improved. In addition, the creator arranged Little Rose in 1927, the age when the sound and silent films began to handover, and shot her passages as if they were silent old films. Is this a kind of nostalgia and tribute? In this film, "love" not only includes "family affection", but also the content of "friendship" by the creator. Obviously, if you just tell a story that spans the ages and seeks relatives from afar, it does not conform to the ambition and pursuit of Todd Hines, who has filmed "Carol" and other masterpieces. For the audience, there is a dazzling array of commercial films today. In the age, it was impossible to accept such a clichéd plot. Therefore, a little black boy, Jamie, was arranged on Ben’s family-searching road. Although he was selfish and afraid that Ben would leave him after he found his father, he finally got Ben's understanding and the two became eternal friends. It has to be said that this character is still flawed in conception. Just looking at the plot design of the final long-distance drive to the museum and easily reconciled, its abruptness is not convincing. But if you take into account the characteristics of the character, maybe you can give a reasonable explanation for some questions. He is a black man and has never had a friend. With the presentation of a black community in the film, is this a reference to American racial issues? If this is the case, then although the final conclusion is far-fetched, it can also make sense: the director wants to use children as messengers to complete an idealized forgiveness of adult social problems. As one of the many elements that enrich the film, "museum" is the top priority. It was set as a place where Rose and Ben entered together, and it was also the place where the two eventually met. Here, the museum is no longer a building that displays history, but has become history itself. For this family, it carries their unique memory, a place where "black and white" and "color" are blended together. This has to mention again the use of parallel montage in the film. After the escape in the first act, the two came to the museum "simultaneously" like a fifty-year-old. After hiding/playing for a while (and showing Rose's difficulty), the two stopped in front of a huge meteorite. quick Between the quick cuts, their fingers gently stroked the stone surface, as if crossing time and space to complete a confluence of hearts. The motto "We are all living in dire straits, but there are always people looking up at the starry sky" has got an interesting interpretation here. Montage brings a contrast between the two eras, but it also connects the two eras more closely. The effect it produces makes the audience can't help but believe that whether it is "love" or "emotion", it can always transcend the shackles of time and space and reach the other side of the soul; whether it is healthy or not, with or without blood relationship, we are in the sky. Under the stars, this is a family. Although there is no lack of idealization in the film, and the Hollywood-style drama has led to emotional and narrative impetuosity, from the perspective of the final film effect, due to its formal ideas and sincerity in content, I believe that most viewers will appreciate it. Will feel a lot of aftertaste. What is "surprising" in this "silence"? At the end of the film, the starry sky that the three of us looked up gave everyone an answer. Even if we are in dire straits, don't forget that there is always something beautiful waiting for us.
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