At the end of the film, the defeated humans-mainly mercenaries composed of Marines-were expelled from the fantasy and beautiful planet Pandora and returned to their "dying earth."
Seeing this sentence, I remembered that a few years ago, when I returned to my alma mater, Peking University, I met a PhD in psychology studying in Japan. He told me that Western culture will bring mankind to extinction, while Eastern culture will not.
When I heard this, I disapproved. I said with a bit of sarcasm, yes, oriental culture such as China, at best, like the Qin Dynasty, turned the place full of virgin forests into high slopes of loess, but couldn’t make it. Super hot weapons such as atomic bombs really push humans to the point where they can completely commit suicide.
At that time, my understanding was that Eastern culture—the term is really too big—distorted human nature in too many places, making every corner of our nation full of distorted pain, while Western culture—at least The current West—respect for the true nature of human nature. I think that the essence of Western culture can be reflected in a dialogue in the novel "Brothers Karamazov" by the Russian writer Dostoevsky: The
older brother asked the younger brother, if killing a little girl can save the whole world, can he do it? ?
The younger brother hesitated for a while, then replied firmly in a low voice, no!
To be more specific, my understanding is that in our culture, too many great things are above the individual, and ultimately personal value is severely suppressed. First, the individual can be suppressed in the name of greatness, and finally it can be used some despicable Suppress individuals in the name of “black brick kilns”, such as compulsory demolition. Too often compulsory demolition is terribly selfish, but it can be used in a less great name-for urban construction.
At that time, I also doubted one of the core terms in our culture-the unity of nature and man. How is this possible, I think it is a delusion!
At that time, I liked humanism very much, but I had difficulty understanding the concept of empathy of Rogers, a master of humanistic psychology. I think that is a technique, that is, the psychologist keeps going to clarify with the visitor, "I understand what you just said, I don't know, right?" As for what Rogers said, "put yourself and stand on the other side's perspective." What people think, what people think", Oh MyGod, how is this possible?
But now, I know that empathy is far from a technology, it is an existence, a real thing, one person can really sense the other's existence.
When I understand this, I think back to the words of the doctor of psychology who stayed in Japan. I think he was right to a large extent, and the truth that James Cameron conveyed in "Avatar" was right.
Subtitle:
In the film industry, James Cameron is a myth because he has created too many myths. When he was young, he had a dream of a robot warrior from the future chasing him. Based on this, he wrote the movie script "Devil's Terminator" and sold it to a producer for one dollar. But the condition is that he directs the film in his own way. Naturally, he succeeded.
He uses mythological methods to create myths. Similar to films, he also has "Terminator 2", "Heterosexual 2" and "Abyss".
Sometimes, what he created is a box office myth. His film "Titanic" has a box office record of 1.8 billion U.S. dollars, and it has been an unbeatable box office record until now. Now, it is his own "Avatar" that is most likely to break this record.
However, for "Avatar", many film critics commented the same as "Titanic", "Fool movie"-this is their scornful name.
This kind of contempt is understandable. In my opinion, both "Avatar" and "Titanic" are too facial in the plot, especially the subtle emotional handling. There is also his other work "True Lies". The plot trend is very similar to the classic processing mode of the legendary American director. How long is a small climax, how long is a big climax, how long is one...... It seems to flow, but all stay on the surface. It can beat the rough emotions of the audience and excite the audience, but the lack of delicate touch makes people memorable.
This is not difficult to understand, because Cameron can't handle all of his intimacy at all. It is difficult to ask him to handle the intimacy in the movie well.
But if you don't look at the love in "Avatar" and look at other things, maybe something delicate will be touched.
There are many magical aspects of this movie, and there are two places that attract me the most. One is that specially trained humans, such as the male protagonist, Perry, can use a device to obtain a complete link with their avatar warrior, the Avatar (a combination of human genes and the genes of the Na'vi people, the indigenous inhabitants of Pandora), so that they can be manipulated. Avatar enters the indigenous world of Pandora.
The other is that when they ride six-legged horses and bird Icaran among the Na'vi people, they do not use reins to control them, but insert the nerve endings from their braids into something like a braid so that they can interact with them. They get the link in their minds, so they can command them only with their minds.
The first fantasy is that many people say, isn’t this just like the imagery in The Matrix? But there is one association that is more direct, and that is when we sleep. When we are sleeping, we can enter a fantasy world. When we wake up, get up from the bed, and re-enter a normal, boring and even numb world.
In "Avatar", Jack, who often travels through the two worlds, finally has an illusion whether it is the so-called real world reality or as an Avatar in the world of the Na'vi people. For him, he is increasingly unable to bear the boring life in the human world, and he feels more and more that the life of the Na'vi is more real.
So, for us, is the world real in the daytime or real in our sleep? In my opinion, unfortunately, we are indeed more real in our sleep. For countless people, during the day, we rely on consciousness to control ourselves, and this consciousness most of the time is self-deception. Only in dreams can we directly get in touch with the subconscious and allow ourselves to show our true inner heart.
subtitle:
As for the second fantasy, when I saw this scene for the first time in the movie, it was the princess of the Neville tribe, Nettini teaching Jack to ride a horse. She showed him how to insert her braids into the six legs. In the horse's "braid", my eyes suddenly became wet. This is right, things should be like this, and I keep sighing like this in my heart, isn't this the unity of man and horse that is often said in martial arts novels! Isn't this the so-called unity of nature and man!
The Na'vi people once enthusiastically taught the "aliens" who came to their tribe. They tried to make the human avatar understand that all things have an anim, and you have to use your own spirit to get a link with the spirit of all things, which is commonly referred to as the soul. induction. However, before this Jack, all avatars were "no oil and salt" and couldn't make any progress at all.
In learning psychology, what we need to learn most is perhaps this kind of work. The so-called empathy is the telepathy between the healer and the client.
If this is the case, is it too difficult? How many people will "do not enter the oil and salt", and even have not reached this state in their entire life?
What's interesting about this state is that it is an ability that both uncivilized children and uncivilized aboriginal tribes have possessed. Careful mothers will find that children can really sense their things. For example, a psychologist found that if his child is sleeping and his wife is dozing off in another room, then whenever his wife is about to fall asleep, his child will cry out. This has been tried and tested. There is a fixed time difference between his wife dozing off until the child cries (5 seconds in my memory, but I am not sure), and he uses a stopwatch to calculate, every time it is no exception. So how does the child perceive this connection? This psychologist believes it is telepathy.
This psychologist has been to the Aboriginal tribes of Australians. When he went there for the first time, before he arrived, he met a few aboriginals on the road, and they said they had come to meet him. He was surprised and asked, how do you know? They said that their spiritual leader knew, so they sent them to greet him. After the psychologist went there, he discovered that this so-called foresight ability is commonplace in this indigenous tribe.
This kind of ability, in our so-called civilized society, can only be achieved by some sage-like figures, such as the Ming Dynasty philosopher Wang Yangming. A friend went to visit him, but met Wang Yangming on the road to greet him.
This ability of native tribes is portrayed in many Hollywood movies in the United States. In the Disney movie "Pocahontas" (many critics say that "Avatar" explicitly borrowed many things from "Pocahontas"), when the indigenous princess did not know where to go, a willow tree told her, Listen carefully to the information in the wind, listen with your heart.
If you can really listen with your heart—in fact, you listen with your body, and you can really connect with willows, horses, and all spiritual things, then, is the life of modern civilization more fascinating? Or is this kind of linked "primitive life" more fascinating?
Jack gave his answer, as the first avatar that no longer "salt oil and salt", when he can ride a six-legged horse, when he can ride a huge raptor Icaran, when he learns to sense with his heart After all the things around him, he betrayed mankind. He fell in love with the Neville people, fell in love with all things with spirits, and fell in love with Princess Neville. He was even willing to sacrifice his life to defend all this.
The same theme is also reflected in the Hollywood movie "Dancing with Wolves". An American soldier was sent to scout the Indians, but he eventually fell in love with the lives of the Indians, fell in love with the Indian women, and was finally convicted of "treason".
"Dancing with Wolves" is far less fantasy than "Avatar". It uses a very plain technique to describe how a white soldier from a civilized society finally "converted" to Indian society. When watching "Dancing with Wolves", if you don't bother to watch this film, you can't understand why the male protagonist made this choice. But watching "Avatar", all this will become very simple, oh, everyone will find how abominable the so-called civilized society is, and how beautiful the so-called primitive life of the indigenous people is.
This contrast is the planet Pandora, and on the earth, these two worlds coexist. Before we open our hearts, before we can't have telepathy at all, but can only think and analyze other things with our mind and reason, we live in an abominable world, or at least in a lonely and boring one. world. However, if we can open our hearts, we can sense the existence of other things, and we can establish a relationship with other spiritual things as the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber said, "I and you", we will discover , It turns out that I live in a wonderful and beautiful world like Pandora.
subtitle:
In "Pocahontas", the Indian princess said to the male protagonist, who is also a white soldier, "You are smart, but you don't know."
She also sang to him: "You will feel lonely in the dark and extraordinarily lonely. Do you? Let Qingfeng accompany you."
She said these two sentences are the same thing. The first sentence means that you are smart, you can use, control and even conquer other things and the world, but do you know the existence of other things? Can you sense their existence? You can't, because your heart is not open.
When your heart is not opened, the most terrible thing is not poverty, not being abused or tortured, but loneliness.
The early films made by the famous Polish director Kieslowski had political implications because he longed for his country to evolve from bad politics to good politics. But later, the film he made had no political significance at all, because he discovered that from Poland to Germany, to France, to the United Kingdom and even the United States, everyone has a pain that cannot be resolved-loneliness. Therefore, he wants to use movies to show this topic, and hopes that movies can find the answer to loneliness.
I am convinced that the answer lies in our hearts. When we first find our own heart, and then can sense the hearts of others and even the spirit of all things, loneliness disappears. We will find that we and others and all other things are in the same existence. Many philosophers say that this state is called "oneness", but in "Avatar", they say that we are actually just different expressions of energy, in fact the same energy flows between us, and our energy is borrowed Yes, I have to pay it back sooner or later.
At this point in this article, it is a bit beyond my realm, because I have not yet proven "unity", I only have a few moments occasionally, in those moments, I feel pure. But I did find that telepathy exists, and we can also move on this road.
And, I do know that someone has reached this state. An attainer said that, indeed, children can actually sense other spirits at the beginning, but slowly, this induction disappears, and we have to re-enter this state through our own efforts. Once we find this state again, we don't have to go back, and we will really stay in this wonderful state.
Animism is not only the philosophy of the Indians, but also the core content of Eastern culture. However, this is not just a philosophy or a thought, it is a real thing. If you just hold such a point of view, then you have not mastered Eastern culture. To truly understand our traditional culture, you need to cultivate these things in yourself. If you experience the realm of the unity of nature and man, then, a magnificent mansion is not as good as a thatched house, and a car is not as good as riding a horse or walking...
Traditional Western culture denies the existence of animism. After "Avatar" was released, the Vatican's media directly attacked the concept of "animity" in this film.
There is a saying that it is precisely because the West does not believe that everything has anims, that science will emerge. If you not only believe but can also get a spiritual link with the cat, then how can you dissect it, cut it into pieces and study it?
As the Indian princess in "Pocahontas" said, mainstream Western civilization has always been "smart, but I don't know." Western civilization can conquer the world, but it cannot know the real existence of the world.
Moreover, because of the lack of a sense of connection with ourselves, and the inability to establish a sense of connection with other things, especially people, we will have terrible loneliness. Because there is no sense of connection, our hearts are like a huge black hole, and we can't fill it with anything.
What's more terrible is that at this time, we don't know the key is to restore this sense of connection, but just want to fill this terrible black hole. Anything is fine, matter, money, woman, house... everything is used by us to fill this black hole. However, if the sense of connection does not appear, then the satisfaction that can resolve this black hole will never arise. Even if the whole world becomes your slave and can be enslaved by you at will, the black hole is still there, making you lonely and terrifying you.
The act of trying to fill this void is usually called greed. But this is not greed, this is pitiful. This pity is also the root of all our destructive actions.
In "Avatar", the most pitiful is the villain-the head of the Marine Corps.
It is very interesting that the reason why the villains want to destroy the living environment of the Na'vi is to obtain a superconducting ore, which is worth 20 million U.S. dollars per kilogram. Superconductivity is also for communication, for a purer, unhindered link.
This implication is really amazing. So, even though the emotional drama of "Avatar" is very simple and the plot is too facial, I love this film.
View more about Avatar reviews
