Brilliant colors and pale life.
The poster of the film is a close-up of the male protagonist Theodore's face with a bright red background. The appearance of red as the main background color on the poster is not accidental, because red is permeated throughout the movie: red walls, red desks, red sofas, red desk lamps, red computer screens... even Most of the actor's shirts are very conspicuous colors such as red and yellow. The male protagonist's temperament is unobtrusive, calm and a little melancholy. These colors appear around or on his body, which are not abrupt, but in line with his calm and melancholy, they appear so peaceful and natural.
The use of color makes the gray theme of the movie a little relieved, but it cannot conceal the pale, empty, and sadness of the movie itself. In essence, this is a movie that makes people feel extremely sad. The use of warm colors does not seem like reality. However, it is true that this is a "science fiction" movie that discusses the future.
In addition to color, the film uses backlighting shooting angles in many places. Backlighting is generally a taboo in movies. Backlighting is used to shoot on the beach, in memories and Catharine's tenderness, and in the setting sun. Backlight shooting uses warm tones to the extreme, and the images in the lens are no longer real, like dreams, mostly appearing in many moments of "looks beautiful". This method is also using the lens language to remind the audience that the so-called beauty, but like a mirrored flower, is unreal and will soon be lost.
The can and can't of artificial intelligence.
The beginning of the movie is like this. Theodore's face is close-up, the slightly twitching emoticon, the red background, a large string of beautiful language sprays out, we are all immersed in the beauty of the language, the camera pushes away, we Seeing an open working environment, people in this office are all speaking beautiful language, but they are not writing for themselves. In other words, this is a very beautiful but false world. They are a group of people who help others write letters. Some languages are numb to read, but they are not written from the heart. However, I don’t think even Theodore himself can tell whether he fell in love with the recipient when he wrote a letter, or if he just used his own story to tell the truth, it’s just that the recipient changed his name.
So when Paul on the front stage praised Theodore, Theodore would be a little unnatural, and then loudly claim: "They are just letters."
The life of modern people is deeply and delicately portrayed in the movie. After get off work, the exhausted Theodore was in the elevator hoping to listen to a sad song. He was dissatisfied with the music the artificial intelligence played for him the first time, and only slightly satisfied the second time. Listening to healing music, one person enjoying the music of being alone, one person living in a skyscraper filled with people, but it looks always so lonely. In this scene, he was riding the subway, and the artificial intelligence helped him broadcast the latest news. In a "public space" he watched the lace news of female stars. This is yet another passage with dramatic conflicts. In the subway that may be stared at everywhere, he does something that should be done in a "private space." Going home is also pitiful, with skyscrapers standing tall in the background of the city as the background color. This is the residence of a middle-aged single man. After he returned to his residence, he was bored. He played boring games and even had phone sex with strange women. In the middle, he tried his best to perform, and a hasty ending embarrassed him. Although he is a modern person, his body and lifestyle have been drawn into the modern world, but he is still a living person, no different from us at this moment. The explanation of these backgrounds is already predicting the ending of the movie.
When Theodore met Samantha (the heroine is an operating system, the voice acting is Scarlett). He had been questioned by artificial intelligence before. In that simple test, the delicate and procedural conversation between Theodore and artificial intelligence sounded unpleasant. Theodore wanted to be careful about the details of the conversation when answering, but the artificial intelligence wanted him to feed back the results, so Theodore's answer was interrupted every time. Although Samantha and Theodore get along very happily, slowly we will discover that Theodore's initial liking for Samantha actually comes from his prying into a world completely different from him. Theodore's delicate and melancholic temperament is his own. And Samantha is still an artificial intelligence designed to be efficient and result-oriented, although she will dialectically ask: "Are these feelings true? Or is this pre-set by the program?" It doesn't matter. During the interaction between Theodore and Samantha, we saw the beauty of artificial intelligence. People can get rid of loneliness and get spiritual comfort without another person, and they can grow wild in their own world without hindering or disturbing anyone, but These results-oriented and efficiency-oriented methods still cannot bring you the comfort that a specific person can bring to you by standing by your side, nor can they bring you the shock that a person's tears and face-to-face questions can bring to others. Theodore has a confidante, Amy, who will come to her for comfort every time he gets hurt. This is the part that artificial intelligence cannot reach.
The procedural, melancholic, and temperamental parts that Theodore can have as a person are the parts that he likes about himself, but these are the parts that he cannot communicate with artificial intelligence. So can people definitely communicate with other people? I don’t think so. This is the ultimate proposition facing human communication. Therefore, denying communication with humans and artificial intelligence is not the ultimate proposition discussed by the director. When Theodore is sad or depressed, he will choose to be alone or hide. There was a scene when he was lying on the ground and looking at the sky. The lens changed to look down at the city from the sky. The skyscrapers in the city became the size of small squares. At this moment, human beings are so small, and the overlooking is from God’s perspective. The ultimate proposition that cannot be answered.
Absent body and absent love.
Samantha always thought that all she lacked was just a body. She has a beautiful and sexy voice (Scarlett dubbed), and she also has an unmatched IQ and understanding, so she tries to solve the problem of having no body. Samantha thought that all that was missing in her love with Theodore was her body. So she found a woman with a body to act as her body's messenger, but Theodore couldn't face it after all.
"The past is just a story we tell ourselves." Samatha said. Obviously these beautiful words are not her comprehension. The part that Theodore is stuck in is not only his past, but also his own present. When he wants to introduce to the surroundings that this is my girlfriend, he can hardly tell that his girlfriend is actually an OS; when he faces his successful ex-wife, he is still just a letter writer who writes letters; When he needs independent healing and hides, all he needs is the boiling water in the dark night. He still has to boil it by himself; when he is afraid of losing Samantha, he realizes that this OS that seems to never disappear at any time It may disappear. The director here gives him the ultimate conclusion on human-computer love: the body can be absent, but love cannot be unique. When he discovered that he was not Samantha's only love, and that the powerful artificial intelligence could chat with 8k+ people and fall in love with 900+ people at the same time, Theodore was sad to lie down on the ground. At that moment, his expression was extremely tangled, it was betrayal, helplessness, disappointment, or even a little relief? We don’t even know. We only know that in that scene, all the questions are back to the beginning of artificial intelligence premises, how do we love a person, how do we love ourselves?
Although the main axis of the story is set in LA, in fact most of the filming is in Shanghai. I am so new to Shanghai, but this does not affect me to like "Her". To a certain extent, this LA story in Shanghai is like telling my own story, my life state, my love and entanglement, but I live in Beijing most of the time. The fable of the modern world is that all people seem to live in the same urban landscape and technological background. Of course, at the same time we have to accept that, in fact, the content of life and the entanglement of love we face are so similar. So that we ourselves have forgotten which part is reality and which part is life.
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